There’s something weird in the Ruby community that has been driving me crazy since I started using the language. There’s this habit, by what I hope is a minority, of choosing “clever” gem names instead of useful or descriptive names. I’m not above a good pun or play on words, but some gem names range between confusingly stupid and utterly aggrevating.

Probably offensive

I basically spent about 30 minutes typing borderline or completely NSFW terms into the rubygems.org search box to come up with this list. It’s a little longer than 10 gems, I didn’t anticipate finding so many “gems” (so to speak).

For slang or singular terms, I will include the definition according to Google, of the term to the right of the gem.

  • lolita - A sexually precocious young girl
  • tranny Short form of transmission in the automotive sense; … A transgender person. (the second link listed was to tranny/shemale porn)
  • asset_hat (pun on “ass hat”, clever)
  • sex_it_up
  • womanizer a man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them.
  • trollop A woman perceived as sexually disreputable or promiscuous.
  • hash_dealer
  • ball_gag A gag is sometimes worn during some bondage and BDSM roleplays.
  • clitt
  • tramp (debatable whether is closer “Lady and the Tramp” or “Tramp Stamp”)
  • texticle (thanks for the reminder @scottmlikens)

Tips for Naming a Gem:

  • Can you make an incredibly obtuse pun on the name of the library you’re wrapping?
  • Grab a photo album from your childhood, find a picture of your bedroom, what’s the name of the first thing you see?
  • Are you coding in between bong rips? Choose a word that sounds the funniest to your stoner friends.
  • Are you British? What is the local slang term for “slut?”
  • Go to 4chan, pick the 7th word of a random post to /b/
  • Are you a white guy from Memphis who loves Asian culture? Use the Japanese name of the nearest household appliance.

Just plain stupid

While searching for blatantly offensive gem names, I found a number of other “wonderfully” named gems that don’t offend so much as they confuse. There was such a plethora of simple nouns which can make searching for documentation exceptionally difficult for novice users.

I don’t have much of an idea what half of these gems do, and I can’t be troubled to dig into what the use case is for “cocaine”, “vegas” or “whoa”, at least from the Ruby perspective that is.