Pontificating Pedant

Presumptuous Preface

As you may know, software is often given a code name during development; sometimes, the code name is also used after the product is released.

One of my favourite code name schemes is that chosen by Canonical Ltd., the company which releases the Ubuntu distribution of Linux. It typically uses the name of an animal, preceded by an alliterative adjective: Breezy Badger, Dapper Drake, Feisty Fawn, and so on.

In a recent conversation with a friend, the topic of Georges Seurat’s famous pointillist painting, Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte came up. In the course of this conversation, I happened to think of the Ubuntu code names, which in turn led me to invent the code name Punctilious Pointillist. As you may imagine, this could not be permitted to stand on its own....