On the recent extended thread about the future of pygame and
pygame-ctypes, a consensus seems to have formed around the idea of a
new name for pygame-ctypes, so that it can co-exist indefinitely with
"classic" pygame.  A fine idea, I think, and it got the wheels turning
in my head a bit.

I started thinking about the fact that the core of what pygame does is
wrap SDL.  So the name PySDL would be a natural candidate, but of
course pygame does more on top of that.  Then Pete wrote that he'd
like to see the core portion of pygame-ctypes, the part that really is
just an SDL wrapper, released as a library on its own, with the
higher-level functionality in a separate library.

So here's what struck me:  PySDL would be a natural name for the
pygame-ctypes-SDL-wrapping core, but I'm not a big fan of either the
"py" prefix for all sorts of projects, nor of using potentially
obscure acronyms in product names (given that pygame is a "product" of
sorts, albeit a free one).  On the other hand, how would you pronounce
"pysdl" if you said it out loud?  "pie-stle"?  How about "pistol"?
Which leads me to my suggestion:

current pygame-ctypes SDL-wrapping core =>  Pistol, or PistolCore
higher-level pygame-ctypes stuff (sprites, etc) =>  PistolGrip

So the PistolGrip is what the user (the game developer) "hangs onto",
while the Pistol (or PistolCore) is what actually gets the low-level
work done.

I think this could be sort of catchy.  It's quite distinct from the
old name, but still suggests gaming in some sense (how many FPS games
*don't* have a pistol?).  We can even pretend that the "grip" part is
an acronym. "game routines in python", or something.

-- 
// jack
// http://www.nuthole.com