Daniweb Mascot

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Because a girl in a dress isn't really DaniWeb's target audience, and the name Dani (depending upon where in the world you are) can be considered a male or female name. It was important to me to make our mascot representative of the DaniWeb community as a whole. He's hip looking with his messy hair and jeans, has a tablet, and looks like a giant thumb.

Now, as far as why I named him Fred ... to quote Wikipedia:

The names "Joe Bloggs" and "Fred Bloggs" are commonly used as placeholder names in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, for teaching, programming, and other thinking and writing. The surname Bloggs on its own is sometimes used in the same way. Fred alone can be a programming placeholder (due to its letters being close together on the standard QWERTY keyboard).

And to quote the New Hacker's Dictionary:

fred /n./
1. The personal name most frequently used as a metasyntactic variable (see foo). Allegedly popular because it's easy for a non-touch-typist to type on a standard QWERTY keyboard. Unlike J. Random Hacker or `J. Random Loser', this name has no positive or negative loading (but see Mbogo, Dr. Fred). See also barney. 2. An acronym for `Flipping Ridiculous Electronic Device'; other F-verbs may be substituted for `flipping'.

Why is Daniweb's mascot a dude

Because, like in any healthy household, the woman is the queen and the man is the puppet.

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I think Dani can work better than fred... what do you guys think?

He's hip looking with his messy hair and jeans, has a tablet, and looks like a giant thumb

... because most hip men have messy hair, wear jeans, hold tablets, yet look like giant thumbs ;)

Because a girl in a dress isn't really DaniWeb's target audience, and the name Dani (depending upon where in the world you are) can be considered a male or female name

Then why didn't you call it daniel?

Because my name is Dani, not Daniel.

Because my name is Dani, not Daniel.

But fred is a guy... and daniel is closer to dani than fred and is also a male only name rather than dani (not saying your name is a bad name, i actually like the name) :)

But if I want a guy's name, I don't want it to be Daniel because then people will get confused and think that DaniWeb is run by a guy named Daniel.

I like Fred because in programmer-speak, it's the proper noun version of Foo.

But if I want a guy's name, I don't want it to be Daniel because then people will get confused and think that DaniWeb is run by a guy named Daniel.

... but they are not going to think daniweb is run by a fred either. ;)

Exactly.

Exactly

So that means Daniel can work ;)

I always thought it was because he represented your average computer and machine engineer wanting to go beyond his comfort Zone and expand his knowledge in computers. therefore Daniweb would attract these kind of people who would like to learn more and expand their knowledge.

LMAO! Oooh look what I started. Haha, it's hilarious how this turned into a legit discussion.

What about John Smith?

John Smith is too generic for regular people who are not into IT or comp science. How about John Doe lol? Or call him M :)

I got it. An acronym of Foo and John. Let's call him FOOJOE

How about Bill? That is a well known name in the IT and comp science field (Bill Joy, Bill Gates, Bill Gropp, Bill English, etc.)

What makes Bill a better name than Fred? His name is Fred. Stop trying to rename him!

What makes Bill a better name than Fred? His name is Fred.

... because Bill is a hip name ;)

Stop trying to rename him!

What if that is what Fred wants?

What makes Bill a better name than Fred? His name is Fred. Stop trying to rename him!

Maybe Bill can be his middle name? ... Like "Fred Bill Daniwebber, the first of his name".

What's Freds bloodtype? Is he married? How many wisdom teeth did he have removed? Does he play any instruments? Does he speak Esperanto? Does he have a backstory? Can we give him a backstory? Is he a programmer? Hardware technician? Web devleoper?

We still have so many important questions about our hero, Fred.

If Dani already has an answer to each one of these questions, that would really freak me out, and I would have to start picturing her living with an imaginary friend, and fifty stray cats. ;)

In all honesty, I don't know what goes on in Fred's life when he's not welcoming people to DaniWeb. I'm not his keeper.

Fred is a great name.
Who hasn't done a Hello World! project when they began programming?
Personally, mine was in C++. Without something genaric in today's tech driven world there are to many sample documents out there that wouldn't make any sense.
In my world Fred has been a genaric name for as long as I can remember. Likely due to the movie Drop Dead Fred that came out in 1991. As teens, anytime we didn't believe someone's story about their "friend" we just told them we'd wait till we met Fred. [Remake of Drop Dead Fred is to come late 2014/early 2015]
Perhaps it's my personally affliction with the name as being the only female in many situations during the late '80's and early '90's my classmates lovingly named me Phred (PHRed)
If not Fred, it'd have to be John, Tom, Dick or Harry. hmmmm None of those sound good. Just not the right ring to them.

you guys scare me sometimes when you over analyze these types of things

Isn't that how the average computer geek's personality runs? Overanalyze anything that they can?

I guess your right. I do find myself overanalyzing things as well