Dear LL, or anyone else ... why is it called BENTO?

[AnthonyJoanne]

Today I was asked a question and it literally made my jaw drop.

Why was it called Project Bento?

My search-fu has failed me, and so I turn to the forums.

 

WHY????

[Wulfie Reanimator]

I recall it referring to the fold-up style bento boxes.

[Vir Linden]

At last, the inside story can be revealed! Why did we call it Bento? Err, unfortunately it's not very exciting, but here it is:

When we first started the project, it was being kept under wraps. We didn't want word to get out that we were working on the "Skeleton Extension Project" because we weren't sure how feasible it would actually be to extend the skeleton. We needed a code name so we could talk about the project internally and with a small group of content creators, but we didn't want the name to give anything away in case it leaked out. So I picked Bento as a an internal code name. There wasn't any particular reason for that name, although there was a sushi place near the office that we went to fairly often, so that might have been part of the inspiration. After that the name just stuck, even after it wasn't secret; by the time the feature shipped it had been publicly discussed as Bento for a long time, so we just continued calling it that.

[AnthonyJoanne]

I wish I could emote as easily here as I do in-world, I'd be smiling and laughing.

Thank you so much @Vir Linden  for letting us know :)

[Ansariel Hiller]

On a side note: The names for the maintenance releases are diced out during the ritual drinking games in the weekly LL status meetings... 😂🍸

[Coffee Pancake]

All projects should keep their secret internal names forever.

[Jackson Redstar]

I am sure though that if Vir Linden had a military background it would have had some sort of  acronym like Project M.E.O.W. (Movement Extensibility Operation Workforce) lol

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

6 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

All projects should keep their secret internal names forever.

Sadly this is usually up to the management rather than the developers. In my early career I created a searchable and updateable documentation system for a company and called it CLOD (Corporate & Local Organisation Documents). This earned me a serious carpetting about allowing undue levity to colour my judgement. The final name it carried I can't say, but to give a hint, where the original system I had created the replacement for was called Docs, the new system was called SuperDocs. Ugh.

I left an Easter-egg in it though, anticipating Coffee's idea by several decades.

[Bent Luik]

Well dear Vir, if I remember it right, it was because when i was told about it, all i could say was O.

I may be wrong 

[Love Zhaoying]

Because Japanese stuff is cool.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

If that were so, EEP would have been called something like Anime? (Sailor?)