Starlite, soon to be named Litestar, is an API framework that touts many advantages over FastAPI. The only thing superior about FastAPI is naming: FastAPI has a very catchy name.
I participated in the first renaming effort, which was held on a Github thread. And then one day I logged into reddit and was shocked to learn that the project had been renamed and it had been done via a different discussion mechanism.
I will express my distaste for the new name in an imaginary dialogue:
“So, we need an API framework and we’ve downloaded FastAPI…”
“No wait, I dont think you should use FastAPI”
Well, why not, doesnt everyone?
No, there are serious issues with it
Oh I see, well what do you recommend?
I recommend Litestar.
Did you say “Litestar”?
Yes
Ok, so if Lite Beer is a light version of beer and Lite Yogurt is a version of yogurt, then I guess LiteStar is a slimmed down version of something to do with stars?
It has nothing to do with stars.
Well, then why is it named “LiteStar”
Well it used to be called Starlite but they wanted to change the name to avoid confusion with the Starlette project.
OK, so why is the word “star” still in the name if they wanted to distance themselves from the Starlette project?
I don’t know
And going back to the line of reasoning where ‘Lite’ implies the slimmed down version of something, isnt it reasonable to presume that LiteStar is a Lite version of Starlette
(silence)
I think you get my point
first off, similar names dont imply similar products – look at Java and Javascript. Yes, it was confusing for a bit. But it only took a bit of investigation to see the only similarity is the name.
The dog is chasing it’s tail in the naming of this project
they fended off haters of the name Starlite for easily over a year before giving in. Then they held a Discord discussion and changed the name but maintained the confusing link to Starlette.
I just dont get it. And what happens to all the articles that were written about leaving FastAPI for Starlite? Will there be some sort of URL redirection so that all of those articles dont give the impression that Starlite is simply an abandoned project that deleted its repo? The answer to this is that there will be a link to Starlite preserved.
A little humor will help us through this:
Comment
by u/the_ballmer_peak from discussion Renaming Starlite to LiteStar
in Python