<h1 id="jpegxlisastupidname">JPEG XL is a Stupid Name</h1>
<p>Compression is one of the purest problems in CS. What's not to love about it? It touches almost every piece of software ever written, it's basically just math, and it makes things smaller! Awesome!</p>
<p><em>NOTE: It makes things smaller.</em></p>
<p>Obviously, I have a lot of respect for <a href="https://www.play-jpeg.com/">jpeg</a>. It's smart, and it's survived the test of time, which is not true of most compression schemes. The name, an acronym for <strong>J</strong>oint <strong>P</strong>hotographic <strong>E</strong>xperts <strong>G</strong>roup, is pretty good, probably better than the average acronym given it's convenient vowel placement.</p>
<p><em>NOTE: XL = X-tra Large (almost always).</em></p>
<p>So why the f*** is the defacto JPEG successor, which will probably be the leading <em>compression</em> algorithm for the rest of my life, called JPEG <strong>XL</strong>?</p>
<h2 id="justification">"Justification"</h2>
<p>Here's why it's called JPEG XL:</p>
<ul>
<li>JPEG: It's a successor to JPEG</li>
<li>X: There were other competing compression schemes that had the letter X in them, including JPEG XT, JPEG XR, and JPEG XS. Notice that "XS" <em>almost always</em> means X-tra Small. Compression means making things smaller. Just food for thought.</li>
<li>L: L stands for long term, because the authors want this scheme (like JPEG) to be around for awhile.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="whythisjustificationisbad">Why this Justification is Bad</h2>
<p>XL = X-tra Large = not small =/= small = compression.</p>
<p>Put simply: an average person will hear: <em>JPEG is being replaced by JPEG XL</em> and think: <em>My images are going to get bigger.</em> This is bad and not true. Who knows, maybe 40 years from now some kid who's only ever grown up using JPEG XL will stumble upon some dusty old JPEG file and — perfectly rationally — think its some kind of new fancy compression scheme with smaller image sizes.</p>
<h2 id="whyisnooneelsetalkingaboutthis">Why is No One Else Talking About This?</h2>
<p>I have no idea.</p>
<h2 id="whatamigoingtodoaboutit">What am I Going to Do About It?</h2>
<p>Nothing. (Besides post this and see what the reaction is to guage if this also bothers other people or if its just me.)</p>
<p>As an aside: From what I've read the algorithm itself seems like a pretty big improvement. Being able to progressively decode, while also support photographic and synthetic imagery will lead to some pretty huge savings both in terms of final image size and efficiency. The authors are all very smart, and <code>.jxl</code> has an okay ring to it.</p>
<p>But man, JPEG XL is a terrible name.</p>

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