<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<document url="http://castor.org/origins.xml">
  <properties>
    <title>About The Origins Of The Name</title>
    <abstract>
       Describes how the project name came about.
    </abstract>
    <status>Final</status>
  </properties>
  <body>
    <header>
    </header>
    
    <section title="The Origin of the Name">

      <section title="Why did you decide to call it Castor?">

      <p>First, let me say you are not the first to ask this question, and you won't be the last.
         For many, the term "Castor" has a mysterious aura which leaves the user with a craving,
         a necessity if you must, of wanting an explanation. The need to understand has plagued
         people of the human race for some time now.
      </p>

      <p>Some have speculated that Castor comes from the heavens. Either being an astronomer or
         having flipped through the pages of a Merriam Webster dictionary you may have run across
         the reference to Castor. Castor in this context is part of a "double star" within the
         Gemini constellation, the twin star is called Pollux. For all those looking to the sky
         for the answer, let me reassure you that we do not use Castor in this context. Actually
         with all the smog here in California, the developers of Castor rarely look to the sky
         for anything.
      </p>

      <p>
         A few individuals, brave souls indeed, have even suggested that Castor may be somehow related
         to the Castor plant, which produces Castor oil. Ugh! Let me reassure everyone, our use of
         the term Castor has nothing to do with this plant or its by products! If you really think
         we'd name our software after this plant, please go try some Castor oil for yourself and then
         come back to us when you've been convinced otherwise.
      </p>

      <p>
         An even fewer number of you (mostly German in origin) have suggested that Castor may come
         from those big trucks used in Germany that haul off Nuclear waste (...but to where?).
         Now why would a small software project dedicated to relational mapping and data binding
         want anything to do with that?
     </p>

      <p>
         Some have speculated that some how the name comes from the act of "casting" one type into
         another. This is a rather interesting speculation. Castor is a pretty advanced "Casting"
         framework, however, this speculation is as far from the truth as is the distance from earth
         to Castor and Pollux.
      </p>

      <p>Other more intuitive people, perhaps by looking at the (now no longer existing) Castor logo,
         have deduced that Castor is actually a Beaver. Yes it's true. Castor is the more formal or
         scientific name for a simple little Beaver. This raises a more interesting question.
      </p>

      </section>

      <section title="Why did you name your software after a beaver?">

      <p>
         Let me first state that we have absolutely nothing to do with MIT. We certainly
         wouldn't mind being affiliated with such a prestigious educational institution, however
         I'm certain that they mind that our minds are nowhere near the kind of mind that they look
         for during their recruitment process. Not that I actually understand what that means,
         but if you're an MIT alum you are probably relieved we didn't attend.
      </p>

      <p>Now, on to the explaination...</p>

      <p>The truth of the matter is that it's highly classified, and on a need-to-know basis.
         Even members of our own team do not know. However we are allowed to post more speculations
         on this topic. The most common speculation is that a beaver is well-known for its
         engineering skills. It cuts down trees, and builds dams and lodges. Since Castor builds
         source code, using blueprints (an XML Schema), then it too is an engineer.</p>

      <p>A more abstract yet rather interesting speculation that builds on the previous reads as
         follows. XML is based on "trees" or "groves". A beaver cuts down trees. Therefore Castor
         removes the notion of trees from processing XML documents. This is an interesting observation
         in that Castor does just that. Castor eliminates the "tree" methodology when dealing with XML.
         It is an XML data binding framework which allows you to deal directly with your data, instead
         of thinking in terms of a "tree".</p>

      <p>Another equally good speculation is that a beaver is one of the cutest little animals in
         the world, and we just couldn't resist giving it some due attention.</p>

      <p>There are other speculations, some of which we can not in good nature add to this page.
         We cannot comment on which speculation may be closer to the truth. We let each user decide
         on his or her own. Simply choose the speculation which most reduces your craving for more
         understanding, and feel free to come up with your own speculations.</p>

      <p>--Keith</p>

      </section>

    </section>
  </body>
</document>
