It is an oddly specific choice to use the word macaroon for this, given the widespread confusion over macaron vs. macaroon and how many other unambiguous variants of "cookie" are available for naming a piece of software that is a newer fancier cookie. I do not accept Wikipedia's milquetoast concession to call a macaron a "French macaroon".
Was it intentionally named as an allusion to this confusion? Software is full of hand-wringing over naming and the importance of naming. Is it supposed to be a kind of cookie that is often mistaken for a different cookie?
Or is this just another referer, a mistake that has been accepted as canon. Referer has the benefit of not being a real word at all though, so is less confusing.
As far as I remember (maybe Arnar or Úlfar or another of the authors would have a different memory, though) we just wanted a “cool cookie” name. We knew about the -oon/-on distinction and liked the sound of -oon.
I view it as a mild plus that the confusion around the name has educated so many about confectionery taxonomies.
Was it intentionally named as an allusion to this confusion? Software is full of hand-wringing over naming and the importance of naming. Is it supposed to be a kind of cookie that is often mistaken for a different cookie?
Or is this just another referer, a mistake that has been accepted as canon. Referer has the benefit of not being a real word at all though, so is less confusing.