How come no technology company can manage product naming which is easily understandable? Lookkit:
Leica camera M series naming:
M3 (1954 - 1966)
MP (1956 - 1957)
M2 (1958 - 1967)
M1 (1959 - 1964)
M4 (1967 - 1975)
M5 (1971 - 1975)
CL (1973 - 1976)
M4-2 (1977 - 1980)
M4-P (1980 - 1986)
M6 (1984 - 1998)
M6J (1994)
M6 TTL (1998 - 2002)
M7 (2002 - )
M8 (2006 - )
The M2 came after the M3, then the M1, and then the M4...
And how about Apple's software? Quick, what's the sequence between OS's named Panther, Tiger, Leopard, and Jaguar? Dear Apple, wasn't one or two big cats enough?
But then that's the whole world. My local pizzaria has a zillion different prices for their pizzas. And if you want an extra topping, the price for that is different according to the size of the pizza. :)
Message to the world: Simplicity, folks. It's a good thing. Try it.
5 comments:
Over here in the USA the National Weather Service uses two degrees of "dire danger" forecast: watch and warning. There's Tornado Watch, and Tornado Warning; Hurricane Watch, and Hurricane Warning; Flash Flood Watch, and Flash Flood Warning.
Trouble is, nobody I know, myself included, can remember which one means you're worse off and better head for cover. We all agree, the weather guys ought to change it; most weather guys agree they ought to change it; and yet they've been using this watch/warning dichotomy for twenty or thirty years now.
So, let's see, there's a Tornado ... Something ... on here. Should I duck and cover, or just look out the window? Guess I'll just go look out the ... ACK!
That's the advantage of California, we have fire watch, and fire warning. Quakes just happen and you don't have time to dread them....
The "M6 TTL" has a nice ring to it, but I had no idea even Leica was this inconsistent with their model names.
Software versioning is humorous. There's the alpha/beta/gamma thing, except that nowadays no one uses alpha and gamma anymore. Instead they have Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3, ...
Also, while real numbers are perfectly adequate for astronomers and nuclear physicists, they are not accurate enough for software marketers. That's why already in the 1980s they introduced a new three level number format, i.e. Version 2.1.16.
Unfortunately not even that is sufficient in cases where the number approaches an even n.0.0. That's why they also have the RC1, RC2, etc. suffixes meaning Release candidate 1, 2, 3, ...
Also, when a release candidate is deemed ready for, say, the magical 3.0.0, and the distribution master is generated, you refer to it as "having gone gold", an important distinction from the notations above.
Of course, in spoken communication no one actually uses the above version naming. Instead, every major version of a software product is given an internal "code name", a mystical moniker that has no relation to the product --- for example an animal species or a mythological creature.
This would be fine except that at some point the marketers got the idea that the code names are kewler than the numbers, so they started to brand the product versions with those instead. Simple!
"M6 TTL". As in Through The Lens metering, as you may be aware.
This came in the Leica about 25 years after it did in Japanese cameras.
I'm reminded of a joke from my school days about the Eastern European car Lada. They said there was a new model out: the Lada WR. "With Rug".
So why did they add rear heated windows to Ladas?
To keep your hands warm while you push.
How do you double the value of a Lada?
Fill the tank.
We kept internal names because the external naming was too volatile. The worst part was putting version ID into the silicon, then having marketing want to change it after tape out...
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