• Dragan (unregistered) in reply to Brad

    With this logic we would have WD-1 (or just WD) product today, instead of WD-40 :-)))

  • tub (unregistered) in reply to Anony Moose
    Anonymous:
    Then there's the trick where the competition is up to version 6, so your first release simply must be "6.0" (or even "7.0") or you look like you're "lagging behind".  You just can't win.


    Oh, I had this problem with someone while writing something web-based.  We wanted to support various different browsers, and someone on our team said that is wasn't worth supporting Mozilla because it was only version 1, where as IE and Netscape were 4+.  Mozilla was obviously too old and not good enough.  This was when Mozilla was new.
  • unedjamacated (unregistered)

    Am I the only one here who could not help mentally filling

    A-----

    with

    Asshat

    every time he saw it? :)

  • mr qwerty (unregistered) in reply to Jeroen L.
    Anonymous:
    Well from a marketing perspective there is a point to what these guys are saying. But from the developers perspective there is also a point.

    Simple sollution: Make the build identifier a hex based value. People can read that over the phone, you know the version. And marketing might complain about a weird number, but it's not actually that human readable.

    I don't consider this one a genuine WTF. This is just marketing and tech miscommunicating, nothing really stupid, both sides have a point here.

    Actually this incident is symptomatic of a dysfunctional company. The product manager is clearly incompetent, all they can do is play around with the software and try to find stupid little things to pick on so it looks like they're doing their job. In places like this real fundamental and useful improvements get pushed aside for stupid cosmetic changes and in implementing the latest buzzword technology so the marketing department can say "me too". It's just another case of a software company that will inevitably be run into the ground by non technical management.

    This is most definately a managerial WTF.

  • mcguire (unregistered) in reply to John Hensley
    Anonymous:

    Windows, like most other large software products, has been developed for many years by setting out the features and coding until they are done. Therefore the product names now reflect that you are getting a set of features, not a particular version of the codebase.


    Could you pass me some of that koolaid?  Thanks!
  • (cs) in reply to Ged

    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    Suddently, the whole progression of Windows release naming schemes makes sense:

    Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 95a, 95b, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista(Longhorn)

    And oddly enough, the CAPTCHA is "quality"


    Who, wait! What happend to NT 4.0, NT 5.0 ???

     

     

    and then there was DOS 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 [we don't talk about that one] 5.0, 6.0, 6.2 & 6.3

     

    __________________________________________

    "To make your code faster you take out the slow parts."

  • mcguire (unregistered) in reply to R.Flowers
    R.Flowers:

    I favor starting at some large, arbitrary number and counting down. When you get to zero, you can't have any more issues. Which is good, because you don't want customers or clients to get the idea that you actually have issues to resolve.

    Plus, when you get to, say, number 32, you'll say "Thank God I'll soon be through with this s**t!"


    Then, of course, there's TeX.  Its version number approximates pi, adding another digit with each release.  Or, it did.  I don't think there's been a bug found in it for quite a while.
  • Will (unregistered) in reply to kmerkle
    kmerkle:

    I heard once that in the 30's, the head of a big Hollywood movie studio was listening to the musical score of an upcoming movie and asked the Music Director, "What's that?!?".  The MD replied, "What's what?".  The boss said, "That....that part of the music...where it changes".  The MD said, "Umm, that's a minor chord."  So the boss said, "I don't like that. Take it out."  And the next day the boss sent out a memo to the Music department declaring that henceforth minor chords would no longer be allowed in the musical scores.  So the Musical Director framed it and it hung in his office until he retired.



    Andre Previn wrote about this in his memoirs - He even named the book after the incident - "No Minor Chords". The producer was Irving Thalberg, working for MGM at the time. Somehow I think it got reveresed somewhere along the way...
  • Gnictigezoink (unregistered) in reply to ChiefCrazyTalk


    Anonymous:

    ChiefCrazyTalk:
    Heinz 57. Those guys know how to make SAUCE. Only 57 tries.

     

    Speaking as a Pittsburgher, I feel obligated to point out that the "57" refers to 57 varieties of products, not version number 57.  And even then, supposedly the number was picked arbitrarily because HJ liked it or thought it was lucky or something, and in fact has no meaning at all.



    As a Seattleite, I feel obligated to mention that I was joking.

    I think 409, 7-11, 57, XK-8, 750iL, etc. are generally fake. Except the odd vehicle-model-with-the-engine-size-in-the-name idea. Unless you've driven an S4, which pretty much nukes that idea.
  • (cs) in reply to RatDancr

    Amen to that! Clipper ruled. Too bad CA went and screwed it all up.

  • John Hensley (unregistered) in reply to mcguire
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:

    Windows, like most other large software products, has been developed for many years by setting out the features and coding until they are done. Therefore the product names now reflect that you are getting a set of features, not a particular version of the codebase.


    Could you pass me some of that koolaid?  Thanks!

    Could you say something meaningful? Thanks!

    Do you think I'm unaware that features occasionally get cut? or that they're shipped in less than perfect condition? That's not the point. The point is that the features, not the codebase, are driving the development.

  • (cs) in reply to Robert
    Anonymous:

    I've been on the receiving end of this kind of request before.  Since our software had to be certified by an external body, they didn't want hard and fast version information because then we'd have to resubmit each release for certification.  Since that cost time and money, we couldn't have that.

    So we had to "name" each release.  I decided that we'd name them after elements.  Our first release after moving to this scheme was thulium, element 69.  I really wanted to name the next release thalium just to make support cry, but instead (IIRC) we went with arsenic.

    I quickly found another job and don't know what was the next release after that.

    This was the same company that shipped a debugger with the software.


    Surely you could have made the first and only release name "Brillant" to show that your product is spot on first time (or management will be very disappointed indeed).
  • (cs)

    Anyone remember dBASE I - never existed - it was decided that version II sounded more stable. Or, WinWord 3, 4 or 5?

    Does anyone know what happened to Preparations A - G?

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to John Hensley
    It's actually quite hard for someone who doesn't know or care how software is developed. Do you know how many cylinders your car has?

    One of them has nine,  the other has eleven.

    (1) Four engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.
    (2) Six engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.

    Next question?


  • Petey (unregistered) in reply to Ged

    NT, as we all know, stands for No Troubles. So putting that in there would have been redundant.

  • (cs) in reply to ope
    Anonymous:
    I have had the opposite request, we were release a new product and the marketing people wanted us to label our first release as Version 7.  The thought being that such a release number would make the product appear mature and presumably more stable.  Unfortunately they ran out of money before the first (seventh?) release, would have been awesome to see it happen.


    Man, that's identical to the resoning our vendor gave us when they switched from year based versioning to 4.something. I made a joke about it on a email list, and a product manager replied to me that that was exactly the case! A little piece of happiness died that day.
  • Cooney (unregistered) in reply to dave
    Great it'll work perfectly fine in the test lab - or for the one customer who has exactly the same version of whatever dodgy mailing software you use. But then we enter into the wonderful world of trying to match your "support" email facillity into the myriad of different email options in the Universe.

    No, you use the MS mail thingy or, better yet, post to a error reporting url. I agree that this is a pain in the ass and suboptimal, but it will get you better info.

  • (cs) in reply to Ged
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    Suddently, the whole progression of Windows release naming schemes makes sense:

    Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 95a, 95b, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista(Longhorn)

    And oddly enough, the CAPTCHA is "quality"


    Who, wait! What happend to NT 4.0, NT 5.0 ???


    indeed that progression of windows is not correct.  there are really two seperate progressions and they go like this:

    1.0 - 98SE, ME

    and

    NT - Vista

    from what I've heard they are completely different.
  • Cooney (unregistered) in reply to Michael
    Anonymous:
    It's actually quite hard for someone who doesn't know or care how software is developed. Do you know how many cylinders your car has?

    One of them has nine,  the other has eleven.

    (1) Four engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.
    (2) Six engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.

    Next question?




    Four slaves? My cars only have the one (and some subarus have a single stage brake cylinder). Anyway, you forgot the power steering pump. I'm pretty sure that's a cylinder :)
  • Fred (unregistered) in reply to Petey
    Anonymous:
    NT, as we all know, stands for No Troubles. So putting that in there would have been redundant.

    I thought it stood for never tested. Just like Windows CE (WINCE) stood for crashes everytime.

  • robbak (unregistered)

    That will make for a nice little easter egg in the changelog:
    Version 2.9 (build 449)

    • Obfusticate version and build information at the request of Marketing
    Or should that be Version "Magenta (build Borgs Attack) ...

    Captcha: Paste. What i would need to do if I was a bot.

  • Terance (unregistered)

    These people should be fired for their stupid suggestion. I mean if they are really that dumb then they shouldn't be working for the company.

  • Bekar (unregistered) in reply to robbak

    A company I used to work for released v4.0, followed by v4.1, but some customers on v4.0 needed a feature that wasn't in v4.1, so the owner decided we should release v4.O.

    For those with nice odd fonts, that's v4.zero, and v4.oh.  Trying to figure what version the different clients had was a nightmare.. "Is that four point zero or four point oh?"

  • (cs)

    Jeez, what dolts, especially the marketing director. I wouldn't expect him/her to understand technicalities, but I would expect a little aptitude in, oh, marketing maybe.

    Enterprise Information Management System(R) Version 2.8. With 448 fantastic improvements! Upgrade Now!

    Cheeto-heads.

    --Rank

  • Bramster (unregistered) in reply to dipstick
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:

    PaulTomblin:
    Anonymous:
    I think they are right. He can always change version and build number to md5(version and build number).

    It looks cool:

    Version d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e


    Very cool, because if either the client or the help desk gets even a single character wrong, you can say "sorry, invalid version number" and close the ticket.

    Where is it written that version numbers have to be in decimal - or even Latin? Why not represent it in hex, binary, brainfuck, or, let's go for it here: Klingon?

    Leading to the following conversation:

    support: I'm sorry for the trouble sir, please select Help, then About and read me the version number of the product

    user: *click* ... *click* ... um (wtf?)

    support: It's in Klingon sir...what? you're not fluent in Klingon? No problem! We have an alternate method. Put the monitor on a wooden table, take a picture of it (showing the Klingon version number), print out the picture, send it by surface mail, and we'll get back to you...

    user: um, never mind *hangs up*

    support: *dogbertian-tail-wag* (closes ticket)



    Submit Invoice for new Keyboard. . .
  • Bramster (unregistered) in reply to ChiefCrazyTalk
    Anonymous:

    Anonymous:
    Heinz 57. Those guys know how to make SAUCE. Only 57 tries.

     

    Speaking as a Pittsburgher, I feel obligated to point out that the "57" refers to 57 varieties of products, not version number 57.  And even then, supposedly the number was picked arbitrarily because HJ liked it or thought it was lucky or something, and in fact has no meaning at all.



    I once had a mutt that was thoroughly lovable.  People would as what kind of dog she was.

    Reply?     Part Heinz


  • Bramster (unregistered) in reply to Phrediac
    Phrediac:
    Anyone remember dBASE I - never existed - it was decided that version II sounded more stable. Or, WinWord 3, 4 or 5?

    Does anyone know what happened to Preparations A - G?



    and there never was an Ashton   (of Ashton-Tate).


    And, George Tate, overachiever that he was, died of a Heart Attack in his early forties.









  • (cs) in reply to Bekar

    Anonymous:
    Well from a marketing perspective there is a point to what these guys are saying. But from the developers perspective there is also a point. Simple sollution: Make the build identifier a hex based value. People can read that over the phone, you know the version. And marketing might complain about a weird number, but it's not actually that human readable. I don't consider this one a genuine WTF. This is just marketing and tech miscommunicating, nothing really stupid, both sides have a point here.

    Oh, yes, I understand the marketing personal's perspective too... I understand that they are total idiots and that they are thinking of costumers as bigger idiots than them. What makes me sick in this situation is that these two ,,forces" are in kohoots, without even carring about how it looks, and just trying to pressure the poor guy. Now that is diguisting!

    Anonymous:

    A company I used to work for released v4.0, followed by v4.1, but some customers on v4.0 needed a feature that wasn't in v4.1, so the owner decided we should release v4.O.

    For those with nice odd fonts, that's v4.zero, and v4.oh.  Trying to figure what version the different clients had was a nightmare.. "Is that four point zero or four point oh?"

    Oh God, I would have snapped on the first day... how can you ask someone to difference an O from a 0? And for that matter, who in their right minds would assign a letter on a NUMERIC displayed version? Hillarious, and yet sadder that many things I've seen till now.

  • Bramster (unregistered) in reply to Michael
    Anonymous:
    It's actually quite hard for someone who doesn't know or care how software is developed. Do you know how many cylinders your car has?

    One of them has nine,  the other has eleven.

    (1) Four engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.
    (2) Six engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.

    Next question?





    Driver:
    "I keep having to change the left front tire".

    Mechanic:
    "Yeah, that's the only wheel with the slave cylinder. The other wheels don't have brakes."

    Driver:
    "Why is that?"

    Mechanic:
    "So they can save all kinds of money on the ABS software.  They only have to worry about one wheel.  I understand it's running real-time version 1.0001"






  • Bramster (unregistered) in reply to Cooney
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    It's actually quite hard for someone who doesn't know or care how software is developed. Do you know how many cylinders your car has?

    One of them has nine,  the other has eleven.

    (1) Four engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.
    (2) Six engine cylinders.  One brake master cylinder.  Four brake slave cylinders.

    Next question?






    Four slaves? My cars only have the one (and some subarus have a single stage brake cylinder). Anyway, you forgot the power steering pump. I'm pretty sure that's a cylinder :)


    This is what I was replying to.   "There may have been some alcohol involved"

  • (cs) in reply to Gnictigezoink
    Anonymous:

    Anonymous:

    ChiefCrazyTalk:
    Heinz 57. Those guys know how to make SAUCE. Only 57 tries.

     

    Speaking as a Pittsburgher, I feel obligated to point out that the "57" refers to 57 varieties of products, not version number 57.  And even then, supposedly the number was picked arbitrarily because HJ liked it or thought it was lucky or something, and in fact has no meaning at all.



    As a Seattleite, I feel obligated to mention that I was joking.

    I think 409, 7-11, 57, XK-8, 750iL, etc. are generally fake. Except the odd vehicle-model-with-the-engine-size-in-the-name idea. Unless you've driven an S4, which pretty much nukes that idea.


    7-11 was open from 7 in the morning to 11 at night. They weren't always 24 hours.
  • (cs) in reply to TechNoFear
    TechNoFear:

    and then there was DOS 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 [we don't talk about that one] 5.0, 6.0, 6.2 & 6.3

    To start the 32-bit version family tree, let's not forget OS/2.  IBMers wrote the majority of that code, but Microsoft walked away with their own copy when they felt it was mature enough.  It didn't surprise me to see CMD.EXE when I attended Microsoft roll-out sessions.  I really regret the lack of REXX support in the NT family.

    I'm surprised that no one has yet to mention BOB.  Where does that bastard stepchild fit into the Gates/Balmer family tree, folks?

  • (cs) in reply to jesirose

    Stupid time limit.

    Edit: Also, the Formula 409 website says it was the 409th try.
    If XK-8 is refering to the Jaguar, the 8 is because it was the first 8 cylinder car they made.
     The L in 750iL is for "long-body".

    Heinz 57 was fake (http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/heinz57.asp).

  • jbange (unregistered) in reply to Gnictigezoink
    Anonymous:


    I think 409, 7-11, 57, XK-8, 750iL, etc. are generally fake. Except the odd vehicle-model-with-the-engine-size-in-the-name idea. Unless you've driven an S4, which pretty much nukes that idea.


    Jeez, you coulda' put a little research beheind your thought and not sounded so dumb. 409 and Heinz 57 are probably made up, but the rest are well known:

    7-11, so named because it was open 7am to 11pm every day, as opposed to other mom and pop grocery type stores which closed early and often didn't open on sundays at all.

    XK-8, so named as the first 8 cylinder Jag of the "X" line, successor to the XJS (K follows J)

    BMW 750iL, is: 7xx = 7 series Beemer, 50 = 5.0 liter engine, i = fuel injected, L = stretched body version (limo)


  • (cs) in reply to El Jaybird
    Anonymous:

    emurphy:
    Why didn't you just offer to generate (say) 574 dummy issues and mark them complete?

    I can see it now.

    "You just installed this new trouble ticket tracker software last week, and you've already had 574 issues with your software?  Sheesh, are you people incompetent?!"



    "I'll need to forward this to Mr. Can't Start The Numbering At One's attention.  Please hold."

    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    Suddently, the whole progression of Windows release naming schemes makes sense:

    Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 95a, 95b, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista(Longhorn)

    And oddly enough, the CAPTCHA is "quality"


    The reasoning *I* heard, when they went to "95" was that "it's too difficult for users to figure out the latest version".

    How hard is it to compare 4.0 and 4.1 and figure out the new one?

    The entire WORLD of computer users is a WTF.



    Note the use of "latest" rather than "later".  It's easy to remember "ABC 4.1 is the latest" when developing ABC is your job, it's less easy when ABC is just one of a dozen tools you happen to use while working at some non-computer job.

    As previously noted, even "later" gets confusing.  Lots of OSS uses 4.13 > 4.5, but my own personal ABC consistently uses two-decimal version numbers to refer to individual releases (4.50 > 4.13) but truncates it to one-decimal version numbers to refer to related sets of releases ("upgrading from 4.1 to 4.5" is shorthand for "upgrading from any of (4.10 through 4.19) to any of (4.50 through 4.59)").  Fortunately, most of our customers either get it or don't waste their time trying.

  • (cs) in reply to Simply Pie
    So, do what we did: simply hide the version/build numbers on the dialog, and when the user presses a certain keyboard combination, reveal the info.
    So, it's something like:

    Support: Ok, now we have to get your version number. Press up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, a, b, l, r, start, start, select, select?

  • Lars (unregistered) in reply to Chris
    Anonymous:
    They really do have a good point. But even better than just removing the information, they should have each release report as being version 1.0.0 with the subtitle: We got it right the first try!


    Yes, and they can still encode the version information by clever encoding strategies like 1,0.0 1-0-0, 1.0.00... !
  • Antti (unregistered)
    Alex Papadimoulis:
    ______________________________________________________________________
From: {Product Manager}
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:04 AM
To: A----- Selvan
Cc: {Marketing Director}
Subject: Re: Software Version

    We can't be at all accessible to the client, we'll just have to find
another way.
    

    The reason is simple: when they see  "Version 2.8 (build 448)," they
will think that it took us 28 releases and over four hundred builds
to get right.


    Just how many releases it must have taken to create Oracle 9.4.0.1.0? Nearly 100000! That's one release every day since the middle of the 18th century.
  • (cs) in reply to Alyosha`
    Anonymous:

    <font face="Courier New">From: A----- Selvan
    Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:08 AM
    To: {Marketing Director}, {Product Manager}
    Subject: Re: Software Version

    > A-----, please make sure it's removed in the next release.</font>

    <font face="Courier New">Do you think it's a good idea even to HAVE a next release?  Do we want to give the customer the impression there was something wrong with the last release?</font>



    YES.
  • AdSR (unregistered)

    The solution could be to make an easter egg in the app that would display version info. This could require some additional work but would save a lot of time spent trying to identify the problem.

  • LJ (unregistered)

    Only one quote is fitting: "Kill them! Kill them all!"

  • (cs)

    Got the t-shirt.


  • TylerDurden (unregistered) in reply to sammybaby
    <font face="Arial"> I experienced the reverse of this issue once.

    I was working for a network operations center, and I was asked to find some issue tracking software - preferably free. So I found some trouble ticket software which was free. It wasn't particularly flashy or exciting, but it worked, and the price was right.

    My manager rejected it out of hand. Why? Because it started numbering issues at #1.  "We can't have that," he spluttered. "The first issue we put in, the guy will know he's the first person on the system."

    I boggled. "So? We're on a first name basis with all of the people who are allowed to call us."

    "But they'll know it's a new system."

    "They're gonna know anyway! They'll know as soon as we start giving them ticket numbers, because we didn't have them before!"

    We never wound up using any issue tracking software.


    </font>
    <font face="Arial">Well, thats why we just use timestamps as "trouble tickets".
    For the same reason, they are used as customer IDs...

    :-P

    </font>
    <font face="Arial">
    </font>
  • renton (unregistered) in reply to Code Slave

    hey- it's not fair. When you install Windows or run it in the safe mode (I love this option- use it most often) you got the build number. As far as I remember it is 2915 for win2k ;)

    by the way- I had similar problems and I packed my desk. It is easier to cure cancer that stupidity.

  • dept non style dep (unregistered) in reply to Jan Hyde

    Bah..

    the real WTF is management fighting internal codenames for proyects. Imagine MS management fighting with the coders of W95 about the name chicago. 

    I am web programmer, so to me another related WTF is Mozilla. Nowdays Internet Explorer and Mozilla are "Mozilla 1.0" browsers, as you check the user_agent...

    another idea to brand releases can be to use postfixes.

    "Blah", and "Blah on steroids", "Blah releaded", "Blah Chicago".
    You can extend that "Blach Chicago - Lagoon" => Blah 3.6
    you can eve have that:

    chicago,citadel = 1
    lagoon, mormose = 2
    smallville, trantor = 3

    so 1.3 can be  "Blah Citadel Trantor".

    you can let marketing populate this table. And let then pick names.
    Thats what Ubuntu Dapper mean: Ubuntu 6

    --Tei







  • Anonymous Cowherd (unregistered) in reply to tub
    Anonymous:
    Oh, I had this problem with someone while writing something web-based.  We wanted to support various different browsers, and someone on our team said that is wasn't worth supporting Mozilla because it was only version 1, where as IE and Netscape were 4+.  Mozilla was obviously too old and not good enough.  This was when Mozilla was new.

    Bah, that still happens.  I regularly run into websites that look at my Firefox and say "Sorry, your browser is too old, please upgrade to a version 4.0 or higher Netscape or Internet Explorer".

    To which my reply is generally "fuck you", followed by my custom going elsewhere.
  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Harald

    heard over phone: <FONT size=4>Finish Him!!!</FONT>

    Customer: Ok I've done that. What do I do now? Its just frozen Word with what looked like an ice blast, then punched it into 100 pieces.

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Harald

    Harald:
    So, do what we did: simply hide the version/build numbers on the dialog, and when the user presses a certain keyboard combination, reveal the info.
    So, it's something like: Support: Ok, now we have to get your version number. Press up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, a, b, l, r, start, start, select, select?

    heard over phone: <FONT size=5>Finish Him!!!</FONT>

    Customer: Ok I've done that. What do I do now? Its just frozen Word with what looked like an ice blast, then punched it into 100 pieces.

     

    [note to self: press quote and not reply]

    captcha = batman. dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner dinnerdinner dinner dinnerdinner dinner dinnerdinner dinner dinner

  • (cs) in reply to Antti

    Antti (build 06-28-2006 8:55 AM):

    Just how many releases it must have taken to create Oracle 9.4.0.1.0? Nearly 100000! That's one release every day since the middle of the 18th century.

    As far as I know, there is no Oracle 9.4 but there may be a 9.1.0.4.0, did you perhaps mean that one?

  • (cs) in reply to Chris

    Chris (build 06-27-2006 8:01 PM):
    But even better than just removing the information, they should have each release report as being version 1.0.0 with the subtitle: We got it right the first try!

    Why not use concurrent version-numbering schemes at the same time, the way Sun Microsystems does it?  SunOS 5.6 = Solaris 2.6, SunOS 5.7 = Solaris 7 (not 2.7, but there was no Solaris 3 through 6 either), Java 1.3 and Java 1.4 = Java 2, Java 1.5 = Java 5.0, and on top of all that, Enterprisey Java 1.4 now comes with Java 5.0 if I read their Web page right...

    I can see how that numbering style would have lots of marketing potential:  Use our latest version 5.0, featuring lots of major improvements, almost everything was rewritten from scratch to make it even better -- What, it took you 5 major versions to get it right??? -- No, no, no, sir, you see, version 5.0 is also version 1.5, we got the basic design right the first time, those later changes weren't really all that significant, nothing to speak of really...

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