What are the benefits of using names rather than version numbers?

Question

This is a general question but I'll illustrate it with Eclipse. I recently reinstalled Eclipse and find that the distribs are called

eclipse-java-galileo-SR1-win32

and

eclipse-java-ganymede-SR2-win32

(I also have a "europa" from the past - what happens when we run out of Jupiter's moons?)

I find this very confusing as there is no indication of which version is the latest and in fact I muddled them.

This is not restricted to Eclipse, and several version of software come out with version names (e.g. the Mozilla family). Personally I would much prefer the normal decimal version numbering. What other examples are there of name confusion and is there any justification for it?

update some early replies suggest some people prefer names to numbers and vice versa. Could we not have both, therefore?

update A majority view (but not consensus) seems to be emerging that names are useful for developers before release but that n umbers are better after release

Answer 1

Names are for usability. People are just more comfortable with referring to things using words rather than numbers, especially in spoken conversations.

I agree that numbers also come in handy to convey information about a release e.g. the date of the release or its age compared to other releases. In my opinion, both have their place.

I like the way Ubuntu names their releases with both a catchy name and a number e.g. Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 (which was released in April 2009).

As jensgram commented, Ubuntu's naming scheme also has the advantage of encoding order by assigning their human-readable names in alphabetical order. It's easy to tell that Karmic Koala is the release after Jaunty Jackalope.

Answer 2

Ubuntu does it, OSX does it, it drives me insane. Microsft at least is moving to version numbers again, woohoo!!

Answer 3

It's easier to talk about the release verbally using code names. When developing on several branches, it's easy to get confused when a lot of numbers start getting bandied about in conversation.

This is probably a Good Thing for developers while the code is being worked on, but quickly becomes annoying after the release happens, and the order of the releases isn't obvious. IMO codenames are all well and good, but after a release, use the number!

Answer 4

Apple OS X versions.

As a person with only a little Mac experience but sometimes supporting the thing. I find this confusing.

On the other hand when you actually know what the latest is. It is easy to ask someone if they have the latest. Since the word for some people is easier to remember than a number.

Answer 5

I think version names are pretty much only useful when it comes to marketing software to new customers / non technical people. It gives the marketing guys something to shout about.

Anyone technical will always want to deal with version numbers because (if used properly) they will tell you which order the releases were done in. You should also be able to get an indication of the magnitude of the release by looking at which part of the version number has changed.

Answer 6

I find it nice to have names and numbers for every release. For example, Apple lists Mac OS X as "Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard" in their store. This prevents confusion over order while giving a nice natural name to it. Also code names are nice for talking about releases among those who know the software intimately.

Answer 7

Names have long been used as code names during development, so that developers could refer to a name rather than a number all the time ("version 5.67 branch 2" doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as "bob").

But from the point of view of the end user, they suck. They only convey information to someone if they know the list of version names used. A user doesn't care that they are about to download "rancid cheesecake" to replace "fetid sardines". What they want to know is that they have 2.1 installed, but there is now a 3.0 available.

Year numbers sit half way between the two. They're numbers that are often completely made up, making them simply names - We've been using 3DSMax 2010 for months now. In another month the name might even coincide with the calendar! To confuse us even more, we have Visual Studio 2005 which is version 8, and Visual Studio 2008 which is version 9.

Argh!