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Java 1.5.0 Now Officially Java 5.0
Quantum Jim writes "In a move which out-does Netscape's one-version number skip and Winamp's two-numbers skip, Sun has announced that the upcoming Java2 release will be marketed as version 5.0, skipping three-and-a-half numbers. Can version 6.022E23 be far behind? Thanks to David Flanagan for the heads-up."
it was confusing enough when java 1.2 was marketed as "java 2," and we subsequently saw java 2 1.3 and java 2 1.4. But java 2 5.0? That's just rediculous. :)
Anyone who says this is irrelevant, we should focus on the technology etc, has failed to understand that software is about more than technical details.
Managers don't understand the details - they don't bother to learn that 5.0 is really 1.5, and they make decisions based on their high level views.
Sun has hurt Java's name, and let its developers down, with this absurd naming move, a repeat of the shambolic schizophrenic 1.2/2.0 business years ago.
So now we have Java 2 Version 5????? Employers will want to know why developers haven't done any version 3 and version 4. And it will certainly confuse the crap out of them.
Java has a good name for professionalism, but whoever came up with this ought to hang their head in shame.
God, I hate marketing. Why do you have to have yet another number attached to a product? I could never figure what the hell Sun was talking about when they would go off on "Java 2", but then sprinkle in "1.4" or "1.5" when talking about the JDK. or JRE.
Jesus. Just give me a version number so I can track what it's compatible with, and what features it has. If you're bumping up your version number for a product, bump them for all related ones as well, in the same increment. Don't make me try to figure out what version number of the language is supported by which version number of the developer's kit for god's sake. Is it so damn hard?
I thought marketing was suppose to create clarity in the minds of the potential customer. Screwing around with numbering schemes isn't the way to do that. I don't care what your internal taxonomies are. Just label the thing, and stick with it.
I also take it that Sun's marketing/engineering is stealing their "internal" project naming protocols from Apple?
Remember when they released Solaris 2.7 as Solaris 7 instead? Nothing new here.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
Why not calling it just Java 2004???
After all, we are all talking about vintages aren't we?
More seriously, Sun should just drop the Java 2/5 numbering and just use the year that is launched as the "brand"... and keep a "internal" version number for identification purposes...
That would keep the market droids happy and the programmers would have both an inteligent numbering and a discreet numbering to work with...
What world do YOU live in? It sounds like a pretty nice place. Where I live, marketing is intended to confuse and bewilder the customer so that they pay for things that they neither want nor need.
No no... Java 5 is still Java2 5.0. From the website: "Sun Microsystems, Inc. ... today introduced Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0"
If anyone has contact with the people who came up with the Java versioning scheme, please ask them what they are smoking and where I can get some.
MS Word for Windows has an interesting sequence of versions: 1, 2, 6, 95, 97, 2000. The numerological significance of this is left as an exercise for the reader.
Once the greater majority of libraries have been rewritten to fully utilise genericity, it would be time to think about integrating generics into the VM.