4 ms·

Having been through the whole .Net Framework -> .Net Core processs, I think one of the biggest problems with MS is that they just have pathetic naming. Apple c

Having been through the whole .Net Framework -> .Net Core processs, I think one of the biggest problems with MS is that they just have pathetic naming. Apple creates these new names that are unique, exciting, and evoke something concrete. It makes it easier to remember what they mean when they’re talking about something. So for example, their new UI framework is called SwiftUI which builds off the swift legacy and logo and the emotion of being faster therefore better, whereas MS’s was UWP. WTF is UWP supposed to evoke. How am I supposed to mentally associate that with something. And the .Net stuff was otherworldly. You had .Net Core, .Net framework, and .Net standard. Other than Core, neither of the other have any unique meanings. All the 3 are frameworks and standards. Or strongly associated with frameworks and standards. 2 of them are technologies, and one is just a document, but they all sound the same. .Net core sounds like it should be a subset of the other stuff, yet it’s the future. If it wasn’t MS who invented .Net Core, they may have given it a different name, say, I don’t know, Mono, and it wouldn’t confuse the crap out of people. They would need to be told it’s a ground up rewritten open source implementation of the .Net Framework which will eventually supersede it once and they would not get confused again.

kitsunesoba 7y ago
Branding is far more important for dev tools than many realize. They’re just as much of a product as iPhones and Surfaces are but this has yet to register with the eng teams of a lot of companies.
- mikece 7y ago
  Agreed...and with the luck of Microsoft in this department the one awesomely named product of the last 15 years -- Silverlight -- was doomed because it was too cool for Redmond. (That and Turtleneck Steve prohibited browser plugins on iOS.)
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    The tech survived, the brand didn't. I wonder sometimes if the Windows Mobile team was correct and UWP should have just kept the Silverlight brand name even as the underlying tech shifted so much, because the outer XAML shell is still so similar at the end of the day.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    Why was Silverlight so cool sounding? For me it's not a meaningful or evocative name. A good brand name doesn't require explanation.
  - tinus_hn 7y ago
    Well it only took 10 years for the others to catch up to that idea so perhaps ‘Turtleneck Steve’ was right all along.
chenster 7y ago
I will counter argue the imputation of misnaming with the auto industry examples that the Japanese cars with catchy and sexy names such as Toyota Camry, Honda Clarity, Nissan Rogue; whereas the German counterpart with unimaginative M-Benz c300, e550; BMW i300, i3, i8... and yet German cars sales remain strong
- r00fus 7y ago
  But the German numbering system is a brand. You know that a 3-series BMW will get your a certain size, an M-class is high performance, etc. The predictable numbers are as important to the brand as the manufacturer name.
mattlondon 7y ago
I don't see how SwiftUI/SUI is any different from UWP? I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I do agree though with the .NET stuff - I have been out of the ecosystem for a while and have no idea what is going on any more.
- threeseed 7y ago
  Well nobody other than yourself is calling it SUI. And UWP stands for Universal Windows Platform which is hopelessly generic.
r00fus 7y ago
> Apple creates these new names that are unique, exciting, and evoke something concrete. It makes it easier to remember what they mean when they’re talking about something. There is a thought here: when something is well designed (including branding), it's possibly attributable to a better process used to create the product as a whole (in this case the frameworks and API). I've worked at places where acronyms are rife, and they're usually places that didn't feel the product needed to be sold (possibly because they didn't think they had any competition). Other places I've worked where we actually pitched/sold the product (either internally or externally) resulted in a lot more overall thought about what the product did and how the customer would use it and consequently the naming.
pjc50 7y ago
Oh god yes. It's absurdly confusing. Not to mention "Windows 10 IoT Enterprise" versus "Windows 10 IoT" - the former is minified real x86 Windows, the latter is the CE successor and runs on the Raspberry Pi.
FridgeSeal 7y ago
Oh my god yes Microsoft’s naming conventions are mind boggling. .Net Standard, .Net Framework, .Net Core, and they all do slightly different things, and they seemingly change with version, and now there’s .Net Framework 5, which apparently replaces/unifies some of them but it’s not super clear. Then you’ve got C# and F# and the specific language versions of those. Oh also, don’t forget the fact that there’s inexplicably like, 3 different package managers, which may or may not pull from the same place and it’s not clear what the differences are. Coming from Python (and a little bit of Rust) I had literally no idea what was going on. I tried to learn C# twice and gave up out of sheer irritation and confusion.
- thrower123 7y ago
  Is there a third package manager now? There's the blessed one, NuGet, which most use, and Paket, which the cool kids and F# people use, but if there's another one out there I'm drawing a blank.
  - FridgeSeal 7y ago
    You can use the CLI as to do stuff. Not sure if it counts as package manager, but coming from Python, being faced with 3 different ways to install packages (I'm still not sure how environments/projects are supposed to work in .Net) certainly added to the confusion.
astrange 7y ago
> So for example, their new UI framework is called SwiftUI which builds off the swift legacy and logo and the emotion of being faster therefore better I mean the pun is obvious, but a swift is a kind of bird. I specifically think it's a bad idea to name things "fast", because history will catch up to you and it might not be fast anymore, or it might be unsafe - and then what will you call the next thing? Actually, this happened in Swift. -Ounchecked (no bounds checks) was originally "-Ofast", but thankfully they changed it.

kitsunesoba 7y ago

Branding is far more important for dev tools than many realize. They’re just as much of a product as iPhones and Surfaces are but this has yet to register with the eng teams of a lot of companies.

mikece 7y ago
Agreed...and with the luck of Microsoft in this department the one awesomely named product of the last 15 years -- Silverlight -- was doomed because it was too cool for Redmond. (That and Turtleneck Steve prohibited browser plugins on iOS.)
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  The tech survived, the brand didn't. I wonder sometimes if the Windows Mobile team was correct and UWP should have just kept the Silverlight brand name even as the underlying tech shifted so much, because the outer XAML shell is still so similar at the end of the day.
- r00fus 7y ago
  Why was Silverlight so cool sounding? For me it's not a meaningful or evocative name. A good brand name doesn't require explanation.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  Well it only took 10 years for the others to catch up to that idea so perhaps ‘Turtleneck Steve’ was right all along.

chenster 7y ago

I will counter argue the imputation of misnaming with the auto industry examples that the Japanese cars with catchy and sexy names such as Toyota Camry, Honda Clarity, Nissan Rogue; whereas the German counterpart with unimaginative M-Benz c300, e550; BMW i300, i3, i8... and yet German cars sales remain strong

r00fus 7y ago
But the German numbering system is a brand. You know that a 3-series BMW will get your a certain size, an M-class is high performance, etc. The predictable numbers are as important to the brand as the manufacturer name.

mattlondon 7y ago

I don't see how SwiftUI/SUI is any different from UWP? I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I do agree though with the .NET stuff - I have been out of the ecosystem for a while and have no idea what is going on any more.

threeseed 7y ago
Well nobody other than yourself is calling it SUI. And UWP stands for Universal Windows Platform which is hopelessly generic.

r00fus 7y ago

> Apple creates these new names that are unique, exciting, and evoke something concrete. It makes it easier to remember what they mean when they’re talking about something. There is a thought here: when something is well designed (including branding), it's possibly attributable to a better process used to create the product as a whole (in this case the frameworks and API). I've worked at places where acronyms are rife, and they're usually places that didn't feel the product needed to be sold (possibly because they didn't think they had any competition). Other places I've worked where we actually pitched/sold the product (either internally or externally) resulted in a lot more overall thought about what the product did and how the customer would use it and consequently the naming.

pjc50 7y ago

Oh god yes. It's absurdly confusing. Not to mention "Windows 10 IoT Enterprise" versus "Windows 10 IoT" - the former is minified real x86 Windows, the latter is the CE successor and runs on the Raspberry Pi.

FridgeSeal 7y ago

Oh my god yes Microsoft’s naming conventions are mind boggling. .Net Standard, .Net Framework, .Net Core, and they all do slightly different things, and they seemingly change with version, and now there’s .Net Framework 5, which apparently replaces/unifies some of them but it’s not super clear. Then you’ve got C# and F# and the specific language versions of those. Oh also, don’t forget the fact that there’s inexplicably like, 3 different package managers, which may or may not pull from the same place and it’s not clear what the differences are. Coming from Python (and a little bit of Rust) I had literally no idea what was going on. I tried to learn C# twice and gave up out of sheer irritation and confusion.

thrower123 7y ago
Is there a third package manager now? There's the blessed one, NuGet, which most use, and Paket, which the cool kids and F# people use, but if there's another one out there I'm drawing a blank.
- FridgeSeal 7y ago
  You can use the CLI as to do stuff. Not sure if it counts as package manager, but coming from Python, being faced with 3 different ways to install packages (I'm still not sure how environments/projects are supposed to work in .Net) certainly added to the confusion.

astrange 7y ago

> So for example, their new UI framework is called SwiftUI which builds off the swift legacy and logo and the emotion of being faster therefore better I mean the pun is obvious, but a swift is a kind of bird. I specifically think it's a bad idea to name things "fast", because history will catch up to you and it might not be fast anymore, or it might be unsafe - and then what will you call the next thing? Actually, this happened in Swift. -Ounchecked (no bounds checks) was originally "-Ofast", but thankfully they changed it.