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> I think the USB naming is the result of not using marketers. No, it's specifically to give marketers what they want, which is the ability to advertise suppor

by wolrah 5y ago

> I think the USB naming is the result of not using marketers. No, it's specifically to give marketers what they want, which is the ability to advertise support for the latest version of the spec without actually having to improve the product. It's not USB-IF's marketers that want this, it's the vendors who pay USB-IF whose marketers want this.

spankalee 5y ago
Every backwards compatible spec would have this "problem". Either a new version of a spec says that all existing implementations are out of spec, or it add new optional features and existing implementations are that don't support them are still in spec. There's really no other option.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  This is not an explanation of why the naming is a disaster. USB 1 devices work on USB 2 devices without there needing to be some insane renaming. Ditto USB 2 devices on USB 3 devices. This naming was an entirely unforced error, and should be called out as such at every opportunity to keep it from happening again. Edit: if you want another example of a spec with good names, checkout WiFi 6. They realized that no normal person could reason about whether 11n or 11ac was better, so they changed the naming scheme to make it obvious what was going on.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > Edit: if you want another example of a spec with good names, checkout WiFi 6. They realized that no normal person could reason about whether 11n or 11ac was better, so they changed the naming scheme to make it obvious what was going on. Moving to WiFi 6 was a great idea! Which they immediately made a mess of. What version of WiFi has 6GHz support? 6e of course. How about uplink MU-MIMO? Oh that's WiFi 6 Wave 2.
EricE 5y ago
Because being able to differentiate uniquely different offerings by different designations is only of value to marketers? There are differences that warranted the incrementing of the numbering - mainly the vastly superior USB-C connector over the gawd awful USB-A, Micro, Mini and that other one that I can never remember the name of.
- wolrah 5y ago
  > Because being able to differentiate uniquely different offerings by different designations is only of value to marketers? What are you talking about? The whole point we're discussing here is that thanks to marketers we have the opposite of that where the exact same product has had three different marketing versions associated with it over the last few years without any actual difference. USB naming/numbering was perfectly reasonable up to 3.0. Higher speed revisions got a new number and lower speed revisions kept their old one. Then with 3.1 this all changed. Suddenly the same port that was a USB 3.0 port yesterday is now a USB 3.1 Gen1 port and the new 10 gigabit speed is USB 3.1 Gen2. Then 3.2 comes along and suddenly those ports are now 3.2 Gen1 and 3.2 Gen2, with the new additions of 3.2 Gen1x2 and 3.2 Gen2x2 modes. What would have been wrong with continuing the same way they had already been doing things and just calling the SuperSpeed+ mode "USB 3.1" while leaving the old ports referred to as USB 3.0, then when dual lane came around that is "USB 3.2"? It's straightforward, easy to understand, and doesn't have any chance of confusing someone in to thinking "well this thing has USB 3.1 Gen1 while this other one only has USB 3.0, I guess the first one's better". > There are differences that warranted the incrementing of the numbering - mainly the vastly superior USB-C connector over the gawd awful USB-A, Micro, Mini and that other one that I can never remember the name of. The type C connector is independent of the versioned standards. The USB 3.1 spec was released in July 2013 while the Type C connector spec didn't come out until August 2014. USB 3.1's 10gbit SuperSpeed+ mode is allowed and supported on the same USB 3.x Type A and Micro-B connectors as USB 3.0 SuperSpeed uses. USB 3.2's dual link mode of course requires a Type C connector at both ends. USB 4 actually requires a Type C connector, while it supports single lane operation for setup and fallback it requires all devices support dual lane. The 10 gigabit mode also uses different encoding than SuperSpeed+ so it's not just another rename.

by wolrah 5y ago

spankalee 5y ago

Every backwards compatible spec would have this "problem". Either a new version of a spec says that all existing implementations are out of spec, or it add new optional features and existing implementations are that don't support them are still in spec. There's really no other option.

Godel_unicode 5y ago
This is not an explanation of why the naming is a disaster. USB 1 devices work on USB 2 devices without there needing to be some insane renaming. Ditto USB 2 devices on USB 3 devices. This naming was an entirely unforced error, and should be called out as such at every opportunity to keep it from happening again. Edit: if you want another example of a spec with good names, checkout WiFi 6. They realized that no normal person could reason about whether 11n or 11ac was better, so they changed the naming scheme to make it obvious what was going on.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > Edit: if you want another example of a spec with good names, checkout WiFi 6. They realized that no normal person could reason about whether 11n or 11ac was better, so they changed the naming scheme to make it obvious what was going on. Moving to WiFi 6 was a great idea! Which they immediately made a mess of. What version of WiFi has 6GHz support? 6e of course. How about uplink MU-MIMO? Oh that's WiFi 6 Wave 2.

EricE 5y ago

Because being able to differentiate uniquely different offerings by different designations is only of value to marketers? There are differences that warranted the incrementing of the numbering - mainly the vastly superior USB-C connector over the gawd awful USB-A, Micro, Mini and that other one that I can never remember the name of.

wolrah 5y ago
> Because being able to differentiate uniquely different offerings by different designations is only of value to marketers? What are you talking about? The whole point we're discussing here is that thanks to marketers we have the opposite of that where the exact same product has had three different marketing versions associated with it over the last few years without any actual difference. USB naming/numbering was perfectly reasonable up to 3.0. Higher speed revisions got a new number and lower speed revisions kept their old one. Then with 3.1 this all changed. Suddenly the same port that was a USB 3.0 port yesterday is now a USB 3.1 Gen1 port and the new 10 gigabit speed is USB 3.1 Gen2. Then 3.2 comes along and suddenly those ports are now 3.2 Gen1 and 3.2 Gen2, with the new additions of 3.2 Gen1x2 and 3.2 Gen2x2 modes. What would have been wrong with continuing the same way they had already been doing things and just calling the SuperSpeed+ mode "USB 3.1" while leaving the old ports referred to as USB 3.0, then when dual lane came around that is "USB 3.2"? It's straightforward, easy to understand, and doesn't have any chance of confusing someone in to thinking "well this thing has USB 3.1 Gen1 while this other one only has USB 3.0, I guess the first one's better". > There are differences that warranted the incrementing of the numbering - mainly the vastly superior USB-C connector over the gawd awful USB-A, Micro, Mini and that other one that I can never remember the name of. The type C connector is independent of the versioned standards. The USB 3.1 spec was released in July 2013 while the Type C connector spec didn't come out until August 2014. USB 3.1's 10gbit SuperSpeed+ mode is allowed and supported on the same USB 3.x Type A and Micro-B connectors as USB 3.0 SuperSpeed uses. USB 3.2's dual link mode of course requires a Type C connector at both ends. USB 4 actually requires a Type C connector, while it supports single lane operation for setup and fallback it requires all devices support dual lane. The 10 gigabit mode also uses different encoding than SuperSpeed+ so it's not just another rename.