3 ms·

Microsoft is hilariously bad at naming things

by bossyTeacher 11mo ago

EGreg 11mo ago
I remember they prepended the word “Microsoft” to official names of all their software.
- __del__ 11mo ago
  "My Documents" comes to mind. it seemed somehow infantilizing. yes, yes i know whose documents they are.
  - Mountain_Skies 11mo ago
    Good news is that Microsoft no longer considers your documents to belong to you, so they did away with that part of the name.
    - shmeeed 11mo ago
      It's always been questioned who the subject of "my" was.
  - bossyTeacher 11mo ago
    All documents are belong to One Drive
ndsipa_pomu 11mo ago
user: How do I shutdown this computer? tech: First, click on the "Start" button... user: No! I want to shut it down
- mrguyorama 11mo ago
  They fixed that by 1) Removing the "Start" label such that all the money and effort they spent coming up with that actually good idea back in the 90s and helping people think about how to use their computer not only went to waste, but is actively preventing people from feeling comfortable using their modern computers because a tiny circle with a logo is not something you are driven to click and various linux distros had been demonstrating that exact problem for decades 2) Hiding the shutdown part in a weird new menu that pops out of the side but only if you use a gesture that is impossible to discover except by accident and you will have no clue how you got there or what's going on >To shut down Windows 8, you can use the Charms bar by moving your cursor to the top-right corner, clicking Settings, then the Power icon, and selecting Shut down Someone who makes my entire net worth a year came up with that idea in a drug fueled bender and was promptly promoted and the world continues to be a terrible and unfair place.
  - danudey 11mo ago
    An explanation of why the Windows Vista shutdown bit is in a weird new menu: https://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html https://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-...
omnicognate 11mo ago
Visual Studio Code has absolutely nothing to do with Visual Studio. Both are used to edit code. .NET Core is a ground up rewrite of .NET and was released alongside the original .NET, which was renamed .NET Framework to distinguish it. Both can be equally considered to be "frameworks" and "core" to things. They then renamed .NET Core to .NET. And there's the name .NET itself, which has never made an iota of sense, and the obsession they had with sticking .NET on the end of every product name for a while. I don't know how they named these things, but I like to imagine they have a department dedicated to it that is filled with wild eyed lunatics who want to see the world burn, or at least mill about in confusion.
- viraptor 11mo ago
  Don't forgot .net Standard which is more of a .net Lowest Common Denominator. For naming, ".net" got changed to "Copilot" on everything now.
- AlexandrB 11mo ago
  > they have a department dedicated to it that is filled with wild eyed lunatics who want to see the world burn, or at least mill about in confusion. That's the marketing department. All the .NET stuff showed up when the internet became a big deal around 2000 and Microsoft wanted to give the impression that they were "with it".
- rs186 11mo ago
  Anyone remembers the "Windows Live" brand everywhere in the early 2000s?
  - danudey 11mo ago
    Games For Windows Live but we turned off the servers so now the games for windows are dead
theshrike79 11mo ago
Java and Javascript would like to have a chat :) -- But Copilot is another Microsoft monstrosity. There's the M365 Copilot, which is different from Github Copilot which is different from the CLI Copilot which is a bit different from the VSCode Copilot. I think I might have missed a few copilots?
- soulofmischief 11mo ago
  JavaScript was intentionally named in order to ride the Java hype train, so this wasn't accidental. Prior names included Mocha and LiveScript until Netscape/Sun forced the current name.
- bossyTeacher 11mo ago
  Yep, they have the public copilot which is a free version and seemingly different than their m365 copilot. Even using the same account on both doesn't even transfer the chat history and apparently m365 is somehow recommended mostly to non tech folks even though its the one you pay for

Microsoft is hilariously bad at naming things

EGreg 11mo ago

I remember they prepended the word “Microsoft” to official names of all their software.

__del__ 11mo ago
"My Documents" comes to mind. it seemed somehow infantilizing. yes, yes i know whose documents they are.
- Mountain_Skies 11mo ago
  Good news is that Microsoft no longer considers your documents to belong to you, so they did away with that part of the name.
  - shmeeed 11mo ago
    It's always been questioned who the subject of "my" was.
- bossyTeacher 11mo ago
  All documents are belong to One Drive

ndsipa_pomu 11mo ago

user: How do I shutdown this computer? tech: First, click on the "Start" button... user: No! I want to shut it down

mrguyorama 11mo ago
They fixed that by 1) Removing the "Start" label such that all the money and effort they spent coming up with that actually good idea back in the 90s and helping people think about how to use their computer not only went to waste, but is actively preventing people from feeling comfortable using their modern computers because a tiny circle with a logo is not something you are driven to click and various linux distros had been demonstrating that exact problem for decades 2) Hiding the shutdown part in a weird new menu that pops out of the side but only if you use a gesture that is impossible to discover except by accident and you will have no clue how you got there or what's going on >To shut down Windows 8, you can use the Charms bar by moving your cursor to the top-right corner, clicking Settings, then the Power icon, and selecting Shut down Someone who makes my entire net worth a year came up with that idea in a drug fueled bender and was promptly promoted and the world continues to be a terrible and unfair place.
- danudey 11mo ago
  An explanation of why the Windows Vista shutdown bit is in a weird new menu: https://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html https://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-...

omnicognate 11mo ago

Visual Studio Code has absolutely nothing to do with Visual Studio. Both are used to edit code. .NET Core is a ground up rewrite of .NET and was released alongside the original .NET, which was renamed .NET Framework to distinguish it. Both can be equally considered to be "frameworks" and "core" to things. They then renamed .NET Core to .NET. And there's the name .NET itself, which has never made an iota of sense, and the obsession they had with sticking .NET on the end of every product name for a while. I don't know how they named these things, but I like to imagine they have a department dedicated to it that is filled with wild eyed lunatics who want to see the world burn, or at least mill about in confusion.

viraptor 11mo ago
Don't forgot .net Standard which is more of a .net Lowest Common Denominator. For naming, ".net" got changed to "Copilot" on everything now.
AlexandrB 11mo ago
> they have a department dedicated to it that is filled with wild eyed lunatics who want to see the world burn, or at least mill about in confusion. That's the marketing department. All the .NET stuff showed up when the internet became a big deal around 2000 and Microsoft wanted to give the impression that they were "with it".
rs186 11mo ago
Anyone remembers the "Windows Live" brand everywhere in the early 2000s?
- danudey 11mo ago
  Games For Windows Live but we turned off the servers so now the games for windows are dead

theshrike79 11mo ago

Java and Javascript would like to have a chat :) -- But Copilot is another Microsoft monstrosity. There's the M365 Copilot, which is different from Github Copilot which is different from the CLI Copilot which is a bit different from the VSCode Copilot. I think I might have missed a few copilots?

soulofmischief 11mo ago
JavaScript was intentionally named in order to ride the Java hype train, so this wasn't accidental. Prior names included Mocha and LiveScript until Netscape/Sun forced the current name.
bossyTeacher 11mo ago
Yep, they have the public copilot which is a free version and seemingly different than their m365 copilot. Even using the same account on both doesn't even transfer the chat history and apparently m365 is somehow recommended mostly to non tech folks even though its the one you pay for