Kirill Grouchnikov's Blog

Naming project releases

I don't know about you, but i was saddened by the decision to drop internal names for JDK 6.0 and 7.0. Some time ago i even speculated on the possible names for 8.0 (which sparked quite a lively discussion on TSS). It could've been nice to have correctly predicted a name in advance...

Which brings me to the main topic - giving internal names for releases is fun. Especially when you get to choose the name. Last year one of my colleagues (long time no see, Yaniv) has objected to using internal names because they don't convey the release sequence. With numbering you know that 9.0 comes after 8.5.3 that comes after 8.4. But with names such as Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar or Leopard, there is no real way for an outsider to know the sequence. But it doesn't have to be this way...

The first Substance release to have an internal name (which is pretty funny definition, since i'm the only developer, so it's between me, myself and the guy i have to see every morning in the mirror) was the release 2.0. I decided to code-name it Dakota since it's a nice, short and not complicated name (unlike some of the names picked for JXTA. Come on guys, do you seriously expect people to use it?) When the time came for the next release and i started looking for a name, i remembered what Yaniv told me and then i suddenly realized (OK, too much second-hand watching the "Sex and the City" which is the must-see of my lovely wife) - Dakota starts with the fourth letter in English alphabet, and release 2.0 was the fourth release (after 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2). And so the dynasty was born :)

The next releases were named El Paso, Firenze, Grenada and Honolulu with Iowa, Japan and Kentucky planned in the future. This way, the releases are named consistently (geographic places i've never been to... Damn, i was in Firenze :), but still preserving the release sequence. For flamingo components i use Irish female names, with Aoife and Briana for existing versions and Caireann, Deirdre and Eilinora planned for the future (i know, JXTA guys, they're quite a mouthful as well). For laf-widget layer i use flower names, with Amaranth and Bluebottle for existing releases and Camellia, Daffodil and Eglantine planned for the future.

So, how do you choose the internal names for your releases?

Comments

• There are other projects, whose code-name are taken from vodka brands. Funny.

  Posted by: claudio on August 29, 2006 at 05:48 PM

• Too bad they don't follow the ABC, since apparently there are enough names out there.

  Posted by: kirillcool on August 29, 2006 at 05:59 PM

• The idea of using sequenced project names is not bad. You just have to make sure that the users understand the naming convention. Another naming convention could be larger and larger animals, or the atoms in the periodic table (hydrogen, helium etc.). Or planets and stars...or just use the release date (that doesn't look good for old releases though) or decimals (no wait, that's what we already do) . I don't use project release names, because we have many small and frequent releases. Making up names for all of them would seem wannabe-ish. "Look out for the Pluto release, which fixes two bugs, and adds three convenience methods!". But, I can see that for larger releases it can make sense and be fun. If I were to use release names, I think I'd try to use names that reflect what's new in the release. For instance, I just released som JSP AJAX tags as part of a larger tag collection (JSP Prize Tags). Perhaps a code name like "AJAX Enabled" or "AJAXified" would have been more saying than "Delores" or "Enigma".

  Posted by: jjenkov on August 31, 2006 at 02:23 AM

• At a previous company, we stopped using names after a customer accused us of being 'unprofessional' after spotting the name of one of our cvs branches The bosses apologised profusely and got me to rename everything with numbers.

  
  What offended them? As I recall - the 'original' code branch was labelled...big_ball_of_mud.

  
  How can that be unprofessional when its a reference to a conference paper! :)
  

  Posted by: bazzargh on September 02, 2006 at 03:15 PM

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