August 5, 2013

I Remember When Version Numbers Mattered

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

Once upon a time, software was known by its version number. That classification has seemingly disappeared.

The good old solid computer programs of the microcomputer era had names. Good names. Powerful names. The kind of names that marketing people drool over: WordStar, VisiCalc, dBASE, WordPerfect, Harvard Graphics, they were giants.

When the world was blessed with such a program, it was introduced as version 1.0. Say, “One point oh.”

Version 1.0 was universally terrible.

The 1.0 means the program’s first major release with no minor releases. Sure, they started numbering with 0.1, but that was an internal testing release. Supposedly when the program got stable enough, version 1.0 was dubbed and released. Even then, they never really got all the bugs out. That didn’t happen until version 1.1.

Say, “One point point.”

As the developer found and fixed more bugs, or adjusted items based on feedback, the minor version numbers would climb: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and maybe even 1.31.

Incidentally, the Internet didn’t exist as a software distribution machine back then. If you wanted the new version, you either bought the program again or — and this is difficult to accept these days, but it’s true — you received a free upgrade in the mail. Believe it or not, but Microsoft was one of the best companies for sending out free updates.

Eventually new features were added to the program, and things would be improved enough for the developer to qualify a 2.0 release. The program name stayed the same, but the version number changed. Eventually followed 2.1 and 2.2 and then version 3.0 and the madness continued.

Today, developers rely more upon software names than version numbers. So you have a new flowery name in addition to the new version number, which is downplayed. A common trend is to use the current year as well as a name. So where you saw Blorfus 3.2 15 years ago, today you see Blorfus Magnus 2013. Anticipation builds, of course, for Blorfus Gloriosus 2014, to be released sometime soon.

As a real-life example, the Windows operating system changed radically in 1995 with Windows 95. Microsoft didn’t call it Windows 4.0, which is what it was literally and internally. Nope, they fooled you.

To this day, Windows still has version numbers:

Windows XP is Windows version 5.1
Windows Vista is Windows version 6.0
Windows 7 is Windows version 6.1
Windows 8 is Windows version 6.2

You can confirm the version number by running the winver program: Press Win+R, type winver, and witness the About Windows dialog box.

So version numbers still abound, but they’re obfuscated. Instead, we are conditioned to accept fancy names. The silly part, of course, is that people still don’t upgrade unless they have to. Whether it’s a new version number or a swanky new name, as long as the program still works, what’s the point?

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