Except.
Years ago, we were able to identify the extent to which software upgrades were
significant deviations from previous versions by their number. The first "official"
release was 1.0, and slight improvements, small bug fixes, usually merited a hundredths'
designation: 1.01, 1.02 and the like. More significant changes, but changes that
still maintained the basic feel of the main release earned tenths: 1.1, 1.2 and
so on. A new version might jump from 1.1 to 1.5, but if it did so, we understood
that a number of improvements had been added to the program, but that it was still
basically the same program. Changes before the decimal were reserved from
make-overs. When version 2.0 was released we understood that this was almost a
brand new program.
Somewhere along the line new releases with even minimal improvements started to
earn changes in the ones column, and then - I think that Microsoft was responsible
for the change, but I really don't know - the entire numbering process became
a victim of marketing, and even minor changes in a program earned a brand new
name, almost like a "new formula, extra-strength" laundry detergent.
From there, the next step, to a naming process that was totally divorced from
any identifiable continuity, was inevitable. Thus, Windows 3.0 was easily understood
as a significant improvement over Windows 2.0, while Windows 3.1 bore only minor
changes to Windows 3.0. But with the arrival of Windows 95 this logic was broken.
Instead of version names
and numbers actually carrying important information, it seemed that each new
release wanted to convince us that it had somehow emerged sui generis.
But strangely (there's a word there someplace) using 2.0 as a means of describing
the quantum leap that the web is supposedly making is rather out of place. O'Reilly
tells us that one of the defining aspects of Web 2.0 is the "end of the software
release cycle". In other words, if in this new framework version numbers
have lost their significance, and instead we're in the age of the
perpetual beta, why do we use an outdated term to describe this new phenomenon?
Go to: It's just too Oh!