>Many because formal product names are not decided on at the time the project starts development. For example, the names for upcoming Visual Studio 2005 were not determined until less than a year ago even though development and discussions for that version of Visual Studio started over 3 years ago. This is not just a Microsoft thing, most major software companies developing vertical software products have code names during development. For example, Longhorn is the code name of the next version of Windows. Microsoft does not know what the release name will be, and probably won't know and formally decided until sometime next year. Plus, sometimes more than one version is being worked on. Like as in VS 2005 (code named Whidbey), it will be released later this year while the version of VS after that (code named Orcas) has already started in planning and prototyping. So instead of saying VS.next and VS.next.next, we say Whidbey and Orcas. Make sense? :)


It always made sense to me. One thing that I do not understand me is the following:

Whidbey is now known as VS 2005, the final marketing-production version name. Why is it that when you install it (Beta 2), it installs by default in C:\Program Files\Visual Studio 8 ?? (why 8? and not 2005 or Whidbey)

Similar naming convention with MS Office. It's very confusing to think about Office 2003 or Office XP or Office 10, or 11. I have different versions at home and at work. I never remember which is Excel 9 or 10 or whatever.

Inquiring minds want to know :)