Don't use version names, use numbers

Mar 2, 2021

Quick! Tell me right now which Android version number this is:

Froyo
Eclair
Gingerbread
Honeycomb
Cupcake
Nougat
KitKat

And now, quick, tell me which Debian version these are:

Bo
Woody
Buster
Lenny
Stretch
Jessie
Etch
Sarge

And don’t even get me started on Canonical’s choices for Ubuntu:

Quantal Quetzal
Maverick Meerkat
Dapper Drake
Hardy Heron
Gusty Gibbon
Eoan Ermine
Xenial Xerus
Bionic Beaver

Even Apple fell victim to this after OS X:

Mojave
Big Sur
Mountain Lion
Sierra
Mavericks
Yosemite
El Capitan
Jaguar
Snow Leopard
High Sierra

It wasn’t too bad with Windows because: (a) there weren’t too many releases, (b) they were kiiinda numerically ordered, and (c) the names were short and used numbers as the version differentiator.

Windows 1
Windows 2
Windows 3
Windows 3.11
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows 2000
Windows Me
Windows XP
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 10

To those closely involved with the projects, cute version names are fun and make sense. But to someone without such intimate knowledge of the system, it takes a lot of work to memorize what versions correspond to which names.

I’m a pretty hardcore Debian user and supporter – I have it running on a few dozen machines – but I regularly find myself doubting if I’m using Stretch or Buster. By the time I get it memorized, the next version comes out, and I have to start remembering again. (I do approve of the name Sid being used for the unstable version, because it doesn’t change and is thematically-appropriate.)

I think a much more sensible naming scheme goes like this:

FreeBSD 1
FreeBSD 2
FreeBSD 3
FreeBSD 4
FreeBSD 5
FreeBSD 6
FreeBSD 7
FreeBSD 8
FreeBSD 9
FreeBSD 10
FreeBSD 11
FreeBSD 12

No ambiguity. Nothing complex to remember. Easy math to understand differences in releases.

Don’t use version names. Use version numbers.