The Lurker

Revenge of the Java Platform Name Architecture

posted by ajf on 2006-08-17 at 11:59 pm

Sun, as I believe I've ranted before, shouldn't be allowed to name or number anything. They're just not very good at it.

The release of the next version of Java is approaching, and because they've made a mess of these things, as usual, Sun has been forced to provide a handy document to explain what it's called. The short answer is "it depends".

Highlights:

1.6.0 and 6 mean exactly the same thing. That's why they're different.
The silly "Java 2" name, which marked the first time Sun decided Java didn't have enough version numbers, is finally dead. This seems a good time to refer to the Java 2000 anecdote, which claims that the name "Java 2" was a compromise reached after Java's development team threatened to quit in disgust when they heard that Java 1.2 was going to be branded "Java 2000".
With the release of 1.5, Sun dropped the "J2SDK" name which had for a few years replaced "JDK". They're sticking with "JDK" now, because of "significant popularity within the Java developer community" (or, in other words, everybody ignored them when they changed it to "J2SDK").
But, to save face, it doesn't stand for what JDK originally for. It means "Java SE Development Kit".
But they're still emotionally attached to "SDK", so they're using it for "Java EE Development Kit" — which is particularly impressive, because there is no "S" in "Java EE Development Kit".
Mercifully, the phrase Java Platform Name Architecture does not appear in the document this time around.
They no longer refer you to the "Java Naming Help Desk", either, so presumably the poor misguided fools think they've eliminated the confusion that required a "Java Naming Help Desk" in the first place.
They don't bother to ask people not to abbreviate "Java SE" and "Java EE" to "JSE" and "JEE".

I like that last document, because its very first sentence is an (unintentional, no doubt) admission of failure:

Naming is a key component of a well-architected branding strategy.

All timestamps are Melbourne time.