Joshua Flanagan

It's official, the technology formerly known as Atlas will be called...  Microsoft AJAX Library, ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions, and ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit!

Wow, those names are actually intuitive and descriptive. This is such a relief, considering what COULD have been... I had my bets on the dry, but .NET 3.0 compliant "Windows Dynamic Web Foundation"? Or the completely absurd "ASP.NET 7.0"

Yeah, about that... I completely made it up. It wasn't a hoax; no, I wasn't trying to fool anyone or make anyone believe it so that I could secretly laugh at them. It was a satire, so that I could publicly laugh at the madness of Microsoft naming schemes. I wanted to try and draw some attention to the issue, and hopefully motivate some people to go sign the Reverse WinFX Petition. Not because I thought Microsoft would change their mind, but because I wanted them to get the message that we don't want marketing decisions obfuscating and hijacking the terminology that we developers use to communicate. Its a version number - it has a very specific meaning, it is not a brand. Of all the things to lift from the Java camp, why did we want the version number confusion?

If you believed my post regarding Atlas => ASP.NET 7.0, I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to deceive. But the fact that a number of people did believe it just demonstrates the levels of absurdity we've come to expect and accept from Microsoft when it comes to branding. I tried to make it absurd. I tried to make it so ridiculous, and so obvious that it was fake (the quotes were almost word for word cut from one of the linked articles about the .NET 3.0 naming), but people still believed it. Apparently I need to work on my comedic writing and satirical wit.

Thanks to the Microsoft Web Platform team for the sane naming and their ability to continue delivering technology without waiting for a large release vehicle (and sorry for any confusion the last post may have caused).