Re: WTF is WPF - WPF Re-branding Suggestions
My friend Kurt Brockett at IdentityMine started blogging again (at least somewhat more regularly for the moment) I was reading some of his older posts and I found one post entitled WTF is WPF. He talks about the wow factor created by re-branding WPF/E to Silverlight and competing against cooler named products like AIR, Flash, Carbon, Cocoa, etc. Well, you can just read the post.
Unfortunately he didn't have any name ideas. Kurt, I'm a little disappointed in you. I thought your business card said Director of Product Management? This should be in your wheel house.
Here are my ideas:
| Name | Description | Rating (1-5 Monkeys) |
| RIALITY | Acronym for "Rich Interactive Applications, Like Totally. Yeah!"
| Should play well with the pivotal teenage silicon valley girl developer demographic.
Otherwise, not so good.
1 Monkey
|
WPF Ultimate
WPF Home Premium
WPF Home Basic
WPF Business
WPF Enterprise | Part of the problem with WPF is that it's a vague, all-in-one framework. What if I use my WPF for home entertainment? Or business productivity? I need an edition of WPF that's right for me. Some type of comparison table would help. Like if I don't care about dependency properties, I don't need WPF Ultimate.
WPF Home Basic
Ideal for the casual developer who only needs to display photos. Easy to develop and maintain. XAML? What's that?1 Don't worry, WPF Home Basic is all wizard based. No glass for you!
WPF Business
WPF Business is the first edition of WPF designed specifically to meet the needs of small businesses. You'll spend less time on technology related issues like coding-so you can spend more time making your business application look pretty.
WPF Enterprise
Designed to significantly lower development costs and risks, WPF Enterprise meets the needs of large, global organizations with complex 2D animation and text beveling effect needs.
WPF Home Premium
WPF Home Premium is the preferred WPF edition for home desktop and mobile PC applications. It provides a breakthrough unified programming model that brings your UI into sharper focus while delivering the Storyboards, StackPanels, and Routed Events you need from your PC application at home or on the go.
WPF Ultimate
WPF Ultimate is the choice for the developers who want to have it all. Easily shift between the worlds of productivity and play with the most complete edition of WPF. Ultimate provides the DockPanel, StackPanel, and Grid controls needed for work, and all the video brushes that you want for fun.
Specifically, WPF Ultimate offers all of the features found in WPF Home Premium, including Labels, StackPanels, and Routed Events. It also offers all of the features found in WPF Business, including DockPanels, Resource Dictionaries, and Buttons. And WPF Ultimate has all of the new Dependency Properties and Data Templates that help take WPF to a whole new level of programmability. In addition, WPF Ultimate includes support for new animations, including inverted negative 3G dive, counter-clockwise swirl, the shark and other new, theoretically impossible mind altering effects. Exclusive to WPF Ultimate are WPF Ultimate Extras. WPF Ultimate Extras are add-ons that extend certain controls in your application or just make programming more fun. WPF Ultimate Extras currently planned include: - Really Big Button
- Bouncing Textbox
- Möbius Label
- Spinny Thing
| Has the potential to create confusion in the development community.
Success of WPF Ultimate is also dependent on the release of the highly anticipated WPF Ultimate Extras.
.5 - 3 Monkeys depending on the edition |
| Heavymetal | WPF/E -> Silverlight
WPF -> Heavymetal
Get it? | Yeah, I didn't think it was too funny either. It was Kurt's idea.
2.5 Monkeys |
| Nothing | I always thought the Silverlight name was somehow related to "Flash".
What does a flash look like? A silver light.
What does AIR look like? Nothing*.
*Unless you live in Mexico city, then it's a black ominous cloud of pollution. But Black Ominous Cloud of Pollution doesn't have a nice ring to it. | Tough call. When someone asks what you are working on you can say "Nothing" - Short, easy, and probably an accurate description for most corporate developers.
3 Monkeys |
| EyeCandy | From Wikipedia:
"Eye candy is something that is most remarkable for its visual appeal."
Hmmmm... not bad. WPF does allow you to create rich graphics with holographic 3D inverted color changing rotations all while displaying a nice Apple-like reflection. | From Wikipedia:
"In computer software, especially in operating systems, too much eye candy is often criticized."
Oh.
2 Monkeys |
| Seven | I overheard this conversation the other day: GEORGE: Oh, no no no. Course not. I got a great name for our kids. A Real original. You wanna hear what it is? Huh, you ready? SUSAN: Yeah. George uses his finger to draw a number 7 in the air, accompanying the Strokes of his digit with a two-tone whistle. SUSAN: What is that? Sign language? GEORGE: No, Seven. SUSAN: Seven Costanza? You're serious? GEORGE: Yeah. It's a beautiful name for a boy or a girl...
| It's a beautiful name for a boy or a girl.. or a unified programming model for building rich Windows smart client user experiences that incorporate UI, media, and documents. Seven is also the number of syllables in "Presentation Foundation". Coincidence? I think not. 4 Monkeys |
Seven is not bad. But I have a better one. I'm going to call the WPF team tomorrow. It'll go a little like this:
Me: Awright, I tell you what. You look like nice people, I'm gonna help you out. You want a beautiful name? Soda.
WPF Team: What?
Me: Soda. S-O-D-A. Soda.
WPF Team: I don't know, it sounds a little strange.
Me: All names sound strange the first time you hear 'em. What, you telling me people loved the name Silverlight the first time they heard it?
WPF Team: Yeah, but uh... Soda?
Me: Yeah, that's right. It's working.
WPF Team: We'll put it on the list.
Me: I solve problems. That's just what I do.
Plus, developers love Soda. WPF is now Soda, the most advanced desktop RUCCA.
1Adam Kinney a.k.a the Silverlight Surfer explained to me that XAML was like XML with more tags. Cal Schrotenboer said that comparing XAML to XML was like comparing a lawn mower or a bike to a car. Lawn mowers and cars do both have 4 wheels so they seem similar. Plus you can race both of them. Confused, I went to Cal's blog at http://www.wpflearningexperience.com/
Ooooopps.
Thank goodness Kaspersky's got my back.
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