Mac OS X and Cats

So we've had a number of versions of Mac OS X, and nobody  can remember what their names are. It's cute for Apple to name their operating systems after cats, but that's where it ends. Just cute.

The first version of OS X was named Cheetah, though there was a beta version (according to Wikipedia) named Kodiak (Mac OS X Beta (Kodiak). I think that they should have probably called the first version "Kitty" or "Pussy Cat" and reserved the fastest cat on the planet's name to a later, more stable version.

In any case, the main problem with this numbering system is that nobody remembers what the actual version number of Panther is? Is it 10.2, or 10.3, or 10.4. So sometimes, when you have to upgrade some software, and the instructions tell you that you have to have version 10.4 or greater, what are they talking about? You've been brainwashed to think of Tiger, you can barely remember that the version is 10.4.

And herein lies another of my beefs. What's with the point.X numbering scheme? And I wonder what's going to happen when Apple gets to 10.9? Will they then magically roll over to 11.0? I sincerely hope so.

What were the numbering guys thinking? That they should use the first decimal place just in case they run out of numbers?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying. Of course the 10 is there because of the X. But since the X is there, why bother with the 10? Seems like overkill to me.

Now, Ubuntu does somewhat the same thing. They give alliterative code names to their versions. But, as far as I know, most Ubuntu users are more familiar with the version number (say, 10.4) than the animal (Lucid Lynx). The numbering scheme also makes sense. The first part is the year of the release. In the case of Lucid Lynx (10.4) it was released in 2010. The second number is the month. 4 = April. And because of the six month release cycle, with Ubuntu after 10.4 came 10.10, then 11.4 then 11.10 and so on and so forth.

I'll drop that now...