Atlas Naming Game

Date Published: 16 August 2006

Atlas Naming Game

Ok, Microsoft "Atlas" is now less than six months away, assuming it ships on schedule or with minimal slippage. That means it's now time to play…

Name That Microsoft Product!

I'll be your host, and will get the ball rolling. Note that some of these potential names are serious, and some are less so, but by all means, vote for your favorite by posting in the comments. Also, some of these I'm listing are my own ideas, and some I'm borrowing from others, but I'm protecting their identities unless they want to claim the names publicly…

Also note that Framework and Foundation can pretty much be interchanged at will for most of these names.

Potential Product Names for Microsoft "Atlas":

Rich Web Programming Foundation – RWPF
Web Technology Framework – WTF (!)
AJAXX (aka let's just add an 'X' to the existing name to make it sound cooler)
Rich Language ASP Framework
Big ASP Rich Foundation – BARF
Active Client Pages – ACP

That's a good start – what do you think its "official" name should be?

**Update – 11 September 2006:**ScottGu posted the official name today:

As part of releasing “Atlas”, we have also finally locked on an official set of product names that we will begin using moving forward. What was formerly called “Atlas” will now have a few names:

1) The client-side “Atlas” javascript library is going to be called the Microsoft AJAX Library. This will work with any browser, and also support any backend web server (read these blog posts to see how to run it onPHPandColdFusion).

2) The server-side “Atlas” functionality that nicely integrates with ASP.NET will be called the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions. As part of this change the tag prefix for the “Atlas” controls will change from atlas:to asp:. These controls will also be built-in to ASP.NET vNext.

3) The“Atlas” Control Toolkittoday is a set of free, shared source controls and components that help you get the most value from the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions. Going forward, the name of the project will change to be the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

Thanks to everyone for participating in this fun thread and being a part of the AspAdvice community!

Steve Smith

About Ardalis

Software Architect

Steve is an experienced software architect and trainer, focusing on code quality and Domain-Driven Design with .NET.