Windows Xp Name Discussion

From the ExtremeProgramming page, a side discussion on any correspondence of the name WindowsXp and ExtremeProgramming (also known as XP) emerged:

Is this where Microsoft got the idea of "creating" (creating would be antonymous with MicroBazar?) the appellation WindowsXp?

No, actually XP stands for eXPerience.

XP has been used as the shorthand for experience in the Dungeons and Dragons gaming world for decades.

Or more truly to the real world, eXPerimental. (SCNR)

I've heard that it stands for Cross Point, as in the OperatingSystem with which the majority of the userbase crosses over to the NT platform. Is this totally unfounded?

Some would speculate that it stands for eXtra Price. Both humorous and accurate.

Also said to be from the Greek letters Chi and Rho, which when said together sound like "Cairo", which at one time was the code name for a proposed future version of NT. Cairo never materialized, but parts have found their way into Windows 95, Windows XP, and the Vista release.

Chi and Rho are the first two letters of "Christ" written in Greek. Some consider XP therefore to be an arrogant statement that XP is "the second coming."

Meanwhile, there is a vector graphics library named Cairo on top of the XwindowProtocol. This project was also originally called "Xp". The author graduated from a liberal arts college, and perhaps picked up the acronym there.

The code name for Windows XP (and for Windows Server 2003, which shares the code base) was "Whistler".

In the Macintosh community, it is commonly believed that Windows XP was named in imitation of Macintosh OSX as a marketing ploy to promote that Windows is "just like" Macintosh in terms of an attractive and easy-to-use GUI. Mac OSX was released March 24, 2001, and Windows XP was released October 25, 2001, although names for both of these products were no doubt assigned many months before the releases.

Perhaps another possibility ... please look at XP And turn your head to the left. If you don't quite get it, maybe a dash will help... X-P Why yes, that's the face you make while using Windows XP!

Whatever the original intent, the result has been to take the personal out of PC (X-Personal). Even when customized and aggressively hacked, I still can't stand to use XP but as a last resort.

Someone I know had the theory that it really stood for "Xerox PARC", or should have, anyway.

It gets worse. XP's first use was by Roman Emperor Constantine on his military standard, being the first two letters of the name of Christ. I guess that makes it a blasphemous misuse of one of the names of God (and no surprise there :)

Actually, those were two Greek letters, chi and rho. UniCode retains that ligature: ☧. This was also the inspiration for "Xr", an OpenSource vector graphics library on top of the X Render extension. The name of the library eventually became the pun "cairo" as it expanded away from its X roots.

CategoryDiscussion