Probably just an old fairy tale, but I was told long ago that DB2 came about as a name because IBM already had IMS so the 2 in DB2 was to distinguish it as being IBM's second DBMS offering.
Rex -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Skip Robinson Sent: Friday, January 22, 2016 10:51 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Compile error The name 'DB2' seems to have followed the 1980s tradition of what I call 'name bloat', the practice of inflating a moniker in one way or another to make a product look more mature or more elegant. The paragon in my mind was dBASE II from Ashton-Tate. There never was a plain old dBASE. The roman numeral was added from the get-go to make the product seem new and improved. Moreover, there was never an 'Ashton'. That name was invented because, gosh darn it, it sounded good hyphenated with Tate, a real person. Before DB2 there was precedent for name bloat within IBM. There never was a plain old 'JES'. The product emerged from the cocoon as JES2. There had been a predecessor product called 'HASP', which may or may not have been an acronym for Houston Automatic Spooling Priority, but the name 'J-E-S' was born complete with suffix. Meanwhile there did emerge a 'JES3', but it was not an evolutionary descendant of JES2. Both products have coexisted, albeit uneasily, for decades. We used to imagine a JES5 or JES6 (depending on one's arithmetic proclivity) that would somehow combine the best features of both products, but it's almost certainly DOA. Likewise, the prospects for a 'DB3' are as dim as a distant star. . . . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile [email protected] [email protected] The information contained in this message is confidential, protected from disclosure and may be legally privileged. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, distribution, copying, or any action taken or action omitted in reliance on it, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
