One of the things we do here at Mission Research to amuse ourselves is code-name our GiftWorks releases using names of rides at Hershey Park (we live forty minutes away from the park and most of us have been there too many times). For those not familiar with code-naming software projects, we do it here so that we can easily keep track of our projects. Sometimes we start projects without knowing what the actual released software will be called when it goes to market, but it's good to have something to call them instead of "that thing you're working on".
The naming convention for GiftWorks only started after our first release and typically we try to pick rides that capture the theme of the current release. Our followup release to the GiftWorks launch was code-named LADYBUG. It was a small release cycle and we thought the name was funny -- Scrambler is a kiddie ride. How old are we?
We followed up with project SCRAMBLER. That project was done in a hurry in preperation for our Demo.com show (check out the video at this link). Our next release was huge. We stuffed in as many customer requests as we could, as well as a mass mailing section and a bunch of other cool features. That release took us 9 months (which is a long time for a startup like us). We code-named it WILDCAT. For those who have never ridden that wooden screamer, imagine roping yourself to the back of an AMTRAK train for a mile or so. We all agreed, after the project was shipped, the name fit well.
At the end of WILDCAT, our co-workers thought it would be fun to take our dev team to Hershey Park so we could ride the rides. They secretly gathered all our families together and surprised us with a night at the park. Great idea! We had fun and got pics of us on the rides we used for code-names. See below...
Mike and Chris on LadyBug
Me and Steve on LadyBug
Mike on Scrambler
Steve, Chris, Carol and Megan on WildCat
We haven't decided on the next project name. We'll see...