It makes sense why they did it, but their messed up versioning was the cause to begin with. You should always assume Devs will cut corners in inappropriate ways.
An often repeated urban legend that has no basis in reality. Software checking the version of Windows gets "6.1" for Windows 7 and "6.2" for Windows 8. The marketing name doesn't matter and is different.
some legacy software checked if the OS name began with "Windows 9" to differentiate between 95 and future versions.
This is a myth. Windows doesn't even have an API to give you the marketing name of the OS. Internally, Windows 95 is version 4.0 and Windows 98 is 4.1. The API to get the version returns the major and minor version separately, so to check for Windows 95 you'd check if majorVersion = 4 and minorVersion = 0.
And for the same reason they went straight from 2.1 3.x to 5.0 when they renamed .Net Core to just .Net. Versions 3.x and 4.x would have been too easy to confuse (either manually or programmatically) with the old .Net Framework versions that were still in use, especially for Desktop applications.
I was about to say that most apps should check the NT number but then I remembered that until XP it wasn't common to run a NT system, but then I remembered NT 4 existed basically in the same timeframe as 95 did, and even if the argument went to "it's a 9x application", shouldn't these OSes at least have some sort of build number or different identifier systems? Because as I said NT systems were around, so they would probably need a check for that
I have the same issue with Java. Oracle JDK, Open JDK or some other weird distribution? Enteprise Servers or a Framework like Springboot?
It's always easier if you're familiar with the technology.
The reasoning it was to not confuse with .net framework 4.x series, and since they went beyond 4.x, it's just .net now. I believe .net core moniker was to explicitly distinguish is from framework versions.
It didn't help the confusion at all, tch. Being a .net guy since 1.0, you just figure it out eventually
Given that .net was a TLD long before the framework came out, it was a stupid thing to name it. Caused confusion and the inability to Google things right away.
It was pretty smart marketing move. Business people hear 'dot net' and nod wisely. Tech people hear 'dot net' and scrunch their faces. Either way people keep talking about Microsoft Java.
It's been my experience that the .NET developer will miss the actual statement and take it as an assault on .NET being the best solution for every use case.