As Windows Mobile developers, we work with the AYGShell all of the time. The AYGShell is basically the Windows Mobile shell and is what makes the Windows Mobile shell experience different from desktop computers and other Windows CE1 devices.
It wasn't until a recent post on
John Kennedy's blog that I learned that the AYGShell is referred to as the "Egg Shell". In that same post, John asks the next obvious question: "Where did the AYG part of the name come from? And it occurred to me that I don't know either.
Fortunately, a good source has come forward with the following story:
Once upon a time, there was a product called the Palm-size PC, and the internal code-name for the product was "Gryphon". Because the shell for Gryphon was pretty radically different from the shell for its predecessor (the Handheld PC), a new shell needed to be written. The developer who wrote it named it yagshell, or "Yet Another Gryphon shell", following the hacker tradition that led to names such as yacc ("yet another compiler compiler"). But someone decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to publicly name it yagshell, because people would figure out the "yet another" derivation of the name. So the first two letters were transposed to disguise the origin of the name. The "eggshell" pronunciation just naturally followed.
Now I cannot personally verify this story but the source is reliable and the story has been corroborated by another reliable source.
Besides, that story is just too good to have been made up. J
1Since Windows CE 4.2, non-Windows Mobile devices can include some aspects of the AYGShell
Posted
Jan 19 2006, 01:18 PM
by
jim-wilson