TONT 33353 Dr. Watson 原来叫什么名字？

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051114-00/?p=33353

What most people probably don’t know is that Dr. Watson’s name wasn’t originally “Dr. Watson”.

大多数人可能不知道的是，Dr. Watson 的名字原本并不是 Dr. Watson。

The original name of the diagnostic tool was “Sherlock”, whose icon was a lit drop-stem pipe. I remember chatting about the Doctor with its author, the late Don Corbitt, whose office was just a few doors down from mine. In 1991, he had to change the name from “Sherlock” to “Dr. Watson”; I had forgotten why, but Danny Glasser came to my rescue and reminded me that there was already a debugging tool called “Sherlock” that had come out a few years previously. The name had to change, and the Doctor stepped in to fill Sherlock’s shoes. The icon was originally a doctor’s bag, but it changed to the stethoscope-wielding general practitioner a few months later.

这个诊断工具原来的名字是『夏洛克』（Sherlock），图标则是一只点燃了的烟斗。我还记得跟小 Don Corbitt、也就是这个软件的作者聊起过这件事，他的办公室跟我就隔着几道门。1991 年的时候，他不得不把他的工具从 Sherlock 改名为 Dr. Watson。我已经忘记为什么了，不过 Danny Glasser 帮了我一把，让我想起是因为几年前已经有一个调试工具用过 Sherlock 这个名字了。名字非换不可，于是华生博士（Dr. Watson）就顶替了夏洛克（Sherlock）的位置。新工具原本的图标是一个医师手提包，不过过了几个月就换成戴着听诊器的医生的形象了。

You should also check out Matt Pietrek’s reminiscences about Dr. Watson.

我在这里也推荐 Matt Pietrek 对于 Dr. Watson 的回忆文章。

A note about Don Corbitt. He was a tall fellow with a deep booming voice, but he never used it. Instead, he spoke in a gentle, reassuring tone, backing it up with code that was always solid. I consider it an honor to have worked with him. Taking up the mantle of keeping the Doctor up to date with the latest forensic techniques, I updated it (i.e., rewrote it from scratch) for Windows 98. I was not a member of the Windows 98 team but wrote the program as a favor to them at great personal cost. (My then-boss didn’t approve of my little side project and made his displeasure known at my next performance review.)

这里还要提一下 Don Corbitt，他是个声音低沉的高个子，不过他不怎么用这种音调说话，而是用一种礼貌而令人安心的语调与人交谈，在协助我编写代码方面非常靠得住，我认为跟他共事是一种荣誉。为了肩负起让 Dr. Watson 保持更新的责任，我面向 Windows 98 对其作了更新（也就是从头重写一遍）。我并不是 Windows 98 开发团队的一员，不过还是花费了自己很大的功夫做好了这件事来向 Windows 98 团队表示支持。（我那时候的上司对我这么做并不感冒，并且在之后的一次效率评审会上表达了这种不满。）