[bell-cot]

If your company is big enough to attract journalists, or gossip could have unhappy consequences, then codenames are obviously useful internally. Dev's in a bar talking about problems with "Armstrong" are leaking less info than if they were talking about problems with "Pride'N'Joy v4.2".

But of course, it ain't just the dev's who learn and use the codenames. Later in the cycle, Marketing and Sales do too. And since their job is to convince the wider world that v4.2 is the greatest thing ever seen - well, to 99.9% of the world, "Armstrong" sounds far cooler than "v4.2". So obviously they'll want to talk it up that way...