The programmers of Archicad called the height dimension of objects “zzyzx” in the GDL programming language. Afterwards they found that even that is a small place in California.
!This.
As can happen in a forum, one gets more answers than expected. You have all given some excellent material and great points, so hopefully some Trimble folks can pick up on the experiences of some users and contributors who have been especially helpful to me over the years.
– “Layer” in the LouOut tool has a fairly literal meaning, so this secondary tool became the thing of preference in keeping the moniker.
– So, “Layer” in SketchUp was now more confusing, because multiple definitions for the same term doesn’t work so well. Plus, despite being the prevailing term for this kind of property for almost 40 years (“levels” in Microstation, so some variants out there), formerly literal about layers of paper as it was, the confusion about the analogy remained for some newer generations.
– Despite the potentially inapt selection of “Tag” as the new term in the parent program, the inheritance of the term “layer” from AutoCAD-sourced tradition has been renounced. Other pre-existing terms from other software were not employed.
While I might have preferred that “tags” could be more like how tags are applied to other non-CAD things, and have the ability to tag a single thing as part of multiple classifications, the thought process will for now be the same as what other software calls an object’s layer/class/level.
Yes, these things were once a property that would indicate which pen on a plotter might draw the line on a paper print, before PDF or even inkjet printers existed. Sequence mattered. The analogy of sheets of paper came into it, where stuff in a floor plan might be a transparent piece of paper with furniture symbols or walls on it, so you get “A-FURN” and “A-WALL” layers highly standardized by the AIA. Computer screens were 640x480 at best. Everything was an abstraction. Now with so many new users, 8K screens, and all kinds of other tech, what’s the harm in going a new way all on your own?
Trimble is mostly in construction site engineering platforms and services. Google is in innovative software. These iterations of programmers might not be architects or engineers fed up with Autodesk anymore. Stuff is going to be different from time to time, and sometimes the old will be new again.
I haven’t experienced the issue with LayOut and its naming confusion of layers. I just don’t use the software because it is far too slow at generating content for me, so I hardly think about it. When I have touched it, I quickly realize it has its own layer set, separate from my SKP files and the layers in those individual viewports on the paper canvas. [[Separate issue, but LO messes with a working method I use of scenes (aptly renamed from pages) that flip section planes on and off but nothing else, so scene sets get too complicated in complicated projects to manage effectively in LO – next forum thought…]]
Multi-tagging with nested geometry is a useful tactic, so you can have something like 3D and 2D views for a component. But this has some limitation, because the hierarchy only goes one way. Perhaps the limitation is good, making sure SketchUp remains a simplified tool in the first place, not just another elitist CAD software. [[modeling for anyone and everyone!!]]
Adding a feature that allows an object to belong to multiple tag classifications and controlled through the Tag palette would be an interesting experiment (possibly something to learn from other CAD software teams out there?). At least now with layer/tag folders, it is possible to classify what the classification of each tag is meant to represent, such as a view style, a set of edges inside a component, levels of detail, groups of things like furniture or plantings, etc.
Being a long-time user of AutoCAD, maybe 20 years now, I’ll always have to translate the “tag” term as “layers” in my first language. It will be the butt of various SKP geekdom jokes and gripes in my teams and user groups.
I’m hoping that the name change is a teaser of more to come and it is more than a “pseudo-novelty” as someone said earlier (maybe I’m watching too much Marvel entertainment with their Easter eggs and subtle hints for the plot line theorists?). But ultimately, I have hopes that the name change will mean more than a name confusion and continue the history of market subversion and revolution that has been SketchUp since the AtLast Software days.
@Anssi, thank you for a delightful diversion! – I did not expect to find a National Park Service page about Zzyzx, CA, let alone that said page describes the exploits of a con man for whose wares a new post office got built, and who, naturally, retired to Las Vegas.
The name is still pretty popular for businesses these days. My map application shows one in Camarillo, CA along with its downright high Yelp reviews. 
Been there. We drove in and no one else around, a quiet little ghost collection of buildings in the heat of the day. There is a dry lake, which was flooded at the time. It is so flat–we had fun taking pictures of each other “walking on water”. Maybe it wasn’t a park back then.