Gojushiho was developed by Sokon Matsumura, one of the key founders of Okinawan martial arts and named it "Uesheishi", which literally means 54 methods in Chinese.
An advantage of the two versions of the kata is to better master the difficult techniques presented therein, but not without facing some confusion, for many sequences are the same and others only slightly different.
Gojūshiho Shō begins straight off with a wide variety of advanced techniques and, as such, is highly recommended for study.
Another "shuto" technique as "shuto-nagashi-uke" or "knife-hand-flowing-block" has become the unique characteristic of Gojushiho because of flowing movement which is not merely interpreted as "block", but "throw".
The oft-repeated story about the JKA having to rename the Gojushiho kata due to a tournament mix-up; and Kanazawa Hirokazu, because of his seniority, keeping the original names in his SKIF organisation is without foundation.