On 11 Apr 2006, at 16:24, Joseph J. Strout wrote:
At 4:00 PM +0200 4/11/06, Paul Gaspar wrote:
Just a suggestion from me: It is ok if the beta programm is
closed, but why not publish a public beta or final candidate a
week before the release? Then RS could prevent unusable releases
like r2.
R2 is not an unusable release. Proof: I'm using it right now (as
are many others).
Usable for you doesn't mean it's usable for everyone. Without wanting
to be the one would starts a shootout on REALbasic, but there hasn't
been one new version that didn't break stuff that's been in there for
years. It's like saying: well, we've installed a new compressor in
your car now, which will make it go faster, it now leaks oil, but
hey, put on some adhesive tape and just make sure you've got a can of
oil in your trunk and you should be fine... at least for a while,
maybe we'll fix it by the next maintenance checkup.
I can completely understand the people out there (those having to
manage large apps) seeing the closed betas as an excuse for
REALsoftware to cover up the mess they're making of each update, when
I'm reading this:
"Being in the Beta program, I was exposed to early stages of R2. Like
for many of you, at first none of my applications would run using R2
betas. After many frustrating hours tearing my apps apart, it turned
out that the problems I encountered were my errors (wrong declares,
using reserved words, etc.). R2 is a much more accurate system and
flags more errors that previously were undetected. I have been using
it with good results ever since the early final-candidate
releases." (Quote from Peter E. Barck)
This isn't right people, believe me. To give you an example (and I
could give others in a completely different environment), I'm using
the trunk version of Ruby on Rails for some of our projects, and it
has never broken anything, hell, I even use it (just like many others
do) in a released web application. Beta testing in such a big
application as REALbasic should be to make sure your internal unit/
functional/integration tests are doing their job, not using your beta
testers as a way to find out what you've broken.
Now, to be clear, I sincerely hope REALsoftware has the same vision
towards what beta testing is and I don't know by far how the internal
politics in REALsoftware are, but they should try to get rid of the
perception a lot of long-time REALbasic users have (I've been using
REALbasic since version 3.5, I know Paul Gaspar has been using it for
years and years). Most of us just keep quiet about the frustrations
every new version has brought along, but I can tell you I've pulled
out so much hair I hardly have any left on my head :-)
Having said this, I'm retreating from this discussion, but I had to
get this off my chest.
Best regards
Peter De Berdt
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