Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
Yup didn't intend to trim that much. Mea culpa. On Oct 23, 2009, at 7:40 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 23 Oct 2009 at 18:55, Allen Fisher wrote: On Oct 23, 2009, at 10:36 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: Finale QA team is the same team that provides tech support, Nope. Not how it works at MM. QA is indeed separate from customer support. Has been as long as I can remember. Good to know. I do wish you'd quoted more carefully. What I actually wrote was: If I'm right that the Finale QA team is the same team that provides tech support, I doubt that you trimmed that intentionally, but I don't like being misquoted here, as it implies I said something I didn't. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Allen Fisher Founder and Principal Developer Fisher Art and Technology al...@fisherartandtech.com i...@fisherartandtech.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 7:43 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 22 Oct 2009 at 13:43, Christopher Smith wrote: On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 8:20 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: 3. you can bet that there is only very seldom a bug discovered by end users that is not already known by the Finale developers. Wow. I must be really, really lucky (or unlucky), or the developers don't tell the tech support people what they know, because easily 2/3 of the issues I report are previously unknown to tech support. Er, tech support != developers. Then how come I keep getting responses back from tech support that such-and-such a question will be passed on to the developers? Internally at MakeMusic the two are not the same at all. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 7:43 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: A specific customer-reported issue that is new to tech support may just be a new surface manifestation of a particular underlying problem, one that emerges only at runtime in particular environments. In other words, what you see is not so much the bug itself, but just evidence of the bug. Ah. Yes, that is much more clear. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
Christopher Smith wrote: Er, tech support != developers. Then how come I keep getting responses back from tech support that such-and-such a question will be passed on to the developers? Internally at MakeMusic the two are not the same at all. I believe that when David typed != he was implying not equal to. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On Fri Oct 23, at FridayOct 23 6:29 AM, dhbailey wrote: Christopher Smith wrote: Er, tech support != developers. Then how come I keep getting responses back from tech support that such-and-such a question will be passed on to the developers? Internally at MakeMusic the two are not the same at all. I believe that when David typed != he was implying not equal to. Okay, good thing I have a David to David translator here, then. ;-) Here's the original exchange: On 22 Oct 2009 at 13:43, Christopher Smith wrote: On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 8:20 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: 3. you can bet that there is only very seldom a bug discovered by end users that is not already known by the Finale developers. Wow. I must be really, really lucky (or unlucky), or the developers don't tell the tech support people what they know, because easily 2/3 of the issues I report are previously unknown to tech support. Er, tech support != developers. So then my SECOND postulation is most likely correct? Sigh. What must the developers be thinking then, when there are all these clients and tech support people squawking and running around like headless chickens trying to pinpoint a behaviour, when some communication and documentation could prevent a lot of time and verbiage from being wasted? I am just trying to understand all this and keep from having an early coronary. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
-Original Message- From: finale-boun...@shsu.edu [mailto:finale-boun...@shsu.edu] On Behalf Of Christopher Smith Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 3:15 AM To: finale@shsu.edu Subject: Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-) On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 7:43 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 22 Oct 2009 at 13:43, Christopher Smith wrote: On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 8:20 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: 3. you can bet that there is only very seldom a bug discovered by end users that is not already known by the Finale developers. Wow. I must be really, really lucky (or unlucky), or the developers don't tell the tech support people what they know, because easily 2/3 of the issues I report are previously unknown to tech support. Er, tech support != developers. Then how come I keep getting responses back from tech support that such-and-such a question will be passed on to the developers? Whenever I hear that it sounds like a catch phrase to mollify me. It does not necessarily mean that happens or anything about MM's organization. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On 23 Oct 2009 at 6:14, Christopher Smith wrote: On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 7:43 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: I must be really, really lucky (or unlucky), or the developers don't tell the tech support people what they know, because easily 2/3 of the issues I report are previously unknown to tech support. Er, tech support != developers. Then how come I keep getting responses back from tech support that such-and-such a question will be passed on to the developers? Internally at MakeMusic the two are not the same at all. Oops. I used programmers' dialect. These two statements are equivalent: Er, tech support != developers. Er, tech support developers. So, I said exactly that. The explanation is that ! means NOT -- it was not an expression of intensity. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On 23 Oct 2009 at 7:39, Christopher Smith wrote: What must the developers be thinking then, when there are all these clients and tech support people squawking and running around like headless chickens trying to pinpoint a behaviour, when some communication and documentation could prevent a lot of time and verbiage from being wasted? I am just trying to understand all this and keep from having an early coronary. I don't have any idea if what you describe is a fair description of what's going on. My guess is there's plenty of communication between the teams. But there's likely plenty of *mis*-communication, too, programmers being programmers. If I'm right that the Finale QA team is the same team that provides tech support, this would just be an example of a historical confrontation between those who develop the software and those who test it. A good developer recognizes that the testers are your best helpers in the world, but there are good testers and there are bad testers. And also, it can be kind of annoying to have the QA people never giving you any feedback except on the things you do wrong. This causes a certain level of friction. It can be managed, but it's part of the equation. But I'm only speculating that the tech support team also functions as QA during the development process. That would make a great deal of sense in a small software development house like MM, but is often not the case in larger companies. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
Nope. Not how it works at MM. QA is indeed separate from customer support. Has been as long as I can remember. Allen On Oct 23, 2009, at 10:36 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: Finale QA team is the same team that provides tech support, Allen Fisher Founder and Principal Developer Fisher Art and Technology al...@fisherartandtech.com i...@fisherartandtech.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On 23 Oct 2009 at 18:55, Allen Fisher wrote: On Oct 23, 2009, at 10:36 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: Finale QA team is the same team that provides tech support, Nope. Not how it works at MM. QA is indeed separate from customer support. Has been as long as I can remember. Good to know. I do wish you'd quoted more carefully. What I actually wrote was: If I'm right that the Finale QA team is the same team that provides tech support, I doubt that you trimmed that intentionally, but I don't like being misquoted here, as it implies I said something I didn't. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On 21 Oct 2009 at 12:35, Howey, Henry wrote: The central fact remains - those who adopt early are beta-testers - unpaid beta-testers. This is fundamentally dishonest. A few points: 1. I know of no paid bet testers for any software. 2. Bugs don't define software as beta because all software ships with bugs. 3. you can bet that there is only very seldom a bug discovered by end users that is not already known by the Finale developers. I don't recommend the original releases of Microsoft's products and they have a lot more capacity to ship software with no significant bugs than MM does. Certainly, over time Finale seems to be getting worse in regard to number of new bugs in new releases and the count of old bugs that don't seem to get stamped out. But that's incremental change, not a wholesale difference. As to the charge of dishonesty, I just don't see how you can make such remarks. You are alleging company-wide bad faith. It might very well be that the marketing folks are to blame for pushing a release out the door before it's ready, but you can bet that the programmers are not happy when that happens. I also don't see what you think you accomplish by alleging dishonesty. It's not going to get one line of Finale code fixed. It's not going to get one feature added, or one bug stomped out. It *does*, perhaps, make you feel good, and perhaps I should just read it not as a factual assertion about reality, but as evidence of your state of mind. That is, perhaps, valid information for the Finale developers, i.e., to know that long-term users are annoyed, but it's expressed in a way that seems to me guaranteed to lose any sympathy from those who can actually fix the problems. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 8:20 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: 3. you can bet that there is only very seldom a bug discovered by end users that is not already known by the Finale developers. Wow. I must be really, really lucky (or unlucky), or the developers don't tell the tech support people what they know, because easily 2/3 of the issues I report are previously unknown to tech support. Maybe I should take that bet, as I should profit from my uniqueness somehow... 8-( Your other two points stand. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic - The end of;-)
On 22 Oct 2009 at 13:43, Christopher Smith wrote: On Thu Oct 22, at ThursdayOct 22 8:20 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: 3. you can bet that there is only very seldom a bug discovered by end users that is not already known by the Finale developers. Wow. I must be really, really lucky (or unlucky), or the developers don't tell the tech support people what they know, because easily 2/3 of the issues I report are previously unknown to tech support. Er, tech support != developers. Maybe I should take that bet, as I should profit from my uniqueness somehow... 8-( Tech support in a company as small as MM may act as the Quality and Assurance department, so they'd know a lot about bugs in the codebase, but they won't necessarily know the details that the developers know that would allow them to see a specific problem report from a user as simply another manifestation of an existing bug. A specific customer-reported issue that is new to tech support may just be a new surface manifestation of a particular underlying problem, one that emerges only at runtime in particular environments. In other words, what you see is not so much the bug itself, but just evidence of the bug. And my assertion is that the underlying problems that lead to these specific new surface-level issues are almost never going to be unknown to the development team. I know this from long experience in my own work as a programmer. It may be something you've never seen, or a specific set of behaviors that no one else has ever seen, but it's very likely that the trigger for it is something that is neither new nor unknown. That wasn't clear from what I wrote, but I was *thinking* it! Why can't you just read my mind? :) -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
