Jay > Natasha, believe it or not, this is a very serious topic for me.
I understand that very clearly. Likewise for me. > I do not want to raise any temperatures. And you believe the following to be non-inflamatory? "This announcement goes beyond carelessness and irresponsibility. I hesitate to use terms like criminal neglect, but I believe a case could be made in such a direction." > I think there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. So do I, and I believe RL is addressing that problem. I believe, in fact, that RL is addressing a number of serious issues with the current beta cycle. TB seems to have come to a point in its development cycle when it has outgrown its original code and needs to be reworked in some areas. RL have given very clear statements (one of which I've already quoted) explaining to the beta testers what those issues are and how long we can expect to wait before seeing significant results. RL's behaviour has, IMO, been entirely reasonable in this situation. >>> I had no idea that instead of this ostensible objective RL was going to use >>> me as an alpha tester for a feature or enhancement that would distort the >>> content of messages that I transmit. > And, if I recall correctly, you also had no idea that you were testing a new > feature that was going to change the content of your messages. Neither do I now believe I am doing so. I believe that in repairing one bug another has been inadvertently added to TB. I believe this is being worked on by RL with all due care and speed, and with the assistance of the beta testers. > According to Max, the purpose of that MSI was to fix existing issues in 3.5.xx > - which, it seems, did not include the loss of content in messages that you > discovered in 3.51. The repair and the new issue both relate to character set functionality of TB. This point, I suggest, is more than a little significant - both in isolating the problem and (hopefully) in reassuring you that RL isn't bent on a course of introducing new features. In a program this complex, the inadvertent introduction of a new bug is not entirely surprising. Uncomfortable for us as users? yes. Irresponsible and criminally negligent? Absolutely not. To draw a parallel. Say you're in your car and looking for a parking space. You find one, but it looks like it might be a tight squeeze. "What the hey," you say to yourself. "I's been parkin' cars f'r years. This l'l ol' tiny space don't frit me none." So you go ahead and put the car in reverse, and into the space you go. But wait! What's this? Can it be that you've parked perfectly parallel, but two metres from the kerb? "Oh, darn it!" And you try again. This is a really small space, though, so even with the new power steering it's gonna be a toughy, but you're absolutely sure that - eventually - you'll get that car inside that little gap. Maybe a couple of times the nose will be sticking out into the street. Maybe once or twice the tail will block oncoming traffic. Maybe a few of your fellow motorists will suffer some slight inconvenience/enjoy a brief moment of hilarity - depending on the pressure of their engagements and/or their general personalities and how life's treating them this fine day - but in the end you'll achieve your goal. And software engineering can sometimes be exactly like this. > Also, please read what Max said again. He was giving us an MSI that was > intended to fix one last problem in 3.5.xx before putting this release up for > download. With an introduction like that - and with the BayesIt problem still > unresolved - who would imagine that we would be embarking on an entirely new > series of beta (pardon, me, alpha) testing of a very risky nature? Where are these new features you believe are in alpha? I see only a bug fix which has in some regard gone awry. Random problem that it is, this makes it very difficult both to trap an to repair. Frankly, I think we'd both be doing the world a favour by dealing with that instead of engaging in this tiresome round of blamestorming. RL and the beta testers are doing their best. No-one wants a poor product. We'll all be delighted when this issue is resolved and all our orphan characters can come home. In the interim, I'm aware that some testers who've experienced the problem have - entirely reasonably - preferred to regress to earlier versions. Perhaps this is an option for you? -- Groetjes Natasha The Bat! 3.51.4 Pro on Windows XP Pro 5.1 Build 2600 Service Pack 2 ________________________________________________________ Current beta is 3.51.4 | 'Using TBBETA' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html IMPORTANT: To register as a Beta tester, use this link first - http://www.ritlabs.com/en/partners/testers/
