Hi Richard, I hope you'll concede that your points about usability and attractiveness were more relevant to the old reporting tool than the new one.
You're right that RevZilla is important and a great showcase for what Rev can do. In the recent survey of beta testers, integrating bug reporting into the product ranked very high as "the one thing that would improve the bug reporting process." Just by asking about this, you can see that it's on RunRev's mind. The main problem is: a reporting tool integrated into the IDE cannot wholly take the place of the web site... simply because if there is a problem that prevents installing Rev, running Rev, or connecting Rev to the internet, then an integrated tool built on top of Rev won't function. The risks are minimized but not completely eliminated by a standalone version of the reporting tool. Then there is the issue of updating client software when the reporting system changes. No, there is requirement to change the server to allow a client like RevZilla. But as you saw, our change to the backend does require a change to the client. Imagine if we were stuck with the old Bugzilla because of an installed based of integrated Revzillas going back umpteen versions of Revolution. Yes, these issues can be mitigated with stuff like auto-downloaded updates and different ways of talking with the servers. But it's not cut-and-dried, and each solution brings with it more complexity, more testing, more ways to break, security risks, etc. For example, we actually researched very seriously giving RevZilla the ability to talk directly to the SQL back end. But it would have ended up being a huge security issue with no easy workarounds. A lot of the stuff that goes on in Bugzilla is managed by Perl scripts, so any tool essentially has to interface with the web pages. Plus, there is the fact that almost anyone can connect to a web server (port 80) but a lot of people have the SQL ports blocked. One of the virtues of the Bugzilla system is that it is very thoroughly tested at thousands of installations and it for the most part works reliably. As extensive as our changes in the new system are, they are within the "skinning" architecture and don't modify the core functionality. So, having said all that -- a web version of the tool MUST exist. Now, the value of RevZilla -- both the overall model and the specific implementation -- isn't lost at all on the mothership. The topic of RevZilla came up at the very beginning of the process [not initiated by me, incidentally] and we involved Ken at a very early stage. The problem simply boils down to circumstances at the 11th hour. To be very open about it, a lot of decisions about the launch were made in the last 72 hours, and communications weren't ideal. I think there were assumptions made on everyone's part about what would happen when and who knew what and how far along things were. The result is that we had three problems marring the launch: - We closed down Bugzilla without warning folks - We didn't inform Ken about the switchover - I announced the new URL on the list before the new site was truly open for business I hope you'll just chalk that up to holiday craziness. The intention has always been to keep Ken in the loop and have a pleasant, smooth transition experience for RevZilla users. By jumping the gun on the launch -- a launch I honestly pushed to happen sooner than later -- we ended up putting undue pressure on Ken and breaking his excellent product. So I share all this in the hopes of nipping in the bud any idea that RunRev doesn't care about RevZilla or that there is not enough consideration given to this tool which is so important to many users. Everyone I worked with at RunRev on this project admires RevZilla and gave it a lot of consideration during the project. Unfortunately we fumbled the ball a bit at the goal line, and I apologize for that. - Bill "Richard Gaskin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Mark Wieder wrote: > ... >> And happier yet if someone had given Ken a heads-up so that a RevZilla >> update could have been concurrent with the backend change. > > RevZilla is: > > - more usable than the Web interface > > - directly integrated within the IDE workspace, making it > much more convenient > > - more attractive and engaging than the Web interface > > By enabling users to focus on the content of their report rather than the > reporting interface, it can raise the quality of the content submitted > there. > > > But MOST IMPORTANTLY, RevZilla is: > > - an absolutely wonderful showpiece for how Revolution can > be used to make "Web 3.0" applications, completely replacing > a traditional browser client to provide the above benefits > without requiring even a single change on the server. > > > And yet for all this, somehow the full value it brings to the table seems > lost on the mother ship.... > > > -- > Richard Gaskin > Fourth World Media Corporation _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
