🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1995Nov18.044241.15310@cs.rit.edu>, bdm@cs.rit.edu (Brendan
McKay) wrote:

 > In article <aboucek-1611951929550001@aboucek.dialup.access.net>
aboucek@panix.com (Alan Boucek) writes:
 > >In article <1995Nov15.105122.19333@cs.rit.edu>, bdm@cs.rit.edu (Brendan
 > >McKay) wrote:
 > 
 > > > All that would be perfectly ok, except that 2.0b2 is NOWHERE NEAR
 > > > READY for public beta testing.  It has a large number of really obvious
 > > > bugs.  That's not just a nuisance, it is dangerous.  The third time
 > > > in the first 15-20 minutes that my Mac froze and I needed to reboot,
 > > > half the files on my desktop went missing.  I had to spend the best
 > > > part of a day fetching a disk utility from a friend and patching up 
 > > > the bad links that had appeared in the catalogue structure on the disk.
 > > > (I recovered almost everything, no thanks to Netscape Inc.)  If it
 > > > was something real obscure that I was trying to do, then I could
 > > > think "such is life and beta releases", but it wasn't.  It was just
 > > > normal stuff that Netscape should have tested themselves.  They think 
 > > > (correctly it seems after reading you guys) that their virtual
 > > > monopoly will see them through despite some poor saps who were suckered
 > > > into doing their basic testing for them.  This company needs a swift
 > > > kick in the nuts.
 > 
 > >Nope, you're wrong here. Netscape releases pretty clean beta code, and you
 > >are duly warned before running the software. 
 > 
 > True, I was warned at great length that Netscape accepted no responsibility
 > for their software no matter what disaster it brought down on my head.
 > What it needed was "Warning, this software may trash your disk, we
 > didn't bother testing it much.  Better your disk than ours, eh?".

It doesn't trash your disk, it trashes your file system. If you do good
system housekeeping, it's easy to repair. It doesn't destroy your data.
Nevertheless, it sounds like you understood their warning, and assumed the
risk- now you want to blame Netscape for the downside of that risk.

 > >All software has bugs,
 > >especially quite a few well regarded packages. If you're not prepared to
 > >assume the risks that come with beta software, you shouldn't run it. I've
 > >signed a number of beta agreements, and actively participated in a few
 > >beta programs. When I run into a bug, I document it, and forward my
 > >comments to the developers. If they haven't already seen the bug, they
 > >send me mail asking for further detail, and it gets fixed.
 > 
 > >Did you bother to fill out a bug report? I reported the same bug that hit
 > 
 > I reported two bugs in b1 and three in b2.  All of them were things
 > that should not have passed alpha testing.  For example, b1 was not
 > tested by Netscape on a 14" screen (the most common size).  If they
 > had tested it AT ALL, they would have seen that the "licence agreement" 
 > screen that pops up right at the start was so far off the edge that the 
 > OK button was unreachable.  

As I understand software development practice, alpha releases are usually
reserved for new feature development. Once the features are frozen, and
are shown to function as designed in most cases, a reasonably stable
version is released to beta. Once users bang on it for a while, bugs
become visible and are fixed. I work with other software companies who I
pay quite a bit more money to- they routinely release beta code to any
user who wants it- with similar warnings, and an extended comment period.

FWIW,  14" 640x480 screens may be the most common, but I doubt that many
developers work on such systems. I haven't worked on such a small screen
in seven years.... except on my powerbook- which runs mozilla 2.0b2
flawlessly.

-- 
Alan Boucek       aboucek@panix.com
       New York, New York