bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) (05/11/89)
Followups have been directed to comp.sources.d.
In article <1989May9.191034.3424@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
: Personally, I do not consider a steady stream of revised releases to be
: a good sign... :-)
Hooray!
I've become really disgusted with the amount of patching that goes
into some of the posted software. I would much rather wait for a
tested release than be the unintentional beta tester that many people
have become.
E.g., I would have brought up elm to replace mailx but there was
patch 1, patch 2, ..., patch 7! All in the space of a few weeks. It
might have been the case that elm would have worked fine for me but
this was *not* encouraging!
Please folks, if you have to release something that you don't *know*
is reasonably tested, note it as a beta. And tell us what *has* been
tested.
Please?
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Bill { uunet | novavax } !twwells!billdglo@deimos.ADS.COM (Dave Glowacki) (05/12/89)
In article <918@twwells.uucp> bill@twwells.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: >I've become really disgusted with the amount of patching that goes >into some of the posted software. I would much rather wait for a >tested release than be the unintentional beta tester that many people >have become. > >E.g., I would have brought up elm to replace mailx but there was >patch 1, patch 2, ..., patch 7! All in the space of a few weeks. It >might have been the case that elm would have worked fine for me but >this was *not* encouraging! > >Please folks, if you have to release something that you don't *know* >is reasonably tested, note it as a beta. And tell us what *has* been >tested. Yeah! I mean, I pay good money for all this softw.... Ummm...Never mind ;-) -- Dave Glowacki dglo@ads.com Advanced Decision Systems
csu@alembic.ACS.COM (Dave Mack) (05/12/89)
In article <918@twwells.uucp> bill@twwells.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: >Followups have been directed to comp.sources.d. > >In article <1989May9.191034.3424@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >: Personally, I do not consider a steady stream of revised releases to be >: a good sign... :-) > >Hooray! > >I've become really disgusted with the amount of patching that goes >into some of the posted software. I would much rather wait for a >tested release than be the unintentional beta tester that many people >have become. > >E.g., I would have brought up elm to replace mailx but there was >patch 1, patch 2, ..., patch 7! All in the space of a few weeks. It >might have been the case that elm would have worked fine for me but >this was *not* encouraging! > >Please folks, if you have to release something that you don't *know* >is reasonably tested, note it as a beta. And tell us what *has* been >tested. This is an unrealistic point of view. It is pretty much impossible for a developer to test every aspect of even a medium-sized system on all the different machines with all the ever-so-slightly-different operating systems that you find on the net. In the case of Elm 2.2, it was usable as it was distributed. The patches have been either to accomodate the peculiarities of a particular machine or operating system, or to fix relatively minor bugs in obscure and little-used parts of the system. I agree that there should be a minimal level of debugged functionality in a package when it gets distributed, but you picked a remarkably bad example to make your point with. -- Dave Mack
boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (SoftXc Coordinator) (05/13/89)
In article <918@twwells.uucp> bill@twwells.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: >Followups have been directed to comp.sources.d. > >In article <1989May9.191034.3424@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >: Personally, I do not consider a steady stream of revised releases to be >: a good sign... :-) > >Hooray! > >I've become really disgusted with the amount of patching that goes >into some of the posted software. I would much rather wait for a >tested release than be the unintentional beta tester that many people >have become. > >E.g., I would have brought up elm to replace mailx but there was >patch 1, patch 2, ..., patch 7! All in the space of a few weeks. It >might have been the case that elm would have worked fine for me but >this was *not* encouraging! > As one of the Elm Develoment group, I think I should point out that most of those patches were to fix quirks on systems for which it had not been tested on. To my knowledge, none of the patches were of high priority. In fact, the very first was to fix a problem with the documentation that came about in it's original posting. Elm WAS tested, by many people on many systems. Unfortunately, the trouble in making it fully portable is that there are too many systems to take care of. There is always somebody who has some system running some OS that doesn't like Elm. Inevitably, some patches follow for a short time. I believe the same problems will happen when 2.3 is developed, tested, and released. ============================================================================== Brian O'Neill, MS-DOS Software Exchange Coordinator ArpaNet: boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu UUCP: {(backbones),harvard,mit-eddie,et. al.}!ulowell!hawk.ulowell.edu!boneill
bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) (05/17/89)
In article <7866@zodiac.UUCP> dglo@ads.com (Dave Glowacki) writes:
: Yeah! I mean, I pay good money for all this softw....
:
: Ummm...Never mind
:
: ;-)
Hey didn't you know: the best things in life are free? :-)
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Bill { uunet | novavax } !twwells!billbill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) (05/19/89)
In article <3515@alembic.ACS.COM> csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack) writes:
: >Please folks, if you have to release something that you don't *know*
: >is reasonably tested, note it as a beta. And tell us what *has* been
: >tested.
:
: This is an unrealistic point of view. It is pretty much impossible
: for a developer to test every aspect of even a medium-sized system
: on all the different machines with all the ever-so-slightly-different
: operating systems that you find on the net.
Oh, really? I do it all the time. There are ways to get this right
the first time, ignoring, of course, the inevitable bugs that will
creep into any distribution. If there is one word that describes the
necessary, it is "localize": anything which could be remotely system
dependent gets put in one place.
Most code that doesn't quite work on varying machines, in spite of
effort to make it portable, seems to have the defect of having system
dependencies scattered throughout the code.
: In the case of Elm 2.2, it was usable as it was distributed. The
: patches have been either to accomodate the peculiarities of a
: particular machine or operating system, or to fix relatively minor
: bugs in obscure and little-used parts of the system.
This is what I'm told. However, not being an Elm guru, I have no way
to evaluate the significance of the patches short of spending time I
don't have. Thus I said that the patches were "not encouraging". I
didn't say, because I didn't know, that there was something wrong with
Elm. If I knew, I wouldn't have been discouraged! :-)
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Bill { uunet | novavax } !twwells!bill