I hate to take sides, but as a developer of BOTH a full featured PIM and Email software for the Pocket PC that rivals even what Outlook/Entourage have on the desktop - I have to agree with you Frederico.
Yes, bugs do get through and sometimes major ones. We don't have an army of automated PPCs like Microsoft does have of Macs. But at the same time, we also don't release only once every 18 months so that users have to suffer through issues for 18 months. I really do like using Entourage, but there are a LOT of "speedbumps" in the user interface, error handling, and just basic functionality of features for something that should be rock solid. I use IMAP and if I only judged its IMAP support, I'd have to rate it an F. I use Entourage because of its excellent email editor, rules, calendaring, and contacts. Some basic features just do not work or work incorrectly in a way to cause serious productivity issues. An example is the new feature for 2004 - IMAP Server search. The fact that it only took me 5 minutes to experience a major bug causing the feature not to work at all for me for weeks until I found a workaround speaks volumes. The fact that just viewing my Inbox I can see email popping in and out and I have to constantly repair my message box. I would easily give up the new 2004 Project Center for just the ability to have my email list shown to me correctly. Or how about the constant issue of Entourage telling me a message it was going to show is now deleted - when it was the Entourage Junk Mail filter moving the message from the Inbox to the Junk folder? Yes Entourage is a great app, but it came out as a beta quality app. Plain and simple. On 8/16/04 10:00 PM, "Entourage:mac Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Frederico <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:14:43 -0600 > Subject: Re: Making Entourage better > > On 04/08/16 8:51 AM, "John C. Welch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> Done now: Bugs that prevent an advertised feature from functioning as >>> promised or implied are eliminated. Name one sane, reasonable person who >>> would not appreciate that. >> >> Name them all, because so far, I haven't seen it, and I bet I've been using >> E'rage longer than you. > > Well, I can't challenge your last statement, as you've provided no date; no > doubt whenever I bought it, day of release or not, you were using Special > Double Secret Probation private prerelease version, right? Whatever; I was, > and until just recently, using Emailer, which OE Mac and Entourage sure > smell a lot like (making no aspersions here), and just about every version > of OE and each and every patch before Entourage itself. So what. Does length > of use buy one greater authority in defining what is, and is not a problem? > > To the first, I doubt I have seen, or ever will see, thankfully, every show > stopping bug, minor bug or cosmetic bug in the program. That doesn't mean > others, collectively, have not assembled a pretty good list that in my > fantasy financial rebellion would not also be produced. It is my fantasy, > after all. (; > > You do realize that I realize now, as well as when it was written, that such > a collective rebellion is not likely ever going to happen, right? That I was > speaking to a frustration against poor QA, and more to the point, apathetic > acceptance thereof? I only ask, because you've made such a point of > literalizing it. >> >> <poor attempts at personal insults snipped for space and apathy> > > No attempts at personal insults were made; indeed, care was taken to insure > otherwise. If you took anything I said as a an assault on your self-esteem, > my sincere apologies. > >> No...it's not expected. I see nothing in the notification preferences that >> suggest you can turn off all notifications of any kind. In fact, there's no >> control implied or explicit for error alerts. The only alert behavior you >> can control is new mail and sounds. There's no implication whatsoever that >> you can mute error dialogs. > > Fair enough; I stand corrected. I should have looked at the dialog again, > rather than recall my frustration that it should be there, that a similar > pref is there but has no effect, before posting. Would you not agree, > though, that one might expect to find such a preference under the same > 'Notifications' tab? > > For the vote counters, I still strongly support the improvement; I consider > it an oversight in need of address, as the Dock bounce on errors is a > serious CPU killer; it is not merely cosmetic. > >>> And as we all know, if it's of no use to JCW, anyone expecting it to work as >>> advertised is just plain silly, and he'll make a point of telling you that. >> >> Nice try Fred, > > Who is Fred? My Father goes by Fred, but he doesn't subscribe to this list. > Have you met my Father? Very nice man; damn fine soul, even though he swears > by XP. (; > >> but that's not what my point was, nor was it implied as my >> point. > > Gosh, isn't it annoying when someone does that to you? I wonder if anyone > has ever intentionally done that to you to prove a point; to get you to take > some bait you might have left for others? (: > >> My point was, you have this, or appear to have, this idea that the >> things that bother you are so blatantly obvious and necessary that they must >> be fixed first. > > No, I have never claimed they were obvious to everyone; but I have claimed > to have made the advertised channels, as well as they unadvertised channels > aware of them. And I have no trouble making a distinction between cosmetic > issues that are merely annoying, but that I can live with if I must (ref: > icon control lacking; space wasted; more; same thread and others) and > terrible or inconsistent behavior that directly effects and deters > productivity (ref: Spell Check window; Search Options; ON window; more; same > thread). Not sure what is clouding your vision and leaving you any other > appearance, unless you are too pressed for time to thoroughly read and > understand the position of other posters prior to joining in. > >> You also think they can be fixed with nor more effort than >> two days, a single programmer, and a case of jolt. > > Please point out the quote where I said that. Not only did I not say that, > let alone think that, but I never once stated that every critical, or > moderately critical bug can be fixed in two days, Jolt or not. I would > expect such an effort over the whole of Mac Office to take weeks and months, > if not longer. Witness the delay in XP SP2, a publicized effort to squash > bugs and patch holes; publicly expressed reasons for said delays, a giant > marketing effort because the powers that be smelled the auspices of just > such a fantasy rebellion on that side of the fence in the works. > > What I did say is that two bugs -- just two, mind you -- referenced in > another side of this debate could be fixed in fairly short order, and I was > willing to help do it. I'll even provide the Jolt (but make mine Dr. > Pepper). > >> But then, when you don't know all of what's involved, everything's easy. > > And that is indeed what speaks to the overall problem, isn't it? Because the > majority of people have absolutely no idea what is involved in writing a > single line of code, compiling it, testing it, and then adding to it (never > mind the complexities of seed money and bringing it to market) that they > just blindly trust that the marketers and apologists are right, and that > they just have to accept poor quality because best quality is simply > impossible to deliver; that to fix one bug is to assuredly risk a dozen more > created by the fix; that a better product in favor of less features would > take twice as long and cost ten times as much. > > Then there are the people who do know a bit about programming, enough to > know that some bugs, even show stoppers, as well as niggling behavior gaffs, > are truly minor and easy enough to fix, despite the tedium and effort > required to go back to ground zero and validate every function over again -- > at least every function which receives a complaint. And let's not forget > that virtually every software developer has an army of willing, unpaid > testers more than happy to test out their particular areas of focus and > provide adequate feedback in detail well prior to any FC compile. > >> Hell, if you don't know what's involved, going to the moon is simple. > > Oh, if only MS would apply the same rigorous testing, retesting, > submissions, QA, and repeats galore that NASA and its contractors employ. > Sure, Mac Office would cost several thousand dollars, but, oh, the bookshelf > of documentation it would come with! (: > > I even once read an article they participated in wherein they bragged (my > word) about their automated testing labs utilizing dozens(?) of Macs of > nearly every possible or probable configuration to insure quality; that they > had countless people going over and over the software to make sure it was > all up to par. Why then, do so many glaring omissions and errors make it > past the gate? Sigh. It's just the way of things, I guess. Perhaps it is > because people become too close to the project to see clearly that which is > obvious to everyone else. It's certainly true with many other things; in my > own experience, in coding, scripting, as well as writing, one becomes blind > to errors obvious to others; typos, GUI mistakes, et al, are all inevitable > as part of the human process. Again, this is why we employ editors, > proofreaders and beta testers. Then there are the beta testers who pay you > by buying your defective product; all you need do is actually take advantage > of their time and effort. > >> The AppleScript slowdown maddens the HELL out of me, along with the alert >> dialog. But I am not even close to being so delusional that I think everyone >> thinks it's a major problem. Not everyone uses applescript, not everyone >> minds an error window. I also don't think that everything I don't like is a >> bug. > > Who does? I know I made a *specific* point of stressing at least the former > as a *feature* addition to which I favored, as well as you. While I did not > stress the same on the latter, I named it an expected behavior, which is > very different from a bug. But you already knew that. > >> Oh really...it's unethical? So you are now saying that MS is deliberately, >> and with forethought and planning, deceiving you. > > There you go again, putting words in my mouth. Please go back and reread my > clearly qualified assertion of the level of ethics involved. One is not > necessarily guilty of intentional deceit or contractual default until one is > put on notice of issue, and such issue is verifiable. Both qualifications > have been met here. Is it still intentional? Not at all likely specifically > at any level, of course; I'm neither a conspiracist nor paranoid; but in > practical result, the offense is still clear. > >> Again, you have yet to >> make a case for this with anything resembling proof, so I'll guess your >> annoyance is blinding you. > > I'm not sure what is blinding you to the contrary that is fact, that others > have already supported in this same thread and other threads, as well as > privately, but, I do have my suspicions that it has something to do with > contrariness for contrariness sake. (: I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm > wrong. > >> I do like E'rage a lot. But at the end of the day, it's just an email/PIM >> app. If it pisses you off that badly, then there's got to be something else >> out there. Nothing on a computer is worth the anger and frustration I see >> here. > > I suppose that assessment isn't entirely unfair; after all, as with most > people and most products, you rarely see one spend the time to enumerate all > the joy and productivity a product might bring on a daily basis. But, then > again, productivity, if not joy, is expected of a product such as this, > isn't it? One can pretty safely presume that if a customer is not > complaining, *and* that customer buys from you again, that the customer is > probably happy, for the most part, with your product. Not to say you > shouldn't take the time to check in with your silent customer base to make > sure it's the truth, mind you. > > Then there's the people who do express frustrations, on varying levels; > sometimes because that is a reflection of their personality, and sometimes > it's commensurate with their personal investment in the product and its > place in their work or living space. I've already made more than adequate > qualifications that mine is, at least for the greatest part, the latter. One > can rarely ever claim to be totally dispassionate in anything one is not > being paid to do; I will not pretend otherwise. > >> Well, there's a lot of things that a lot of people have wanted for years. >> But you don't get to, even as a developer, (something I did once for a few >> years at the enterprise level, and never again) fix the bugs that you want >> to fix. Esp. when you aren't a small squad of independent devs who can base >> everything off of a list developed by you and your customers. When you work >> for a company Dilbertian in scope, you don't even live in the same galaxy as >> the priority setters. > > But then again, the MacBU is often publicized as being relatively small, > relatively independent of the mother ship (something you state implicitly > yourself in this very thread), aware and responsive to their customers > feedback, and absolutely committed to bringing the best possible products to > the Mac. My intent is to help them meet that stated set of goals. > >> I wonder what would happen if customers were willing to wait for this >> perfection and pay for it? There's two sides to that coin. > > Yes, indeed. I long to see the results of just such an experiment with this > particular product line. It has worked time and time again with other > products. I have great faith in this venue that both sides would win; at > worse, MacBU would make no less profit than they do now, but would stand > head and shoulders above all, legitimately proud of doing the right thing > for the right reasons. > >> And who requests the features? The people writing the checks. > > And who requests the quality? > >> Name ten features you'd be willing to remove from E'rage to get the ten >> things you want that aren't working the way you'd like. > > Interesting challenge. I'll put some thought into it when I have time. Of > course, your predictable response is what I don't need and am willing to > forgo will make someone else unhappy, even though that is not the stated > premise of your challenge. Tell you what, get me the list of new features on > track for the next release or update of Entourage, their allocated man > hours, versus an allocation report of my top ten bug and behavior fixes, and > I'll make the hard choices then. I'll even go that one better: as stated in > another post, I'll invest real sweat equity, directly or in kind, to defray > the costs of any of my personal top ten. > >> the MacBU is [...] small [...] has to remain a cash cow. If it suddenly gets >> unprofitable because it's trying to double the number of programmers, then >> maybe it no longer makes business sense to do another version of Office. > > I'd like to see proof that fixing bugs requires doubling programmers. I > assert that dropping one bold new feature, or lessening its scale or scope, > is more than sufficient in trade for going back over and polishing any > number of existing features. Admittedly, and as a developer you can verify > this, the delta that exists between effort executing raw code to attack a > particular task and making that feature squeaky clean and a gaggle of GUI > goodness is extreme, to say the least; one can easily spend ten times as > long obsessing about finer points of interface detail as one does whipping > out enough lines to get the job done in ugly-ass style, but that's just a > part of the process one must accept and overcome, of one is to leave the > user with an impression of excellence cum value received. > > Thanks for a (generally) more to point, interesting discussion. I hope that > you will take greater effort to discern my intent at a productive > conversation that makes a better product for all of us. > > Kind Regards, > > Frederico -- Alex Kac President and Founder Web Information Solutions, Inc. http://www.PocketInformant.com http://www.MindFortress.com Innovation In Business and Personal Information Management "It is useless for sheep to pass a resolution in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion." -- William Randolph Inge -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
