On Tuesday 23 January 2001 08:56, you wrote:
> Howdy, Chris:
>
> [ . . . ]
>
> > If you read the blurb on the RT site you'll realise it's not
> > aimed at developers, or even end users for that matter. It's
> > aimed at managers, pen-pushers and admin people who pay more
> > attention to how many buzzwords there are in a sentance than
> > the specifications of the product.
>
> That blurb may be aimed at those people (people who pay for
> software). But that doesn't mean REBOL is necessarily aimed
> that way! RT loves happy, healthy, productive, and faithful
> developerz!! (-: To that end we're working on getting out
> another CORE release here very shortly. ETA: an epsilon + a
> delta added to a fractional portion of a short while.
>
> This next CORE release has so many gazillion fixes and
> improvements over 2.3-- it ain't even funny.
>
> [ . . . ]
>
> > There are sound business reasons for expiration dates in
> > beta software. IMO the big "problem" is that RT are so
> > careful in releasing fairly well programmed betas that
> > people forget that they are testing incomplete, possibly
> > buggy code rather than the finished product.
>
> Well said. We also need to make some changes between these
> betas that break scripts occasionally. We usually only do
> this in the interests of elegance, longevity, and that sort
> of thing, but it's still been an important option for us to
> keep open. Hence the "experimental" title of our betas.
>
> We probably won't have a new VIEW to release by the beta
> expiry of the current view, so we'll do as we have twice
> before and renew the expiration of the binaries on the
> experimental page, have people redownload their REBOL, with
> many thank-yous to everyone for their enduring patience.
>
> Believe me, we want to release software, but we really don't
> want to release stuff that's not polished to a superior
> perfection.
>
> -jeff
Superior perfection? Give me a break. REBOL is a piece of code and like all
code has bugs and is incomplete. It comes with the territory. The only
difference between 'beta' code and 'production' code is in the name. Chris
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> argues that because the ignorant will
think less of the product because it doesn't perform perfectly it should be
crippled.
So REBOL may have a bug which I run across. I deal with it. I find the
point of failure and write the code differently or what not. I've already
had to do this. Or, as Jeff says, I may have to rewrite for a new version.
In this case, I can (or *should* be able to) upgrade at my convenience. But
when the tool *does* work the last thing I need is for it to suddenly stop
working and having to implement an interim solution.
I only found out this week on this list that you could query REBOL for it's
expiration date. Is the 'beta-expiration-date' word described in a document
somewhere that I missed?
We don't need to be protected from ourselves. If I choose to use a beta
version and it works, why should it suddenly stop working at some arbitrary
date? The *only* people I can imagine who would benefit from expiration is
technical support, who wouldn't have to field questions about why feature 'A'
documented in the latest manual doesn't work on the year old beta 'B'. But
that's what technical support is for. The proper solution here is education,
not termination. Beta expiration has no value for me.
-Karl Robillard
Still waiting for REBOL/Source ;)
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