On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Dave Fitch wrote:
> > It worries me that they've use the term "preview release". This
> > implies that they're beyond beta - perhaps they should have defined
> > it as a "beta preview release". They're getting a fair bit of heat
> > for this, as most downloaders expect to see beta quality.
>
> do they? I don't, I expect beta software to be mostly usable
> but still fairly buggy. It's ridiculous now the way everyone
> releases a "beta version".
>
> All these people using "beta" versions of everything (from
> netscape to lose2000) are reporting all bugs they find of course?
> Cos that's the point of beta versions.
(My opinion below, do not read if you don't want to hear it :P)
As a software developer myself, I believe in the following:
-
Pre-Alpha: NOT releasable (ie. on website or announced on Freshmeat)
Things very broken, start of a program, features are half implemented.
-
Alpha: Source code/program can now be released, but NOT announced.
Program can be used, but not all the features are finished/implemented
yet. Things may be dodgy as the program has not been tested in all
situations.
-
Beta/Devel: Now can be announced on Freshmeat / other software archives
Program has all the initial features you wanted to be in it, and these
have been tested in the alpha for little while now. Appears to be fairly
stable.
-
Release/Stable: Do what you like, make it available to be put on CD, etc
Program has been in beta for some time, and is verified as stable.
--
Although there are a few variations to the above, I believe it's quite an
appropriate little guideline. Programs should never re-enter alpha,
unless you do something very major, and should at least be a full version
increment. ie. 4.01 beta becomes 5.0 alpha, not 4.02 alpha. If it's such
a big change that it needs to go back into alpha development, then it
should be worthy of a new version number.
Andrew.
Programmer of AndyChat - which you haven't heard about yet because it's
only just nearing the end of the Alpha stage :) It's a console IRC client
written in Perl which will eventually have support for a lot more than IRC
:) It's main advantage over other console chat programs is that it has a
sideview userlist like GUI chat clients.
And to contradict myself again, here's a URL :)
http://www.secret.com.au/progs/andychat/
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux Users Group Mailing List - http://www.slug.org.au
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe in the text
