Dave wrote:
If I were selling a product like RunRev and I did not have the
resources to test it on all the Platforms it shipped on, then I would
say that in all my advertising and on my web site etc. etc. etc. What
I wouldn't do is to not say a word anywhere and continue to advertise
like all platforms are fully tested. To me that is dishonest and
unprofessional.
I suppose it would be, but that has nothing to do with what I wrote.
Let me refresh your memory:
I'm glad you recognize that it's up to us to test
the specific implementations we use Rev for. The
combinatorial explosion of all possible uses would
make it impossible for RunRev to do that.
I never said Rev doesn't test on the platforms they deploy to. That's
just silly. I said that it's not possible to test the nearly infinite
variety of things that can be done with a tool so flexible.
Only the most trivial applications make it possible for the vendor to
test all possible uses firsthand.
My WebMerge product has a modest 5GL with fewer than two dozen tokens,
and yet even with that the combinatorial explosion means that only a
subset are able to be tested here before release. All others rely on
Beta testing. Since our support costs are less than a fourth of
industry average we must be doing something right, but still from time
to time we have valid bug reports come on from customers for scenarios
we hadn't tested. My recent thread on the "token" token came from one,
but it's worth noting that the bug hadn't been evidenced in any
real-world workflow for more than five years.
Imagine how disappointed my customers would be if I held back the
benefits my software delivers while I attempt to test all possible usage
scenarios.
The same goes with any software.
Your comment about expecting payment for testing was equally snarky:
RunRev can help by having Beta cycles whose length is more in
keeping with industry norms, but the actual testing can't be done
by them; there are just too many possibilities.
I'd be happy to test it for them. How much are they paying?
If you pay all of your Beta testers please let us know the URL for your
products so some of the folks here can help out with that. It might
even be helpful for the rest of us, as I'm sure there's much we can all
learn from uncommonly successful products built with such unusually high
standards.
More commonly software publishers rely on volunteer Beta testers. Many,
myself included, also pay professionals for specific types of testing
during the Beta phase, but the bulk of workflow testing in real-world
scenarios happens at volunteer Beta sites.
Over the last 20 years I've been a beta tester for companies bigger and
smaller than Rev, including Adobe, Oracle, Microsoft, and a dozen
others, and not one of them ever suggested they might pay beta testers.
Which companies gave you the impression that it's in any way
conventional to expect payment for beta testing?
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
___________________________________________________________
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com
_______________________________________________
use-revolution mailing list
use-revolution@lists.runrev.com
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
