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Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland


2005-03-16 10:40:43 AM
delphi107
Will DeWitt Jr. writes:
Quote
I really hope there's an Update 3 in the pipeline to address the final
few showstoppers left.
What showstoppers.
--
Nick Hodges -- TeamB
Lemanix Corporation -- www.lemanix.com
Read my Blog -- www.lemanix.com/nick
 
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

Quote

That sounds incorrect. Delphi 7 is a 3-5 year old product, if you're
comparing it that way.

If you say Delphi 7 is a 10 yr old product, then you should also say D2005
is at least 10 yrs old.
Yeah, but where Delphi 7 just added features and tweaks to the existing D6
product, D2005 is probably at least a 50% rewrite with existing code being
thrown out and replaced. Of course some of the code would have been reused,
ie Win32 compiler, VCL, but the IDE is probably the most complicated part of
the product and it is a brand spanker.
--
Get Folio First - www.h3k.biz
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

On 15 Mar 2005 12:14:41 -0800, "Craig Stuntz [TeamB]"
<XXXX@XXXXX.COM [a.k.a. acm.org]>writes:
Quote
Company which is creating SDO is adopting it internally before
releasing it. What is so wrong with that? In fact, is there any good
alternative that you can think of?
Obviously they'll have to adopt to it before they can start creating
it. Hellooo...
- Asbjørn
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

On 15 Mar 2005 17:08:08 -0800, "Will DeWitt Jr."
<XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes:
Quote
Jake's comment may be
irresponsible, but releasing a flawed product is even more so. Note
here that I am not saying products should be *flawless*, but if you
*know* of critical bugs, that is a whole different story
I have no trouble with understanding that they release a product with
known bugs in it. At some point they have to take a decision, should
they halt the entire release process to allow more dev/qa time, or
should they proceed and release.
I'm pretty certain there's a whole machinery involved in releasing a
product such as Delphi, and I am pretty certain that this machinery
can't be put on hold for an arbitrary amount of time and arbitrary
amount of times, without affecting cost and reliability of the
release.
I think they were a bit optimistic when it came to the amount of
dev/qa time neede for delphi 2005, but not very far off the mark.
At least it seems we wont have to wait years to get a new patch, a
very big improvement indeed I must say.
- Asbjørn
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

Nick Hodges [TeamB] wrote in <42379cab$XXXX@XXXXX.COM>:
Quote
>I really hope there's an Update 3 in the pipeline to address the
>final few showstoppers left.

What showstoppers.
The two where the IDE just stops responding altogether eating up 100%
of the CPU, and the other where an error dialog pops up repeatedly
chewing through memory until I finally get fed up and end the IDE's
task.
This is all with the presumption that Borland /knows/ about these bugs
which seems to be the line coming out of Borlanders.
Will
--
Want native support in Delphi for AMD64/EM64T? Vote here--
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Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

Lord Crc wrote in <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>:
Quote
I have no trouble with understanding that they release a product with
known bugs in it. At some point they have to take a decision, should
they halt the entire release process to allow more dev/qa time, or
should they proceed and release.
Yes, I agree, but the claim is that Borland knew of some/many of these
bugs prior to shipping the product. That, IMO, is irresponsible of
them. I don't think software companies should be encouraged to release
software that for all intents and purposes is simply not ready for
public consumption.
Quote
I'm pretty certain there's a whole machinery involved in releasing a
product such as Delphi, and I am pretty certain that this machinery
can't be put on hold for an arbitrary amount of time and arbitrary
amount of times, without affecting cost and reliability of the
release.
I'll agree to costs, but reliability is the heart of the issue being
discussed-- if delays were allowed to fix these problems then I don't
see how that could harm reliability.
Quote
At least it seems we wont have to wait years to get a new patch, a
very big improvement indeed I must say.
100% agreed, I am very pleased with this new push towards more frequent
and numerous updates. With that being said, I hope Update 2 isn't the
end of the road or I will be very disappointed given the progress that's
been made in restoring my faith WRT updates/patches.
Will
--
Want native support in Delphi for AMD64/EM64T? Vote here--
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Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

John,
With post like this, I think you are damaging the Borland blogging
community. I read the Bauer Blog before your post and serveral times after.
I never got that impression nor did I make any inference to the quality of
D2005. IF, Borland management got wind of this they COULD decided that the
whole blogging idea is bad and they COULD make a company policy against it.
Which would be bad.
Anyway, just be careful.
Peace
Edwin Walker
"John Jacobson" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
Quote
blogs.borland.com/abauer/archive/2005/03/14/3075.aspx

Interesting regarding help desk outsourcing. JK recently mentioned that
the
web site stuff had recently been outsourced, hence the release of Update
#2
without devrel knowing about it.

BTW, I know Bauer probably can not comment on this, but I have suspected that
Borland has outsourced their Delphi *QA* for the past few years, because
of
the much lower quality of Borland releases since D7.

Outsourcing to incompetents is usually a sign of desparate cost-cutting
replacing rational profit-maximization. it is a short-term myopia that
suggests to me that wihle Dale might have been the right man to turn
Borland
around, that doesn't mean he is necessarily the right man to sustain it in
the long haul.


 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

Quote
I'll agree to costs, but reliability is the heart of the issue being
discussed-- if delays were allowed to fix these problems then I don't
see how that could harm reliability.
It comes down to how big a delay you can get and what you do in that
time. If you have time to fix a bug but not do the QA on the fix, should
you include the fix? It might not work, or it might cause more problems
than it fixes.
This whole thing about reliability and why there are bugs has been
discussed many time before. it is always a question of balance. People
would complain if it was a long time until the next release and it was
only bug fixes (remember the Delphi 7 release? <g>). People complain if there
are too many new features and not enough bug fixes (remember every other
release? <g>). Sometimes the same people are complaining.
We've had explanations about release dates and how they can not be changed
very easily, and how they have to be decided months in advance. Borland
have to guess how much time everything (fixes and features) will take.
Sometimes things don't go to plan, I guess. Annoying for all concerned,
but if they get it wrong all they can really do is go the patches route.
Cheers,
Jim Cooper
__________________________________________
Jim Cooper XXXX@XXXXX.COM
Tabdee Ltd www.tabdee.ltd.uk
TurboSync - Connecting Delphi to your Palm
__________________________________________
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

Whatever excuse is given for shipping a broken product, in the end,
it's still just an excuse. Quite frankly if there's some issue with
lack of resources I expect Borland to increase funding to the areas
which lack said resources. In this case it is painfully obvious that the
people in QA either need more help or need new staff because the ball
was dropped with D2005. Patches are great, but that the product shipped
with this many bugs is pretty stunning.
D2005 is easily the buggiest version (in so far as IDE instability,
etc) ever. I hope that D2005 manages to keep that crown from now on.
Will
--
Want native support in Delphi for AMD64/EM64T? Vote here--
qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

"Nick Hodges [TeamB]" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
<42379c83$XXXX@XXXXX.COM>
Quote
John Jacobson writes:

>Suspicions are not beliefs (well, mine aren't anyway).

I never said they were. ;-)

And /don't/ try to say you weren't speculating. ;-)
Of course I was speculating. If I thought I was dispensing facts, I'd not
have labeled them "suspicions".
Speculations can be wrong, and in this case it seems this speculation was
wrong, which is a very good thing. However, I still stand by my opinion that
Dale is probably no longer the right person to lead Borland, because it is
obvious to me that Delphi 8 and D2005 were released before they were fully and
properly QA'd, and this is reminiscent of the Pizzaman daze.
--
***Free Your Mind***
Posted with JSNewsreader-BETA 0.9.4.449
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

Captain Jake writes:
Quote
Of course I was speculating. If I thought I was dispensing facts, I
would not have labeled them "suspicions".
Right, and hence I labeled your speculations as irresponsible.
Quote
However, I still stand by my opinion that
Dale is probably no longer the right person to lead Borland, because
it is obvious to me that Delphi 8 and D2005 were released before they were
fully and properly QA'd, and this is reminiscent of the Pizzaman
daze.
Fine, but that doesn't change my view of the irresponsibility of your
statements, and the irresponsibility of the subject line you chose.
--
Nick Hodges -- TeamB
Lemanix Corporation -- www.lemanix.com
Read my Blog -- www.lemanix.com/nick
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

Will DeWitt Jr. writes:
Quote
The two where the IDE just stops responding altogether eating up 100%
of the CPU, and the other where an error dialog pops up repeatedly
chewing through memory until I finally get fed up and end the IDE's
task.
I never get that.
What are the QC numbers for these?
--
Nick Hodges -- TeamB
Lemanix Corporation -- www.lemanix.com
Read my Blog -- www.lemanix.com/nick
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

"Nick Hodges [TeamB]" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
Quote
Captain Jake writes:

>Of course I was speculating. If I thought I was dispensing facts, I
>would not have labeled them "suspicions".

Right, and hence I labeled your speculations as irresponsible.
How can a suspicion or speculation be "irresponsible"? Saying something is
true when it is not, or is unproven, or stating a suspicion that was recntly
discredited by contrary proof, that is irresponsible. But saying what one
guesses or suspects on a topic for which no information was actually
available is very much like a statement of opinion.
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

"John Jacobson" wrote
Quote
How can a suspicion or speculation be "irresponsible"?
Context--specifically non-tech. The locals here stampede easily.
bobD
 

Re: Desparate Cost-cutting at Borland

John Jacobson writes:
Quote
How can a suspicion or speculation be "irresponsible"?
Well, okay, let's be pedants.
The suspicion itself is not irresponsible.
The /act/ of voicing your suspicion was, in my opinion, irresponsible.
Quote
But saying what one
guesses or suspects on a topic for which no information was actually
available is very much like a statement of opinion.
So if I have some outrageous suspicions about your personal
proclivities regarding the lawn furniture and vegetable oil, based
purely on speculation and opinion, it would be perfectly responsible
for me to voice them here with an unfounded subject line?
Come on, Jake.
--
Nick Hodges -- TeamB
Lemanix Corporation -- www.lemanix.com
Read my Blog -- www.lemanix.com/nick