Board index » delphi » CodeGear and Beta Testing

2006-11-20 03:10:08 PM
delphi208
What will be the CodeGear strategy around beta testing?
Will it still be a "closed" group or will there be more widespread
public testing (or maybe limited to Delphi Developers)?
Personally I'd like to see a more open strategy regarding beta
testing prior to release.
--
 

Joanna Carter [TeamB] writes:
to be incompatable with release versions? Time limit for IDE? Maybe
even add stubs to generated exe's to limit their use. One can also
require a registered version of BDS (or Turbo Pro) to be installed for
IDE to work.
Regardsless, I feel some for of Beta testing whereby lost of users can
install different combo's of third party components and test with their
own large and small projects can prove very valuable.
--
 

"Francois Malan" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>a écrit dans le
message de news: XXXX@XXXXX.COM...
| Will it still be a "closed" group or will there be more widespread
| public testing (or maybe limited to Delphi Developers)?
Seeing as the only Delphi Developers of BDS are, in theory, in a position to
crack and supply illegal downloads of the full product, how would you
envisage ensuring that only Delphi Developers were able to participate in a
"Delphi Developers only" beta test ?
Borland even found one "closed" beta posted on a Chinese file-sharing server
!!!
No matter how generous you are to your real customers, it seems there is
always someone who wants to spoil the party by "biting the hand that feeds
them" :-(
Joanna
--
Joanna Carter [TeamB]
Consultant Software Engineer
 

Francois Malan writes:
being tested isn't what's going to be shipped, and if it isn't trivial
to do, I'd rather see R&D time spent on R&D rather than making a
deliberately incompatible format that (hopefully) behaves identically
to the one that will be shipped.
conferences. I would be curious to hear how many of these people installed
the products, tested their own projects and third party components
(everyone buys with source, right?) and made useful and relevant bug
reports. If it was a large number, then that could help support your
point. Otherwise...
--
Regards,
Bruce McGee
Glooscap Software
 

great for marketing.
--
Eivind Bakkestuen
Nexus Database Systems Pty Ltd
 

Surely you're doing it for sound business reasons, namely:
1/ getting useful feedback on bugs and other issues
2/ advanced marketing of the product
Isn't it equally us who are "generous" by installing and testing half-baked
(by definition) code for you?
Thack
 

"Francois Malan" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
beta-quality standard. The initial release + update 1 of D2006 was only beta
quality. The current status of D2006 with all updates and hotfixes so far is
still only up to release-candidate quality.
Unless CodeGear aim for the quality of the initial release of Delphi 2007 to be at
least 'Release Candidate' standard any beta will be a complete waste of
time. Maybe I am old-fashioned but my notion of a 'beta' is that the addition
of features has been frozen, internal QA has been completed and all
reproducible bugs have been fixed. All that remains is to iron out any
wrinkles caused by unpredictable use in unpredicatable environments that are
encountered in the field as opposed to a controlled lab environment.
Anything less is an alpha or a 'tech preview' (like D8).
CodeGear are making all the right noises - I only hope they live up to their
promise.
 

Eivind Bakkestuen writes:
 

 

Joanna Carter [TeamB] writes:
This is the view on beta testers? Aren't beta testers helping the
company out, not the other way around? Or is beta testing not seen as
something worthwhile and just something to appease customers? Does the
company not benefit from beta programs?
 

huge resources to manage to process and to extract the small amounts of
useful information that closed beta testers don't find. This is worth it
for Vista because of the large and varied amount of environments it
needs to support.
 

Diego writes:
*and then use their access as a means of producing hacked versions for
pirate distribution*. Nothing was said against any other beta testers.
--
Wayne Niddery - Winwright, Inc (www.winwright.ca)
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes
heroes." - Benjamin Disraeli
 

Not to mention the free marketing MS gets from the Open Betas.
- Nate.
"Craig" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes

Wayne Niddery [TeamB] writes:
regular programming...
 

Nathaniel L. Walker writes:
having an open beta.