"convert it to seconds" & "Philosophy"

[simplsol at aol.com]

Hi Heather,
 It's nice to know someone IS listening.
 The response I was hoping for was something like this:
  "Yes, Mr. Looney, we are aware of this date/time problem from all of 
the other posts on the discussion group and bugzilla. We, too consider 
it serious and have dispatched the resources to fix it promptly. 
Estimated completion is tentatively scheduled for 7:13 pm GMT on May 
17th of this year. We'd like to thank you, and all of the other people 
who brought this to our attention. We are committed to making Rev the 
best X-talk RAD in the history of civilized mankind. Thank you, again. 
Heather"
 OK, that was probably too much to hope for... ;-)
  I agree, in general, that bugzilla is the place for bugs. I only two 
problems with the bugzilla approach:
  1. It seems to have turned into a celestial black hole, where things 
go in but do not come out. Don't misunderstand, the upgrades from 
Version 1 to 2, and 2 to 2.5 were very helpful. But there are critical 
items (like reliable dates) that have not been addressed in all of 
these versions over all of these years.
 2. A lot of bugs do not get the votes they should.
  The date/time problem is a good example: people can write, test, and 
sell programs with date/time math that appear to work properly - until 
daylight savings time changes. They won't vote because they don't know 
they have a (serious) problem.
  Another non-voting group is the newbies who try Rev. and, before they 
can be impressed with the vast capacity, easy access, awesome speed, 
etc., they're gone forever because of their experience with the tables, 
menus, documentation, etc. - and, of course, they don't vote.
  Bugzilla is geared toward assisting the veteran Rev. programmer - not 
making Rev. more marketable to (the vital) new users. Many times on the 
list new users have observed the Rev. seems to be a beta product rather 
than a shipping program. I can see why they say this, there are design 
and usability issues beyond what one would expect when moving to a new 
programming environment. These do not get put into bugzilla because we 
veterans have learned to work around them. Some of us take a perverse 
pride in knowing obscure, undocumented, non-intuitive workarounds, 
mentioned on the list 8 to 10 months ago. None of these receive votes 
but they limit sales. And sales of Rev. are important to all users of 
Rev.
  If there was an interest, I could list the top ten items I believe are 
costing Rev. customers, items that may not have many bugzilla votes. Is 
there an interest?

  And last, "philosophy". I usually disagree with everything Richmond 
posts. I certainly do not see any long-term benefit from open sourcing 
Rev. I do like the idea of a free introductory product. But, beyond 
that, I like the idea and the experience of open discussion enjoyed on 
this list. We tend to learn more from those we disagree with anyway. As 
long as discussions are conducted with civility, propriety, and decorum 
please let them continue (under the watchful eyes of the 
ever-supportive listmom).
 Paul Looney

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Heather Nagey <heather at runrev.com>
 To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
 Sent: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:40:03 +0100
 Subject: Re: Problem with "convert it to seconds"

 > I hope someone in Scotland is listening to us...

 > Paul Looney
  We listen. Sometimes we even respond... And if the discussion gets out 
of
 hand I'll pop up and look stern :)

  But, and you can all sing along with me here ladies and gentlemen, if 
you
 want action, you need to post it to bugzilla:

 http://support.runrev.com/bugzilla

  This is your list, we observe but we do not intervene very often, and 
you
  should not assume that items reported here will make it onto the 
engineering
 fix list.

 And by the way, I'd like to congratulate everyone present on the
  fascinating, excellent and mature discussion sparked by what was 
potentially
  a very inflammatory post on "philosophy". As you all know, wine, 
cheese and
  politics are off topic and frowned on, we can now add philosophy to 
that
 list :)

 Warm regards

 Heather
 Sometimes listmom, always supportive
 --

  ** For a faster response to all licensing, support, and technical 
issues,
 please now send mail to support at runrev.com **

 Heather Nagey ~ heather at runrev.com ~ http://www.runrev.com/
 Runtime Revolution - User-Centric Development Tools
 Tel +44 (0) 870 747 1165 Fax +44 (0) 845 4588487
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