Memory Leak on export png????

[Richard Gaskin]

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
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com