6.5 Problem

[Richard Gaskin]

Peter Haworth wrote:

 >> On Nov 27, 2013 5:03 PM, "Richard Gaskin" wrote:
 >>
 >> Did it work in the last RC?
 >
 > Don't know,  I don't touch RC releases unless they include a bug fix
 > or feature that interests me

Well, looks like it got your attention now. :)

FWIW, you're not alone in finding issues post-release with this version.

With 6.1.3 released only very recently and with Kevin's note that he 
expected a long RC cycle with 6.5, I put most of my testing effort into 
6.1.3.  But I did so with the understanding that if I find anything in 
6.5 I may have to skip a version and wait for 6.5.x or 6.6 instead.

Having multiple test releases simultaneously is generally a very good 
thing, but one of the reasons I've been such a curmudgeon about the 
labeling of them is what we're seeing now, and it boils down to a form 
of tester fatigue.

When a build is labeled "Developer Preview" I consider it optional.  I 
may or may not spend much time with it as I know things are very much in 
flux, and what time I do spend with it is on exploring new features.

But when a build is labeled "Release Candidate" that communicates to me 
that it's quite literally a candidate for release, that the team has 
finished all the new features and addressed every bug they and the early 
testers could find, and it's now my job to drop what I'm doing and run 
my app with it to make sure there are no regressions.

If a Release Candidate isn't quite yet a candidate for release, the 
communicative value of the label is lost, testers slack off, and bug 
discovery winds up deferred post-release.

Apparently I'm not the only one who slacked off on late-stage testing 
with 6.5, but it's at least understandable because there was little 
indication of what late-stage meant after we'd seen so many months of 
builds labeled "Release Candidate".

And in all fairness to RunRev, the optimism surrounding the 6.5 cycle 
isn't unique to them, or even to that build:

One of the oldest adages in the software world, going back to my 
earliest days of buying software back in the mid-80s, is that if any 
package is labeled dot-oh or dot-five you can expect bugs to be 
discovered after release, and the dot-dot version that inevitably 
follows is the one you'll be using for real work. :)

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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