2.7 bugs

[David Burgun]

On 9 Mar 2006, at 12:35, Kevin Miller wrote:

> On 9/3/06 11:28, "jbv" <jbv.silences at club-internet.fr> wrote:
>
>>> Anti-aliasing Graphics Engine. Revolution‚s vector graphics
>>> presentation layer is now anti-aliased.
>>> These are super-cool features, but they are not NEEDED,
>>
>> anti-aliased vector graphics were BADLY NEEDED, and I've been
>> begging for it since 2002 or so...
>> In a couple of projects that required high quality graphics I had  
>> to write
>> an external that used 2D openGL to achieve the quality requested by
>> my client. And of course, I wasn't able to charge that client for the
>> development time that happened to be several times more important
>> than using a simple vector graphics tool in Rev (simply because it  
>> was
>> hard to admit that a dev. tool that I described as "the best one  
>> around"
>> didn't feature anti-aliased graphics)...
>>
>> Different needs, different priorities...
>
> I think these two sides of this debate sum it up quite well.  We can't
> please everyone with every release.  I hear what people are saying  
> about
> bugs and stability issues.  At the same time I also know that the vast
> majority of the feedback we have received on this release has been  
> positive.
> Remember that only a percentage of our customers are on this list,  
> and we
> receive a lot of feedback directly too.

In this case he had written an external to handle it, so it was a non- 
problem. Also it wouldn't have been a problem at all if he had either  
used a different development system (one that supported AA) or  
planned to add AA as an external from the start and incorporated the  
cost in his initial costing.

All the new features mentioned in my post are not NEEDED, they may  
make the system more cool and may make it more attractive for a  
developer/user and so increase sales, however as soon as they start  
to develop an application they run into bugs that have been around  
for ages. The result is wasted time and frustration and for a Newbie  
a lack of trust in the system begins to develop, this results in more  
wasted time.

One of the good things about RunRev is that you can easily add to the  
system using External Commands, that way new features can be  
developed and debugged before adding to the system as a whole and it  
allows developers to use RunRev for applications that the "standard"  
system does not support.


> Now that the hard work for this new release cycle is out of the  
> way, we will
> do a series of point releases to fix bugs and provide greater feature
> completeness.

That's really good news and I really hope it happens. I can't help  
thinking that it would have been easier/quicker to fix the bugs if  
new features had not been added. The time to fix "core" bugs is when  
the system is small and when there are fewer developers. The more the  
system grows and the more people it effects the harder it is to get  
things fixed in a timely manner.

> The first of those will smooth out the handful of rough edges
> in 2.7 that have been reported, and then we'll be tackling some  
> other areas
> that have attracted feedback for a longer period of time.

If new features had not been added then there would be no need for  
smoothing and the only people affected by problems would be those  
that were using the new features.

> The first such point release is right around the corner now, so  
> please wait patiently for a
> short while as we get that together.

That's good news too, but I won't be using 2.7 for some time, I've  
been burnt before by "upgrades" that take me back a few steps and  
waste my time. I will wait and see which way the wind blows before  
upgrading.

All the Best
Dave