Time for another LiveCode Global Jam?

[Richard Gaskin]

Peter W A Wood wrote:

> It may be just me but I have noticed two themes growing on the mailing
> lists. The first is the expression of dissatisfaction with the quality
> of LiveCode 7 mainly from people who have a commercial licence (or
> subscription). The second is the number of people who are reluctant to
> move anything which needs to be relied upon to LiveCode 7 especially
> those whose livelihood (or part of it) is dependent on LiveCode. Both
> are completely understandable.
> 
> I see this as quite a chicken and egg situation, people didn’t have the
> time to test LiveCode 7 pre-releases. Now when they give LiveCode 7 a
> try, they come across issues that have a serious effect on them. This
> is turn makes them more reluctant to do further testing and hence
> further delays there intention to move to LiveCode 7.
> 
> Whilst I have no doubt that RunRev’s own testing could be much improved
> and it would be worth their investment of more time into testing, the
> reality seems to be that at this time they are relying on bug reports
> to improve the product quality.
> 
> Personally, I want to see LiveCode progress and, galling though it may
> seem to some, would prefer to put a little effort in to finding bugs
> rather than sit and wait.

> Perhaps you would consider requesting that RunRev organise another 
> Global
> Jam event where the community reports bug and the RunRev team fixes 
> them.
> It might help to built a little more momentum in moving LiveCode 
> forward.

Community testing is of course an important component of the QA process, 
and I'd be happy to help organize another Global Jam focused on testing 
in addition to the ones we're planning for education outreach and other 
focus areas.

While the past testing sprint during the Jam was enormously helpful and 
kinda fun, there's nothing stopping anyone from continuing to test on 
their own.

Many of us do, and those who don't test in v7 seem unlikely to do so 
whether part of a Global Jam or otherwise.

So I'm all for another test-focused Jam, and perhaps after we start the 
new year we can get that ball rolling - Peter, if you have time/interest 
in helping to organize it drop me an email.

In the meantime, I think some of the disappointment stems from differing 
expectations about what "RC" means.

Overall I feel it's fair to say the team is doing a pretty good job at 
addressing show-stoppers as they come in.  But sometimes the less 
critical issues can also be important for many projects, so it may be 
useful for them to consider lowering the threshold for what's considered 
"critical" when moving from DP to RC, to make sure the RCs have the fit 
and finish we need to deploy high-quality apps.

One thing that would be helpful is for me to get a list of critical 
outstanding issues in v7 that are not present in earlier versions; in 
essence, the things that prevent you from moving from 6.x to 7.0.1.

Feel free to email those bug links to me (sorry to sound picky, but if 
you can include the full URL it's MUCH more helpful for me than just the 
bug number), and please try to exercise some restraint over what you 
consider critical.

For example, I had a friend submit such a list to me that included a 
number of non-critical bugs with simple workarounds readily available, 
and even new feature requests never present in any version of LC, 
requiring me to sift through the list to try to discern true 
regressions.

But if any of you have such outstanding regression issues in the RQCC, 
please feel free to send those links to me at the address below and I'll 
see what I can do to help coordinate resolution.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  LiveCode Community Manager
  richard at livecode.org