Message-ID: From: Robert Humphris To: "'djgpp AT delorie DOT com'" , "'tudor AT cam DOT org'" , "'Danny Boy'" , "'Justin'" , "'Neil'" , "'Paul'" To: "'Phil'" , "'Rod'" , "'Steff'" , "'stew AT home'" , "'Surfing Man'" Subject: RE: Beta and Alpha Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 10:03:26 +0100 Encoding: 96 TEXT Precedence: bulk >Michael M. wrote: >> >> I hear about beta and alpha software. What is the difference, if any, >> between the two? Is it the stage in the development process? The software engineering process follows several process stages... You have the stage of feasibility study, this is where a set of test programs prove that something is possible the managers and accountants then drag their heels until another company ( like the one I work for ) brings the full product to market. Then the design stage, where people sit around in meeting rooms dragging out each point of the design aspect so that they don't have to do any 'real' work apart from drink coffee, argue pedantically about minor points of functionality etc. and occasionally read their office mail. The next stage is that of the system development, engineers will fly into a frenzy writing code or designing odd looking bits of electronic equipment, for hours on end. They will work 12 hour days and walk round the place being extremely rude and obtuse,( because they are working so hard )... throughout this stage there will be phase reviews where the following points will be raised Management: It is all taking too long, and there are not enough Engineers pulling their weight Marketing: It is all taking too long, our potential customers are losing interest, and possible market shares are being lost on a daily basis Accounts: It is all taking too long, and costing too much Engineering: There is not enough time to do it all, and anyway the product is crap as it has not been designed properly and everybody is working so hard, can they get overtime pay/ a raise? Eventually a product is rushed out for some fictional deadline, this is the ALPHA stage. ALPHA software is shaky at best, and only released by the engineers to 'show' the others what happens if you mess them around. ALPHA software is sent to the QA ( Quality Assurance ) Team for testing and bug finding, it will almost certainly be rejected within the first hour of being assessed. Engineering will then turn to the 'others' snarling at them saying that this is exactly what happens when you rush things, and that because of their meddling they will now go over deadline by at least a month. After at least 20 unsuccessful attempts, the QA department will authorise the ALPHA software for testing. They will return a huge bug report, as if their job hinged on purely the volume that they produced. Often the bugs will have nothing to do with the ALPHA software its self, faults like 'Windows crashes' will be reported, the fact that the ALPHA stuff was not running at the time has nothing to do with it... a bug is a bug and its their job to report them. Using the bug report, the engineers rip their software to pieces, screw the functionality, and put massive bug ridden fixes in their functions just to get rid of this crap piece of software, they will then start to loose what little interest in the project that they have, and start lobbying managers of other projects that look more interesting. It is at this point that one of the engineers, who considers his or her self to be 'key' to the whole project threatens to leave, they meet no opposition and go, vowing that "this will show them exactly who is vital here", their absence goes completely un-noticed, and the project finally passes through to BETA stage BETA software is distributed to customers who are BETA Testers. To become a BETA tester you have to ask the producers of a company if you can be one. They will say yes and you have to sign an NDA ( non disclosure agreement ) which means something or other. The software you then receive will be fundamentally crap, and as a BETA tester it is your job to tell them. The company will ignore your protestations unless you are a really big customer. If at least 20% of the BETA testers do not complain too much the product will be released and fail. Management will blame the engineers, Marketing will blame the engineers, Accounts will blame the engineers, and the Engineers will blame Management, Marketing and Accounts, but will be happy to be rid of that crap project. I hope this clears up any of the confusion that some of you may have had. Oh yes, in case you are interested I was the engineer who left vowing that "this will show them exactly who is vital here", it did not, but at least I am now working for a company where the above don't happen! Rob Humphris r DOT humphris AT indigo-avs DOT com And I state for the record: The views printed above are solely those of the author, if you wish to share in them go ahead. >