In a recent article, Wired addresses the idea of “perpetual beta” cycles. It applies to all software, but browsers especially. A closer look follows.
More and more companies are releasing software and online services that seem to be mired in a perpetual beta-testing state, leaving users to wonder what it takes to get to a version 1.0. Many developers and users say the constant tweaking is a dangerous trend. By Daniel Terdiman. (read full article @ Wired.com
That always gets me with the folks who want to say “Well you can’t criticize Firefox, it’s only beta.” Well, yeah, beta for software that’s been developed for ages now.
Developing software like Firefox is tricky, though, because there’s little value (that I can see) in saying “This is a finished release.” The one thing they don’t want is someone who finds a version they like and stops upgrading. Things are changing too much to have folks left behind. I mean, it’s not like someone using Firefox 0.8 a year from now would be comparable to someone using Netscape 6, but folks who thought Netscape 6 was “ok” and then didn’t upgrade did cause a problem.
Opera’s beta test cycle seems to go smoother. They do a beta release (or several, in the case of 7.23 if I remember correctly), but it is fairly close to being ready for release, and when it gets stable, they release it and start to work on the next version.
The frustrating thing, of course, is when they hit a “final” like 7.5 and there are problems with it, new bugs that popped up (not very common) or old bugs that came back (rare, but happens) or bug that I wished had been fixed that weren’t (most common).
At some point you have to either say, “This is a stable, though imperfect, version that is the best we can do right now. It should do no harm, it has some new features and some bug fixes. And there will be another version in a few months.
The only real frustration I get is with programs like Office which get a huge release and then go several years before there is any real work that appears in public. Usually there are a few things that I find right away, and you know they aren’t going to get fixed for a long time and you have to live with them.
Somewhere between the perpetual beta and the “We’ll be back in 3 years” model is probably the ideal. Finding the tipping point is the real trick.
One Response to “Beta Cycles”
on 07 Jun 2004 at 12:52 am # Nick
Love this site, it gives a personal feel which is good. I’m a linux enthusiast my computer is my workbench my hobby and my toy so I am on it all the time. For those who aren’t always on their computers perpetually downloading versions going up by .1 is not an option. With tools like apt-get and swaret it is easy to keep your system up to date. It is a bummer that this is necessary but it is. If projects/companies/developers would just have the patience to stick to a release cycle things would be a lot smoother and more stable. Opera is feature rich and is stable while still humanly possible to keep up with.I personally hate the Office release cycle. Microsoft was very crafty when they came up with the business model for office, they took something that is ever unchanging like standard office apps and completely revolutionized it with every release. Just look at the naming scheme, we started off with Office 97 and Office 2000 but then we hit Office XP to shake things up and back to the ever classy year scheme. Each has had a slogan and advertising campaign of it’s own. In the end they are all the same though.