Workbench 2.0
Jim
You're certainly right about developers making lousy beta-testers!
Unfortunately, many software houses do just that … and, as you say, as
soon as the product goes onto the market, the end-users find the software
falls apart overnight.
I have been beta testing for over 12 years, almost in a `professional'
capacity
.. I am currently beta-testing a couple of commercial products, and have
tested (and continue to test) several major products, including
SuperbasePro4.
I am not a software developer as such, although I do know the systems
pretty well and do some programming (another must for a beta-tester, since
a beta-tester should be capable of pinning down approximately where the
problem is) … but I _do_ know how to coax maximum bugs out of the
software (give me just about any software, and I will make it fall over
<grin>).
Sadly, there are software authors (both commercial and PD/FD) who take bug
reports as a personal criticism. They will refuse to
acknowledge/investigate a bug that they can't reproduce or scream that you
shouldn't be doing things they way you are doing them or argue that what
you saw just cannot happen.
Personally, I enjoy beta-testing … I am usually not happy unless I can
report at least 100 bugs in the first 4 weeks of testing and I have managed
to do that in nearly all cases! But the relationship between beta-tester
and software house is one which is precious … a dialogue is necessary at
all times, and respect is needed on both sides … and a beta-testers views
should be taken very seriously indeed, especially on matters relating to
the user-interface since developers and programmers alike rarely understand
what is `best' for the user community (I'm not saying beta-testers _do_ …
it's just that they understand the problems of a user that much better).
Sorry, seems like you touched on one of my pet subjects 🙂
Mike (Whapping from the UK)