CompuServe Messages

<continuation> succumb to it. Diluting the pool of testers with "common users" could well balance the results of the testing in favor of the population in general, thus mitigating the natural tendency of those with a vested interest in maintaining their own products unchanged from biasing the test. There are certainly some users who cannot find their way in or out of the CLI. There are others who are uncomfortable in that environment. By the same token, there are some developers who are uncomfortable in the Workbench environment. Yet, virtually every product for the Amiga can be used in either environment… yes – there are exceptions, but they are relatively few in number. It is unlikely that any of the foregoing would be good beta testers, developer status or not. At the same time, there are quite a few people who are comfortable in either environment, with or without developer status. Some of these later people would be good testers, others wouldn't. Having an official title does not NECESSARILY cause anyone to be a good tester, nor does lack of one NECESSARILY preclude anyone from being a good tester. The wider the testing populace, the more likely the test is to be unbiased. Of course, there has to be some limit – nobody could keep track of an extremely large number of testers. Neither would selecting 1000 names at random from owner registration cards and shipping them software to play with be particularly effective. (Though it might or might not work once or twice.) As I mentioned earlier, developers may have a vested interest in seeing a new operating system, if for no other reason than to adjust their <continued>