Actinic Cover

[leehack]

You're supposed to be the bike chick, lets test you with a picture of the discs first.

[cbarling]

We have three full time testers in Actinic. (Incidentally none of them are Hungarian, contrary to rumours). These guys carry out around two weeks of solid regression testing on every new release of Catalog/Business, as well as testing every bug fix individually before that.

It's also been suggested that we pay some people from the user community to do further "real world" testing, and this is something that we are considering.

However, alpha and beta testing is still crucial in a way that isn't helped by either of the other approaches. The thing that can't be covered by a limited number of testers is the huge diversity of different environments found out in the wild.

If quite a few people simply download a new version, add a section and a product and upload the site, place an order and download it, then the worst "environmental" problems will be caught. If nobody does this, the problems will be found when the software goes on general release.

I guess that the benefits of alpha and beta testing are tenuous for individuals, but there are some. For people interested in the new features, they get an early peek and sometimes things can be adjusted in the light of feedback. People can also ensure that Actinic is likely to work in their own environment, and will upgrade their particular snapshot, as bugs reported back from external testing go straight into the development team, who are doing nothing but bug fixing at that point. Then there is the issue of expertise - poeple who are selling themselves as Actinic experts stay ahead of the game.

Obviously, nobody has to take part, but for those of you who don't want to, I would ask that you don't discourage others. The more people that participate, the better off we will all be.

Chris

[RuralWeb]

The more people that participate, the better off we will all be

Very true chris but most people just sit back and let others do the work for them. I well remember posts from last year by people asking that the beta testers get thier fingers out and find all the bugs so they could upgrade or start designing with V8.

[Darren B]

You're supposed to be the bike chick, lets test you with a picture of the discs first. [ATTACH]2825[/ATTACH]

Oh me sir, me sir can i guess sir - oh and motor not push

[Darren B]

It's also been suggested that we pay some people from the user community to do further "real world" testing, and this is something that we are considering.

However, alpha and beta testing is still crucial in a way that isn't helped by either of the other approaches. The thing that can't be covered by a limited number of testers is the huge diversity of different environments found out in the wild.

I dont think people want money as such, well maybe some do, i think it's the annoyance at the cost of cover to those people who spend there time telling you guys of the bugs, writing little add on's, for there own benerfit or gain, which actually makes the software more attractive. I have experienced a few support calls in the past that were less than helpfull, i have also done beta testing in the past, i can not remember exactly but i reported a bug and 4 weeks later the software is released with the bug in it? dont figure. I am going back and i dived out of actinic for 18/24 months and it's killing me to get back in, but i am slowly, not all actinic someof it is just because i took my eye of the ball.

Just My Opinion

Darren

[TraceyHand]

Oh me sir, me sir can i guess sir

oi...it's my guess

VFR 800?

[leehack]

I'm impressed bumpsy, did Darren, hubby or you get the answer? ...honest answers only...

[TraceyHand]

hehe..well I got Honda...hubby filled in the rest

[leehack]

pah...knew it...cheat.

[TraceyHand]

yep...sorry

but at least I was honest

[Darren B]

i knew it, bro used to have one

[chris ashdown]

You are probably not going to want to hear this but my MU works really well and was definately worth upgrading to. I don't make a lot of changes to content on my sites but it is nice to be able to stay at my desk when I use it. You get one administrator on at a time per site (so 1 person editing content) and multiple order processors. Enterprise allows multiple people to edit content though.

Regards,

Same here and on Pentium 3 computers, Could the problems be with the software being on a server, where we have it on a computer based network

[george]

However, alpha and beta testing is still crucial in a way that isn't helped by either of the other approaches. The thing that can't be covered by a limited number of testers is the huge diversity of different environments found out in the wild.

Good of you to take the time to reply Chris, so easy to turn a blind eye I guess. I think that the massive step that was v7 to v8 caused you much more problems than you could ever have imagined. But its so easy to comment in a negative way especially with the benefit of hindsight.

Anyway, lets hope you as a company have learned from the experience and are better prepared for future releases.

[chris ashdown]

OK if it's not your computers it must be something you are trying to do on your site

Prehapse if you showed your url and specified the problem and asked for help instead of just moaning you may get assistance as something is obviously wrong at your end

Have you tried setting up a simple site to see if that works on your network at reasonable speed, maybe copy a hundred products to a new site, load in a test area on actinic or your own server and see how that performs

[pinbrook]

We have three full time testers in Actinic. (Incidentally none of them are Hungarian, contrary to rumours). These guys carry out around two weeks of solid regression testing on every new release of Catalog/Business, as well as testing every bug fix individually before that.

3 posts in a week Chris? Either saying Sorry or defending your position ..... hopefully this indicates that your current testing procedures could do with scrutiny. I am glad though you haven't lost your sense of humour though. From my perspective, as someone who sells and configures your product for an end user, the testing is still - at times - woeful. Whilst it is fine to have 3 inhouse testers - how often do those testers get out into design houses and see all the combinations we have to deal with?

However, alpha and beta testing is still crucial in a way that isn't helped by either of the other approaches. The thing that can't be covered by a limited number of testers is the huge diversity of different environments found out in the wild. If quite a few people simply download a new version, add a section and a product and upload the site, place an order and download it, then the worst "environmental" problems will be caught. If nobody does this, the problems will be found when the software goes on general release.

this hardly qualifies as rigorous beta testing.

I guess that the benefits of alpha and beta testing are tenuous for individuals, but there are some. For people interested in the new features, they get an early peek and sometimes things can be adjusted in the light of feedback. People can also ensure that Actinic is likely to work in their own environment, and will upgrade their particular snapshot, as bugs reported back from external testing go straight into the development team, who are doing nothing but bug fixing at that point. Then there is the issue of expertise - poeple who are selling themselves as Actinic experts stay ahead of the game.

again this is not rigorous testing, as you indicate yourself users will test what is critical to them mainly for their own benefit and to get a forward view of what is coming. You need indepentant outsiders whose purpose is to rip it apart and test every potential scenario.

Take the PPP scenario - this should have been tested on several country codes, with all different shipping types, so you have a matrix for example

country - GB, USA, DE, ES
shipping - simple, weight, quantity, free

with 16 testing situations, a decent tester would test 16 and more, a simple user beta testing will only test what is revelant to them. Seemingly your inhouse testing only tested one or potentially 4 of these options.

Obviously, nobody has to take part, but for those of you who don't want to, I would ask that you don't discourage others. The more people that participate, the better off we will all be.

It is not my intention to discourage others from beta testings, my view is that whilst it is useful it should not be viewed with the importance you seem to attach to it, most things should be ironed out well before end-user beta testing. It should be viewed as a challenge to find a bug and not as a final opportunity to reign in bugs that will only get found out in the wild.

Personally I hate testing - so whilst i am very vociferous in my opinions re the situation I have no real desire to sit down and take every situation apart to ensure the product reaches the shelves in a satisfactory condition. I view this as being Actinic's responsibility. I have also indicated that I would not consider testing if i could not spend the time necessary to thoroughly test all scenarios, spending 15 minutes here and there, in my view is not adequate, importing a few client snapshots is not adequate either, I would want to take certain scenarions and rip the hell out of it. To so this would require serious time and commitment, so do I donate my time for free to Actinic or do I carry on doing paid for work for clients? If I wanted to spend my days testing I'd go out and get a job as a tester. I want to spend my time running my business and not constantly reporting bugs and sending in snapshots for support to fix.

Maybe you could release your testing documentation, or at least get it documented, then we could all see what scenarios are tested for and point out ommissions.