Invision Community 4: SEO, prepare for v5 and dormant account notifications By Matt Monday at 02:04 PM
Dll Posted October 16, 2007 Posted October 16, 2007 More negative feedback (so this will probably be locked), but what happened to the extensive QC testing that was apparently taking place prior to every release? The latest update has introduced what I would call some significant bugs, all of which affect functionality and all of which could easily have been picked up with some basic QC testing. Do we need to go back to the days of waiting a week or two before installing new versions just to make sure they're going to work?
Management Matt Posted October 16, 2007 Management Posted October 16, 2007 We still perform internal testing which extends to our NDA beta testing group.It is unfortunate that this latest release has some issues that were not discovered prior to release. We are making use of the ACP 'IP.Board Bulletins' to release patches as we issue them.
bfarber Posted October 16, 2007 Posted October 16, 2007 Yes, as Matt stated we had several users internally spend a lot of time testing IP.Board (to the point were we actually had one day that was nothing but testing). It's easy to say "basic" testing would catch things, but in reality unless you know what the problem is before hand it's extremely difficult to catch every bug that comes up. There was a lot introduced in the last update that was caught (of course you wouldn't know about that because the issues were fixed before it was released) - it's unfortunate the bugs that there were bugs that did slip through however.We're working hard at correcting the reported issues and will continue to do so.
Dll Posted October 16, 2007 Posted October 16, 2007 Sorry both, but how can you suggest a bug which originally marked posts that were months old as being new and unread would have been hard to spot with any sort of testing? I noticed it within 2 seconds of logging onto the upgraded forum as did many others. How much testing could you have possible done? Plus, surely you must have known that you had made some changes to that function so would have been looking for any issues caused by them? And by the way, the two patches issued so far to remedy that have still not totally solved the problem. It's all a bit disappointing and again something which as I don't think paying customers should have to mess about with.
bfarber Posted October 16, 2007 Posted October 16, 2007 Please don't install the patches then. :)They are there so that the patches can get proper testing from a wider audience - we intend to release them officially once we're confident everything is sorted out. If you don't feel you should install the patches, by all means, hold off until we release an official update. I would rather have some of the people experiencing this problem test the patches out in a wider capacity than just testing them here and saying "everything looks ok to me".I understand you're frustrated - please understand we do everything in our power to stop bugs from making it into a final release. We certainly didn't rush the last release (in fact we've had many people complaining about how long it took) - with the changes made, however, a few bugs made it through that just weren't caught. I do apologize for that, as it is always our goal to release the product as stable as possible. We are working hard to fix the issues found in 2.3.2 and will release an update accordingly once everything is resolved.
Dll Posted October 16, 2007 Posted October 16, 2007 I'd rather spend 5 minute putting patches on than spend an age fielding complaints from users that the forum isn't working properly, so that isn't really the issue :lol: I know Invision have tightened up considerably since the dark days of a year or so back when everything seemed to go into meltdown for a while! And I totally agree with your policy of not rushing releases out - I'm not one of those you'll see complaining about that, but if you're going to delay releases to get them right, it's a bit 'careless' to then put one out which introduces some fairly major bugs and that's the point I'm trying to make. I like the product, I can't fault the service whenever I've raised a ticket but unfortunately things like this are where Invision falls down imo - there was a similar problem with the blog release as well quite recently. I'm not going to keep moaning for the sake of it though, I just hope things don't start going back to where we were again as it's at that point, that however good the product is, I'll need to look elsewhere and I expect I wouldn't be alone :)
kmf Posted October 19, 2007 Posted October 19, 2007 Please don't install the patches then. :)They are there so that the patches can get proper testing from a wider audience - we intend to release them officially once we're confident everything is sorted out. If you don't feel you should install the patches, by all means, hold off until we release an official update. I would rather have some of the people experiencing this problem test the patches out in a wider capacity than just testing them here and saying "everything looks ok to me".I understand you're frustrated - please understand we do everything in our power to stop bugs from making it into a final release. We certainly didn't rush the last release (in fact we've had many people complaining about how long it took) - with the changes made, however, a few bugs made it through that just weren't caught. I do apologize for that, as it is always our goal to release the product as stable as possible. We are working hard to fix the issues found in 2.3.2 and will release an update accordingly once everything is resolved.How about, when you make a new release, not only state what former bugs you've fixed. But when new bugs are introduced, write a warning in the announcement too?I really hate to upgrade something to fix some bugs, only to introduce more. Or is IPB going for the microsoft strategy?
whitetigergrowl Posted October 21, 2007 Posted October 21, 2007 The problem with bug testing is thats it's virtually impossible to catch them all during testing. Many times a specific series of events and button presses has to take place in order for the bug or issue to pop up that very possibly most users don't need to do or is such a series of events that it's difficult to nail it the first time or 2. It's kinda like the Microsoft Operating Systems. I don't think people fully understand or appreciate the hell they have to go through to make Windows work. Just like web servers, home systems worldwide have an almost infinite series of combinations of processors, hardware, software, etc. to try and get to work together. An in incredibly monumental task. Web Servers are no different. You may get a bug to pop up that I don't, even under similar circumstances. It could be the result of a web server configuration issue, or the type of software you have or DON'T HAVE installed on that server. The list goes on. It's an incredible undertaking to try and get everything to work properly in so many varying enviroments. Yet people just expect things to work right out of the box. IPS could have 1 million beta testers and STILL not get all of the bugs. The only way to prevent alot of these sort of issues is through propriety use. Like Apple. Which many people don't like because of lack of flexibility through software and hardware configurations. I just think some people expect too much, right away without understanding the complexity of trying to get everything to work with every possible combination of hardware and software configuration.
The Clash Posted October 21, 2007 Posted October 21, 2007 Problem is, people haven't actually written one line of code in their life, let alone release a program as big as IPB, so they have no idea how hard it is to find every bug, or how much they do try to make everything perfect.
kmf Posted October 21, 2007 Posted October 21, 2007 Problem is, people haven't actually written one line of code in their life, let alone release a program as big as IPB, so they have no idea how hard it is to find every bug, or how much they do try to make everything perfect.and that's why alpha, beta's and prereleases exists.If IPB don't have enough capacity for a fullfledge test, then do some prerelease then. Like said, something as obvious as older topics being branded as new will be noticed by actual users within no time.
whitetigergrowl Posted October 21, 2007 Posted October 21, 2007 and that's why alpha, beta's and prereleases exists.If IPB don't have enough capacity for a fullfledge test, then do some prerelease then. Like said, something as obvious as older topics being branded as new will be noticed by actual users within no time.And people will still be complaining then. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't. Seriously, if a lot of companies went that route, their software would never have a full release as there will usually always be bugs.
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