DeeS
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I think we've seen what early got us.  I think a beta would be a good idea.
post edited by DeeS - 2011/02/01 01:21:50
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neiby
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bitflipper
a) keep beta testing and spend 4 months finding all the different issues and then fixing them b) get the product out there and increase your number of 'beta testers' by 1000 fold
There is a third option, a public beta. You invite anyone who wants to be a guinea pig to download the new version, with the caveat that it is an unsupported test version with no guarantees. Users aren't inconvenienced unless they choose to participate, no one feels deceived, and those who absolutely need high-reliability know better than to join in too early. The ultimate result is a more stable product.
Microsoft pulled it off on a grand scale prior to releasing Windows 95, and the result was a pretty stable release despite an enormous number of changes. Cockos is currently in such a process for Reaper 4. Celemony did it for Melodyne. FL Studio has held public betas. Native Instruments has done it for Kontakt. It's also common practice for video games, a software genre that has more in common with DAW applications than you might think.
Excellent point. I think that X1 probably should have had a public beta period of a couple of months. In effect, that's what we're in right now but no one knew it until they had already bought the product. The X1 release out now, X1a, is still really a beta version, in my opinion. It's probably too buggy to even be called a release candidate. X1b might be a suitable release candidate.
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Splat 
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Hasn't this been discussed before?
a) Cakewalk should release it when QA deems it to be bug free.
b) QA should be certain that it will be a good release and should not take any pressure from their PR/marketing dept/community. Bug testing and bug fixing takes time, it's only ready when it is ready.
... Otherwise expect a sloppy release.
In regards to beta testing, what is the point? Beta software in my experience hardly gets tested unless you have a company on the scale of Microsoft. Worse people treat betas like they were full releases and PR goes even further down hill.
With beta releases the issue is that you have even more upgrade scenario issues to content with (i.e. beta software needs to be upgraded to the full version, or removed/reinstalled from the full version - this involves more timewasting for QA testing - and more bugfixing time for the developers. This would be absolutely fine though if QA has a massive department and there are large resources for bug quashing developers - somehow I doubt Cakwalk has a dept as big as Microsoft).
If there is a big problem with X1B after it is released (i.e. introduces a new and particularly nasty bug) they simply release an emergency fix which would end up being X1C a couple of weeks later, and advise people to roll back in the meantime.
You want to test beta software - then fine - but expect bugs to be quashed over a much slower timescale.
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roughly
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well if the groundhog see his shadow....
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Positively Charged
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CakeAlexS
Hasn't this been discussed before?
Yes it was. In my experience, public betas can run hot or cold. You decide which is good and which is bad. For example, I don't think Microsoft's beta of Windows 95 resulted in all that much better of a product. I don't remember for sure but didn't they also have a beta for Vista? I do remember the beta for Windows 7 (and even participated in that one), and that release was very good. Some good, some bad. It's up to each vendor to decide what is appropriate for their product. There are a number of issues to be weighed, too. How many resources to devote to answering phones or emails reporting bugs? How to handle licensing? Do you have beta copies unsecured? Or use a timeout methodology? If you attempt to address this by changing the code, you have...well, CHANGED THE CODE. What if the public beta begins to go into the toilet for some uncontrollable reason (technical, political, quality of testers, etc)? Then all your laundry is aired in public. I'm telling ya'll, EVERYBODY looks bad when their bloomers are flapping in the wind. Even if they're clean bloomers.
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Brandon Ryan [Roland]
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subtlearts
Hmm. That's interesting... I was under the impression that the entire stretching function was out of commission.
No, certain aspects of AS are currently broken and will be receiving updates in X1b. But the feature is not entirely broken and still allows manual stretching of transients, converting audio transients to MIDI, automatic slicing of transients, etc.
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Lago Di Paradiso
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Late February or March, huh? That's great. I hate the thought that I'm doing someone's beta for them AFTER having bought the programme. Something in the back of my head told me I should've waited before purchasing this. At least you guys have seen X1 in the flesh, as it were. I can't even get it to load past the installation screen! 
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neiby
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Lago Di Paradiso
Late February or March, huh? That's great. I hate the thought that I'm doing someone's beta for them AFTER having bought the programme.
Something in the back of my head told me I should've waited before purchasing this. At least you guys have seen X1 in the flesh, as it were. I can't even get it to load past the installation screen!
Do you mean that you can't even finish installing it? If so, something else is very wrong. I've yet to hear of anyone having problems installing it yet.
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Bristol_Jonesey
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No. In spite of all the problems I had, getting it to install & load wasn't one of them.
Something else to add to the pot.
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