Should developers have early access to Beta releases?

Luke Foreman said:
Yeah it really would be better to give developers access to the alpha version, since we'll have to basically rush updates once the beta goes public
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Not realy?

Thats the whole idea of a Beta test... to give people the opportunity to test and make fixes needed... so when the gold release gets pushed.. your up to date for that.

Honestly, even with XenForo being as high quality as it is, people shouldn't be running beta versions unless they can debug and fix code themselves... if you don't have the ability to do this, you should wait for gold release and the subsequent addon releases...
 
Luke Foreman said:
Yeah it really would be better to give developers access to the alpha version, since we'll have to basically rush updates once the beta goes public
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and hosts, some of us host as many communities as some of the large dev's sell addons. :) to assure everything is smooth and ready with things like MySQL and PHP settings for the mass upgrade phase on release day :D
 
SneakyDave said:
xF could sell a developer license to get access to early alpha's/betas. That would make sure the serious devs were involved, and weed out the riff raff wannabe's.
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Then when a lot of people who want to support XF buy this developer licence, it may as well be released as a Beta seeing as plenty of people will have a copy.

I'd argue it's not very fair to "weed out the riff raff" developers. Everyone deserves credit for addons. Admittedly there are some bigger names, but the smaller ones are doing their bit too.
 
I'd be happy to see the likes of Chris deeming bobster65 luke and other big developers get a headstart and get in early to fix their stuff. This to me really isn't about what's fair but rather it makes sense since it minimises the impact and can be useful to others who won't have to wait for long for fixes. I'm not saying there won't be any waiting but i think this will drastically get cut shorter if the coders/add-on providers got there hands on it first.
 
James said:
Then when a lot of people who want to support XF buy this developer licence, it may as well be released as a Beta seeing as plenty of people will have a copy.

I'd argue it's not very fair to "weed out the riff raff" developers. Everyone deserves credit for addons. Admittedly there are some bigger names, but the smaller ones are doing their bit too.
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You just have to find the right price and license for it. I don't have anything against smaller developers, But a lot of people would buy a dev license just to say they have one. Maybe xF could sell a dev type of license with no support for it, with the idea being that it would be used to get a head start on getting their add-ons to work.
 
Shelley said:
I'd be happy to see the likes of Chris deeming bobster65 luke and other big developers get a headstart and get in early to fix their stuff. This to me really isn't about what's fair but rather it makes sense since it minimises the impact and can be useful to others who won't have to wait for long for fixes. I'm not saying there won't be any waiting but i think this will drastically get cut shorter if the coders/add-on providers got there hands on it first.
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Which is the whole reason behind a public beta release to fix things before gold?
 
King Kovifor said:
Understandably. I feel that the majority of add-ons will be ready tho, with the developers that are maintaining them. But still, its not suggested to run Beta on production sites, so having a pre-release of a beta so developers can attempt to update early isn't required. The beta process should be the developers upgrading and updating add-ons for 1.2.
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I don't disagree, it's just that we're all just human and not machines coding 24h per day.

And it's probably really hard for people like dre with 80 resources http://xenforo.com/community/resources/authors/dre.5483/ and waindigo with 70 resources http://xenforo.com/community/resources/authors/waindigo.11794/ to test and fix them, TILL 1.2 gets gold, because xenforo is already so stable which means the public beta/rc phase won't take 5 months.:D
 
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Luke Foreman said:
This is a pretty good idea, as long as it would be fairly priced
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That would work. but...
SneakyDave said:
xF could sell a developer license to get access to early alpha's/betas. That would make sure the serious devs were involved, and weed out the riff raff wannabe's.
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Offering it to only a select group of people and making it public promotes the idea that xf likes certain devs and cares nothing about the rest...and basically that promotes a nasty little thing called elitism.



Anyways, in a closed private alpha someone not in the circles is weeks behind other developers, which makes them look better instead of what they really are, privileged with more friends here, which will further put them ahead of others.

None of the methods of picking ppl will work, if you go with community votes...peoples' crews and alter egos will stuff ballot boxes, if you go by the amount of addons, then someone who makes one really awesome addon is left out, if you go and give it to ppl who have the most downloads, the guy who worked really hard for little appreciation further has that rubbed in his face.

Anyways...it's up to the people who own the software to decide, not us.

On that note, if some people do get some sort of alpha release please keep it private. No one needs to know unless you just feel like being viewed as special.
 
Slavik said:
Which is the whole reason behind a public beta release to fix things before gold?
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Who said I like or dislike it, im asking whats the point in giving early access for a beta release? The whole point of the beta release is to allow devs to fix their stuff ready for the gold release, which, unless your able to debug and fix issues youself, you should be waiting for anyway,
 
Slavik said:
Who said I like or dislike it, im asking whats the point in giving early access for a beta release? The whole point of the beta release is to allow devs to fix their stuff ready for the gold release, which, unless your able to debug and fix issues youself, you should be waiting for anyway,
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Then you could go to the argument why is anything released that isn't gold? Vicious circle.
 
EQnoble said:
On that note, if some people do get some sort of alpha release please keep it private. No one needs to know unless you just feel like being viewed as special.
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I don't have a problem with any solution as long as it helps out add-on devs. I think as xF grows, there'd have to be something else in place.

If it's a public beta, on day 1, people are gonna be moaning to their devs about add-ons, which isn't fair. But it isn't xF's fault or the devs fault for that. They're just impatient people that probably don't understand how software development works.

Some of these add-ons that might break aren't even supported anymore, there's really no answer for that, yet people will be gnashing their teeth about it.
 
Slavik said:
Who said I like or dislike it, im asking whats the point in giving early access for a beta release? The whole point of the beta release is to allow devs to fix their stuff ready for the gold release, which, unless your able to debug and fix issues youself, you should be waiting for anyway,
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Let's just say I can see the benefits of the developers with major add-ons getting it early so it minimizes the impact or has the potential to by having it earlier.

I'm aware that public beta is for the community to find the issues but additional precautions never hurt. I can just see the benefits where you don't seem to see that.
 
Sheldon said:
Then you could go to the argument why is anything released that isn't gold? Vicious circle.
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XF can't test every possible scenario for their code. Beta software allows people to trial it on their own setups to check for any specific bugs relating to their installation etc.
 
Sheldon said:
Then you could go to the argument why is anything released that isn't gold? Vicious circle.
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Not realy. A public beta allows everyone access at the same time, the most fair way, to give devs the ability to check their code against the large changes made at the xenForo core.
 
James said:
XF can't test every possible scenario for their code. Beta software allows people to trial it on their own setups to check for any specific bugs relating to their installation etc.
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I'm not arguing what Beta Software is.
 
Slavik said:
Not realy. A public beta allows everyone access at the same time, the most fair way, to give devs the ability to check their code against the large changes made at the xenForo core.
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As would any other release that is out at the same time. So, if there is any earlier access, why shouldn't the ones that continually support the community (which, everyone knows some license holders have only bought due to certain add-ons being created) with their hard work get a jump on fixing their add-ons?

I cannot see a con in any of that.
 
I think in general, we've all been spoiled on xF public beta software. There really hasn't been many show stoppers in these betas that cause a lot of angst, so people implicitly trust it, and expect the add-on devs to get their product out within the same beta period.
 
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Sheldon said:
As would any other release that is out at the same time. So, if there is any earlier access, why shouldn't the ones that continually support the community (which, everyone knows some license holders have only bought due to certain add-ons being created) with their hard work get a jump on fixing their add-ons?

I cannot see a con in any of that.
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You talk as if you expect to run a beta release in production. Which is the whole flaw in your arguement.
 
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