B12 - IMO not worthy of release..

Sorry if I seem rude and offensive, but this has to be the worst "release" I have encountered, and is not worthy of having been released it almost seems untested.

Notes:

Where has the nice pretty red delete gone, and what is this monstrosity meant to do?

If I click it it doesnt hide/show note content ,it does nothing except change the arrow direction, even in a new notefile

Ah and that where the delete function is now hidden, by clicking on it I get this popup

can we have our seperate delete button back please

For me this is worthy of the Beta Lemon award.. I respect your right to disagree

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MJ. Smith

can we have our seperate delete button back please

No, no, no keep this and add a hide/show function, a properties function (I already had a thread on that) ... This structure makes it harder to accidentally delete notes and, except in testing, I consider deleting notes to be a relatively uncommon action.

And while I have posted several bug reports, I am curious, Dominic, as to what problems make you say:

this has to be the worst "release" I have encountered, and is not worthy of having been released it almost seems untested.

I haven't seen that many bugs reported. Was I not watching?

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96845#Comment_96845

I consider deleting notes to be a relatively uncommon action.

I delete regularly..

If Logos4 would allow drag and drop notes/clippings beween open files. 99% of my need for deleting would be removed and I would agree with you

I take notes into generic notefile and then later think about filing/categorising them or pulling then in to a seperate notefile I use for sermon prep, so have to copy paste or go back and add a new clipping to right file.

I am curious, Dominic, as to what problems make you say:
this has to be the worst "release" I have encountered, and is not worthy of having been released it almost seems untested.

Sorry maybe i was a bit emotive, but back when I was employed full-time to develop software applications, I would have been given a written warning (severely disciplined) for releasing a non working function in an application..

I haven't seen that many bugs reported. Was I not watching?

Thats the point, its not a fix, it's a new function, so unless the developer added it into the code last night.. just before the build.., if its non working it means it hasnt been tested (or it would have been found), hence my annoyance now.

Whyndell Grizzard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96857#Comment_96857

I would a gree this needed a little more "think through" ya know

But I do think we would like what it could become, so don't give up.

Jack Caviness

Ah and that where the delete function is now hidden, by clicking on it I get this popup

can we have our seperate delete button back please

For me this is worthy of the Beta Lemon award.. I respect your right to disagree

I will exercise my right to disagree. I like this new arrangement. Now, if the Dev Team would add a show/hide feature for Martha…

spitzerpl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96872#Comment_96872

The button does have a secondary function. If you attach a note to text, you used to be stuck with the text as a title. Now attach not to a text, click this button, and you can add a title to that note.

David A. Peterson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96872#Comment_96872

I like this new arrangement. Now, if the Dev Team would add a show/hide feature for Martha

For MJ's use. her posts or her in general???[;)]

In Christ,

Dave (who probably thinks he's funnier than he is before the first [C]

<><

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96876#Comment_96876

The button does have a secondary function. If you attach a note to text, you used to be stuck with the text as a title. Now attach not to a text, click this button, and you can add a title to that note.

Yeah I must be having a bad day, cos I think thats not "right" too..

I add note to word

then add a title through new button

what I would expect it to do is this

otherwise I dont see the point, you can just add a top line to the note details...

Melissa Snyder

I've reported your feedback -- thanks.

Todd White

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96857#Comment_96857

If Logos4 would allow drag and drop notes/clippings beween open files. 99% of my need for deleting would be removed and I would agree with you

Do you want to:
Drag from notes to notes?
Drag from clppings to clippings?
Drag from clippings to notes?
Drag drom notes to clippings?
All of the above?

You should be able to drag from notes to notes.

-Todd

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97021#Comment_97021

You should be able to drag from notes to notes.

Sweet, thx for putting it in, have been trying drag and drop on notes, without success with each version up to 10 and had given up on it getting adopted, so didn't even try this release. thats gonna save me loads of time/greif...

For me, I would be happy if you could also do clippings->clippings. but I guess others might want cross-dragging

I also want to apologise, this is definietly not a lemon after all, the notes drag-drop is fantastic, and a great addition, and actually improves significantly the usability of the software.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96857#Comment_96857

Sorry maybe i was a bit emotive, but back when I was employed full-time to develop software applications, I would have been given a written warning (severely disciplined) for releasing a non working function in an application..

While I understand your position here, my observation of the types of bugs we find leads me to suspect that the programmers are not backed up by good testing software and test scripts i.e. that like most IT development, testing is treated as a second class cousin to making the product. Note: I speak from 30+ years of trying to get sufficient time for sufficient testing.

LATER NOTE: I really didn't mean to start a bash Logos development thread. I wanted to stop programmer-bashing.

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97065#Comment_97065

True MJ, I also remember that well.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97065#Comment_97065

While I understand your position here, my observation of the types of bugs we find leads me to suspect that the programmers are not backed up by good testing software and test scripts i.e. that like most IT development, testing is treated as a second class cousin to making the product. Note: I speak from 30+ years of trying to get sufficient time for sufficient testing.

I wonder whether they have dedicated testers or if the developers are doing all their own testing? Having a test team whose sole responsibility is to try to break it would stop a lot of these bugs in their tracks before they ever reached the beta testers (and non-beta users!). I think Logos might be relying on the beta test cycle as a way of avoiding needing to have their own in-house test team, or at least getting it out the door faster before sufficent testing has been done. I think that is a sloppy development process, but I can understand it given Logos's relative immaturity as a company. However now that they've hit the bigtime, I hope they will consider some more robust in-house testing strategies, regression testing, test scripts, test automation, whitebox testing, etc. If I were their Director of Development, I'd have a thing or two to teach them...

When I was working at Microsoft, we would never release "beta" versions that were still having new features added left and right. Beta was a stage we didn't enter until after we were feature complete. Even "alpha" was post feature complete. This is roughly the release cycle we used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle

I must admit that the way Logos does things is really odd and unfortunate. I think they are realizing this with how all the support calls are killing their response time which they used to pride themselves in. I seriously think they should reconsider their testing and release strategy for future releases. Unfortunately, I think this model is deeply engrained in their DNA.

I also wish they had program managers to design the features instead of having it all be done by geeky developers. While L4 is a major improvement over L3 in usability, it is still very obviously a programmer's toy. Again, deeply engrained in Logos's DNA, and I don't expect that to change any time soon. But it sure does make for a lot of extra work for us forum support and wiki editor types. Wonder what things would be like if we weren't here doing this?

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97065#Comment_97065

Sorry maybe i was a bit emotive, but back when I was employed full-time to develop software applications, I would have been given a written warning (severely disciplined) for releasing a non working function in an application..

While I understand your position here, my observation of the types of bugs we find leads me to suspect that the programmers are not backed up by good testing software and test scripts i.e. that like most IT development, testing is treated as a second class cousin to making the product. Note: I speak from 30+ years of trying to get sufficient time for sufficient testing.

I
agree with y'all. While I can only speak based on the years that I worked
in computer development, it does appear to me that Logos 4 does not go through
thorough testing. What Logos released as 4.0a was at best a beta
version. With functions like printing not being part of the program, I
would not even call the program fit to be called alpha.

What
is being released as beta, let's say that I would not call it beta, or alpha,
or . . ..

The
cost of keeping a program in house until it is ready to be released is
greatly lower than the cost of repairing the program once it has left
the building. Bob posted on his blog (http://www.bobpritchett.com/blog/2010/01/on_failing_our_customers.html)
how they have failed in providing good customer support. While this is
my opinion, one of the reasons why they are still receiving complaints
about the software comes from the fact that the software was (and continues) to
be under tested before it goes out to the public. Again my opinion, Bob
is now paying the cost of releasing a product that was not tested (and
continues not to be tested) thoroughly.

Terry Poperszky

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97098#Comment_97098

Personally, I think Logos is too customer driven at this point.

Every time a release comes out, everyone chimes in on how if they would only implement this or do it this way to save them an extra key click, or make it this color. Treating software development like it is a salad buffet at the local fast food place.

I have been astounded at how many of these suggestions are actually being implemented by the Logos developers and then everyone complains because the releases are so buggy. I have never worked in a development environment that functioned like that.

The trouble is Logos has already started down this path, and going backwards is really hard. But not half as hard as convincing people that their favorite idea is too expensive or complicated to implement. So I guess, I will just have to make sure I am not part of the problem.

Friedrich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97117#Comment_97117

or make it this color

I vote to make all of Terry's posts appear Neon Green.

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97125#Comment_97125

I'll humbly throw my two cents in, I think this will all work out fine. Logos 4 is built on a great foundation that should bring nothing but more power and capability to bear in more features over the next 5 years. Everyone's computer will get faster, and most of the performance problems will just go away due to technology.

As for the bugs and features, I felt at the time in December that Logos 4 was out a year early. Now I understand at some point you put your stick in the ground and the urgency of a released product helps make things better, but for no other reason than a long list of ver.3 features not yet implemented well, I have NEVER seen that in a commerical product. So it will take a year to fully have all of ver 3 implemented, have all the great features we already see and more in ver 4, and a lot of the bugs squashed and things stabilized.

If we are having this discussion a year from now I will be shocked. But IMHO it will take this whole year to get there. The nice thing, I love what we have in ver 4 already, and I upgraded when I decided I could take some pain for all the new stuff. It will be fine. (and I love the betas, it allows us to engage in the process quicker).

Tim Hensler

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97130#Comment_97130

I don't think Logos is sending out incomplete, untested programs, but inviting us (the beta testers) into their lab to help. We are the testers - what a treat. Thank you Logos. (By the way, Logos does pre-test before releasing versions to us.)

As beta versions go, these aren't bad - actually pretty stable. I've never had a system crash and it's been a while since I've had a program crash. I have a 3 year old laptop that doesn't move as fast as I'd like, but considering what all the Logos software is doing under the keyboard I'm impressed. Most of my problems are with the carbon unit in front of the keyboard. (Get it? Carbon life form? Me, the human? Never mind.)

We need to give Logos all the feedback we can - it's their choice if and when it goes in. Their customer service sensitivity is a refreshing change from most providers out there. What impresses me is their ability to accommodate the needs and desires of their core users - those of us crazy enough to study, prepare and present God's Word using beta software (with the back-up of Logos 3 and hard-copy just in case but rarely used). Even accommodating conflicting features by making them options we can choose from. Choice is good.

I got excited when I saw the little red delete button for notes was replaced by a menu - promise/hope of cool future features! One function at a time is fine with me! - keep 'em coming (once a week works for me). I use notes a lot - very heavy user in Logos 3. I used all the notes features and am looking for them in Logos 4.

Thank you Logos for the drag-and-drop from note to note - I too had been watching for but stopped trying it a few versions ago. Glad its in.

Clippings to Clippings would be helpful too.

Ephesians 5:20-21

Terry Poperszky

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97125#Comment_97125

I vote to make all of Terry's posts appear Neon Green.

Tangerine orange or nothing!

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97180#Comment_97180

Who is Job [:D]

Friedrich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97170#Comment_97170

I don't think Logos is sending out incomplete, untested programs, but inviting us (the beta testers) into their lab to help. We are the testers - what a treat. Thank you Logos. (By the way, Logos does pre-test before releasing versions to us.)

As beta versions go, these aren't bad - actually pretty stable. I've never had a system crash and it's been a while since I've had a program crash. I have a 3 year old laptop that doesn't move as fast as I'd like, but considering what all the Logos software is doing under the keyboard I'm impressed. Most of my problems are with the carbon unit in front of the keyboard. (Get it? Carbon life form? Me, the human? Never mind.)

We need to give Logos all the feedback we can - it's their choice if and when it goes in. Their customer service sensitivity is a refreshing change from most providers out there. What impresses me is their ability to accommodate the needs and desires of their core users - those of us crazy enough to study, prepare and present God's Word using beta software (with the back-up of Logos 3 and hard-copy just in case but rarely used). Even accommodating conflicting features by making them options we can choose from. Choice is good.

I got excited when I saw the little red delete button for notes was replaced by a menu - promise/hope of cool future features! One function at a time is fine with me! - keep 'em coming (once a week works for me). I use notes a lot - very heavy user in Logos 3. I used all the notes features and am looking for them in Logos 4.

Thank you Logos for the drag-and-drop from note to note - I too had been watching for but stopped trying it a few versions ago. Glad its in.

Clippings to Clippings would be helpful too.

Ephesians 5:20-21

Nice post, Tim. My sentiments exactly: I think most of your problems are in the carbon unite . . . .

har har.

Seriously, nice post, and I agree. I am definitely not a techie, and I appreciate the viewpoints of those who have worked in the field: it is normal to form opinions and expectations. But I am pretty stoked about L4, even with the Notes and handouts issues.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97192#Comment_97192

Quote:

I must admit that the way Logos does things is really odd and unfortunate.

Rosie,

Just a thought:

Its' neither odd nor unfortunate in my view, but instead it's a viable stragety to the "old way" of doing things.

Bradley had posted a long explanation of why they have gone the way that they have, (and there are a lot of good reasons for doing so)....and he pointed out that many software companies are doing exactly what Logos is doing.

times change...

From wiki on beta softare:

As the Internet has allowed for rapid and inexpensive distribution of software, companies have begun to take a more loose approach to use of the word "beta". ^[1]Netscape Communications was infamous for releasing alpha level versions of its Netscape web browser to the public and calling them "beta" releases. In February 2005, ZDNet published an article about the recent phenomenon of a beta version often staying for years and being used as if it were in production-level ^[2]. It noted that Gmail and Google News, for example, had been in beta for a long period of time and were not expected to drop the beta status despite the fact that they were widely used; however, Google News did leave beta in January 2006, followed by Google Apps, including Gmail, in July 2009.^[3]. This technique may also allow a developer to delay offering full support and/or responsibility for remaining issues. In the context of Web 2.0, people even talk of perpetual betas to signify that some software is meant to stay in beta state. Also, "beta" is sometimes used to indicate something more like a release candidate such as the LittleBigPlanet public beta.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97385#Comment_97385

Its' neither odd nor unfortunate in my view, but instead it's a viable stragety to the "old way" of doing things.

Bradley had posted a long explanation of why they have gone the way that they have, (and there are a lot of good reasons for doing so)....and he pointed out that many software companies are doing exactly what Logos is doing.

times change...

Can you provide a link to Bradley's post?

Times change but the customer's perception of what they should be receiving has not, especially when they have paid for it (I'm talking about the product so the "software is free" argument is irrelevant). Therefore the development strategy still has an objective measure of its effectiveness and no company can afford to ignore it. Calling a released product a beta is actually a good strategy IF the product works because it has lowered the customer's expectations somewhat - "Oh, it's somewhat buggy but what can you expect from a beta"! Therefore you can't ignore the perception of customers who know that a product is buggy and should be called a beta. Likewise, it would be short-sighted to ignore the perceptions of ex-developers (Rosie?, Martha) AND myself that the strategy is not working very well. Those "old ways" didn't come without a fight from management that they couldn't afford the overhead of quality assurance (QA), but they quickly realised that they needed to budget for QA at all levels, not just the obvious overhead of specialist staff. On multi-billion dollar projects regression testing scenarios were vital to ongoing confidence in the product over a long period of development. B8 proves that point as it introduced a bug into the elementary Library sort functions and B9 was released the next day! PRA development should have received more in-house testing ... there are other things that are obvious to IT professionals looking at the results and responses that the development strategy is fostering.

But I'm confident that the QA bar has been lifted as I think B12 was slated to be a RC but the merge functionality still has a couple of bugs, and this has been very costly with the number of rebuilds of user installations in 4.0a. Then there has been a desire to get PRA's working right and clean up some old issues.

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97399#Comment_97399

It seems to me that with the number of pre-pub (Zondervan) about to go out Logos' virtual door it would behoove them to get 4.0b with its merge index fixes out the door or if they can't get it up to quality standards soon, roll those indexer fixes into another SR for 4.0a. The update to the Galaxie journals demonstrated the mass havoc that indexer's bugs can cause. I am anticipating another wave as the Calvin 500 collection (that's a lot of info!) triggers merge indexes in 4.0a installations.

BillS

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/96872#Comment_96872

Now, if the Dev Team would add a show/hide feature for Martha…

I'm with those that think this might be overkill--and even scary if they could implement it!

Besides, we LIKE Martha!

[:D]

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97399#Comment_97399

Can you provide a link to Bradley's post?

Dave,

I looked and looked and can't find it.

I even checked wikipedia to see if I could remember which one it was....no dice.

Possibly Bradley could point us to it again?

Floyd Johnson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97180#Comment_97180

I suppose we could ask that Terry's post be any color we want, as long as the font is the same color.[:)]

Terry Poperszky

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97477#Comment_97477

I suppose we could ask that Terry's post be any color we want, as long as the font is the same color.

[:P]

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97078#Comment_97078

I must admit that the way Logos does things is really odd and unfortunate. I think they are realizing this with how all the support calls are killing their response time which they used to pride themselves in. I seriously think they should reconsider their testing and release strategy for future releases. Unfortunately, I think this model is deeply engrained in their DNA.

I just want to say, for the record, that we asked Rosie to come join us more than a decade ago. She could have fixed it all before things became too ingrained in our DNA. So it's Rosie's fault. :-)

We are understaffed in testing, but getting ready to add another. Hard as it is to believe, the act of hiring is actually consuming a lot of our time right now. I'm involved in four interviews just this morning. Developers/testers take even longer, and it's nearly impossible to hire a program manager or UI designer from outside -- they need so much product understanding to be useful, as well as rare skills. If you know of someone, send them my way.

The biggest problem seems to be terminology -- everyone has a different meaning for "alpha", "beta", etc. Basically, we use "alpha" for things that are "far from finished" and "beta" for anything that's not "released". And once the product is released -- like 4.0 -- we only ever use "beta" for subsequent releases of not-yet-finished incremental releases.

While I'm no longer coder -- and appointed a development manager earlier this month -- I'm still the "program manager". I was putting lots of time and daily attention on that before the 4.0 release, but am now buried in all the things I was ignoring then, the new hiring, travel, etc. and confess I'm not getting to look at the daily builds / answer design questions / push back on developers as frequently as I'd like. We actually aren't letting "geeky developers" design features -- our UX designer and I do that -- but in the 4.0b cycle the developers have been getting more freedom / less interaction with the two of us, because we're busy with fires in other parts of the company.

Not an excuse, just an explanation. And maybe I'm still too "geeky" myself -- though I really do think we'd made huge progress. It hurts me deeply (not really :-) ) to hear it still looks like a "programmer's toy." I tried so hard to drink all the iPhone Kool-Aid. :-)

At Microsoft they were hiring, training, and rotating PM's all the time. We very much want to move to that model -- and are finally big enough to do it, I believe -- but hiring a PM for our flagship product is difficult (and scary). We need a professional level understanding of UI, product development, and a deep, deep understanding of our product and users. It's a hard combo to find.

Scott S

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97399#Comment_97399

Can you provide a link to Bradley's post?

Dave & Bob,

This may be the message thread on design you are looking for:

http://community.logos.com/forums/t/10026.aspx

Regards,

Scott

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97496#Comment_97496

This may be the message thread on design you are looking for:

That's it!'

thanks for finding it

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97450#Comment_97450

Now, if the Dev Team would add a show/hide feature for Martha…

I'm with those that think this might be overkill--and even scary if they could implement it!

Besides, we LIKE Martha!

OK, I should have said "for Martha's benefit."

However, I can think of some for whom I need could use a show/hide feature. [8-|]

Scott S

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97449#Comment_97449

It seems to me that with the number of pre-pub (Zondervan) about to go out Logos' virtual door it would behoove them to get 4.0b with its merge index fixes out the door or if they can't get it up to quality standards soon, roll those indexer fixes into another SR for 4.0a. The update to the Galaxie journals demonstrated the mass havoc that indexer's bugs can cause. I am anticipating another wave as the Calvin 500 collection (that's a lot of info!) triggers merge indexes in 4.0a installations.

Kevin,

I have not been able to keep up with the beta forum and am only vaguely aware of an "indexer bug". I read that this bug is confirmed in Wiki, but now see it applies to 4.0a, not just 4.0b beta as I thought.

I've not had any indexing problems with 4.0a with new resources (I don't have the Galaxie journals, but did just download and install the IVP Dict. of O.T.). I have not participated in the beta program. Is there anything I need to know to avoid indexing problems?

Wiki linked to David Hooton's jan 17 instruction: "Rebuild Index is the only solution so far." Is entering Rebuild Index in the command box the current recommended solution if a problem occurs?

Thanks in advance,

Scott

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97517#Comment_97517

Bob, thanks once again for your honesty and openness.. I know you are working hard to resolve everything, and know you will get there.. and trust you arent too worn out by all the interviews.

It hurts me deeply (not really :-) ) to hear it still looks like a "programmer's toy

I dont think that, if that what was communicated i apologise, I also wasnt trying to point fingers or stir, or even blame anyone.. and am sorry, will try an phrase things better in the future.

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97517#Comment_97517

I've not had any indexing problems with 4.0a with new resources (I don't have the Galaxie journals, but did just download and install the IVP Dict. of O.T.). I have not participated in the beta program. Is there anything I need to know to avoid indexing problems?

Wiki linked to David Hooton's jan 17 instruction: "Rebuild Index is the only solution so far." Is entering Rebuild Index in the command box the current recommended solution if a problem occurs?

Yes, "rebuild index" or Deleting the index files are currently the only solution to a corrupted index. Basically, when the supplemental index reaches a certain size Logos will attempted to merge it with the main index. I get the impression that if this happens in 4.0a you are likely to experience index corruption. 4.0b has fixed some of the merge bugs but Bradley has indicated elsewhere some still remain. Hopefully, all the problems with merges will be eliminated soon.

Scott S

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97544#Comment_97544

Basically, when the supplemental index reaches a certain size Logos will attempted to merge it with the main index. I get the impression that if this happens in 4.0a you are likely to experience index corruption.

Kevin,

Okay, that doesn't sound like too much trouble. If the index becomes corrupted, I'll use L3, then rebuild the index overnight.

Thanks,

Scott

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97078#Comment_97078

I personally love the fact that we get to see Logos happen. It has made the company extremely responsive to customer needs. Who knows what needs to happen to the program more than us knuckleheads who spend their days using it. The fact that we get to see each step of the process, provide input, and interact with the actual "geeky programmers" is a huge plus. I appreciate Logos for it. They might be able to "look better" if they released less often, but I love trying to break your program.

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97523#Comment_97523

It hurts me deeply (not really :-) ) to hear it still looks like a "programmer's toy

I dont think that, if that what was communicated i apologise, I also wasnt trying to point fingers or stir, or even blame anyone.. and am sorry, will try an phrase things better in the future

Dominic, that was Rosie's statement. I am not a programmer, but from my end as a user of a very unique piece of software, as I said in the previous post, I love the way that Logos rolls out the new features while they are still in process. Let's not learn from Microsoft how to do things. I'd way rather have a company that is as ridiculously responsive to the customer as Logos is than to have a nice profession "big time" testing and QC protocol

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97494#Comment_97494

We are understaffed in testing, but getting ready to add another.

I'm delighted to know it's all Rosie's fault but promise not to use her as a punching bag at the next seminar. [:)]

I do have one serious suggestion. You have a very broad skill set in your users - far broader than you can ever have in your testers. If you were to develop a test scenario form and ask the beta testers to suggest tests to you, I suspect you could develop a solid test set built on actual use rather than basic and theoretical testing. The chief advantage? Errors that remain in the code would be less likely to be errors effecting major user groups. Usage statistics tell you what we use but not why we use it. We can tell you why and what we expect as results.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97494#Comment_97494

Not an excuse, just an explanation. And maybe I'm still too "geeky" myself -- though I really do think we'd made huge progress.

Bob, I appreciate your honesty and the difficulties of what you are attempting. Thank you for sharing so openly.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97496#Comment_97496

Dave & Bob,

This may be the message thread on design you are looking for:

http://community.logos.com/forums/t/10026.aspx

I skimmed that article at the time, but it makes fascinating reading in the light of this thread! There were some perceptive comments about the RERO strategy and I do agree that it has some advantages for development/design. It still needs to be tied to good quality practices else it becomes too free-wheeling!

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97706#Comment_97706

There were some perceptive comments about the RERO strategy and I do agree that it has some advantages for development/design. It still needs to be tied to good quality practices else it becomes too free-wheeling!

RERO has its place in the development cycle especially in determining what features to develop and getting features out quickly as users' expectations evolve. It's potential draw back is as an excuse to avoid logical completeness and adequate testing of the features developed. True, my experience is oooold ... web administrative apps by reiterative prototyping

If features are well considered and implemented on rollout, RERO is a solid development model. If the code is buggy, however, no development cycle theory is apt to appease the affected users. My concern based on my own experience with L4, is that there are sufficient real bugs that I am embarrassingly quick to cry "BUG (wolf)" rather than investigate if I screwed up. I'm certain that the ratio of chair-to-keyboard interface errors to keyboard-to-Logos-painted-screens is at least 2:1 chair-to-keyboard.

Matt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97130#Comment_97130

As for the bugs and features, I felt at the time in December that Logos 4 was out a year early. Now I understand at some point you put your stick in the ground and the urgency of a released product helps make things better, but for no other reason than a long list of ver.3 features not yet implemented well, I have NEVER seen that in a commerical product. So it will take a year to fully have all of ver 3 implemented, have all the great features we already see and more in ver 4, and a lot of the bugs squashed and things stabilized.

Very well said. We're in a beta cycle right now at our company. This is a many tiered product that deals with many thousands of users and many gigabytes of data across different continents, yet in our two beta tests this week, there have been three bugs reported, and we introduced many new features. The key is that we do not use our customers to beta test. In my opinion, all of the beta testers in this forum deserve some sort of tremendous free resource or software offer from Logos because they have shouldered a tremendous amount of the testing of this product. Thanks so much to them!

Matt

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97494#Comment_97494

I must admit that the way Logos does things is really odd and unfortunate. I think they are realizing this with how all the support calls are killing their response time which they used to pride themselves in. I seriously think they should reconsider their testing and release strategy for future releases. Unfortunately, I think this model is deeply engrained in their DNA.

I just want to say, for the record, that we asked Rosie to come join us more than a decade ago. She could have fixed it all before things became too ingrained in our DNA. So it's Rosie's fault. :-)

Glad Bob piped up to show you all that he and I are friends from way back. Sometimes my choice of wording is "odd and unfortunate" and I'm sorry to all of you who feel upset by how I sometimes express my constructive criticism for Logos here. But it's not really much different from how I've talked to Bob directly when we've met for lunch in the past to talk about Logos, and he has appreciated my honest, though sometimes hard-hitting, feedback (he doesn't always follow my advice, but that's his prerogative as CEO and chief program manager, and yes he is still a bit geeky [;)] but so am I). He still wanted me to work for them, even knowing that's what I'm like. It's part of my DNA from having worked at Microsoft.

Microsoft program managers were hired from among people who usually had programming/CompSci backgrounds, so they were geeky too, but their primary role was different. They were not trying to design features to be easy to implement. They were designing them to be easy to use. Sometimes that meant more headaches for us developers, and we complained about our program managers. Many of us remembered the days when "Development was king" and we could decide how the features should behave. We mourned that loss. It is an adjustment Logos will need to go through, too. Hopefully Logos never gets so big that (like Microsoft) it can't listen to its users anymore. That in my opinion is what sets Logos apart, far above the crowd.

We are understaffed in testing, but getting ready to add another.

I'm glad to hear that. I recently clicked on the "we're hiring" link on Logos's latest Facebook post (also on the blog), just out of curiosity. (No, I'm still not looking for a job with Logos...[:)]) I was disappointed to see that while they had openings for all different kinds of developers and a Sys Admin and Logos Ambassador, they did not appear to be looking for any Testers. So I'm glad to hear from Bob that they are indeed addressing that.

I am sympathetic with how long it takes to find good people, and I will be praying for Logos on that front, in addition to my occasional prods from the peanut gallery. And if I hear of any good people, I will definitely send them your way...

Any of you others reading this who might be interested, Logos was recently included on BCWI's Best Christian Workplaces list for 2010. See http://www.logos.com/jobs for more info on openings. But they are missing the description for the tester they're looking for. Go for it, someone who has experience as a beta tester and is good at "breaking things"!

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97494#Comment_97494

We are understaffed in testing, but getting ready to add another. Hard as it is to believe, the act of hiring is actually consuming a lot of our time right now. I'm involved in four interviews just this morning. Developers/testers take even longer, and it's nearly impossible to hire a program manager or UI designer from outside -- they need so much product understanding to be useful, as well as rare skills. If you know of someone, send them my way.

The biggest problem seems to be terminology -- everyone has a different meaning for "alpha", "beta", etc. Basically, we use "alpha" for things that are "far from finished" and "beta" for anything that's not "released". And once the product is released -- like 4.0 -- we only ever use "beta" for subsequent releases of not-yet-finished incremental releases.

While I'm no longer coder -- and appointed a development manager earlier this month -- I'm still the "program manager". I was putting lots of time and daily attention on that before the 4.0 release, but am now buried in all the things I was ignoring then, the new hiring, travel, etc. and confess I'm not getting to look at the daily builds / answer design questions / push back on developers as frequently as I'd like. We actually aren't letting "geeky developers" design features -- our UX designer and I do that -- but in the 4.0b cycle the developers have been getting more freedom / less interaction with the two of us, because we're busy with fires in other parts of the company.

Not an excuse, just an explanation. And maybe I'm still too "geeky" myself -- though I really do think we'd made huge progress. It hurts me deeply (not really :-) ) to hear it still looks like a "programmer's toy." I tried so hard to drink all the iPhone Kool-Aid. :-)

At Microsoft they were hiring, training, and rotating PM's all the time. We very much want to move to that model -- and are finally big enough to do it, I believe -- but hiring a PM for our flagship product is difficult (and scary). We need a professional level understanding of UI, product development, and a deep, deep understanding of our product and users. It's a hard combo to find.

Bob, I too want to say thanks for being so honest with us. This being said, being understaffed in your testing department should not imply that it is okay to distribute an under-tested product.

It could be from the fact that I too was a software developer/ project manger for a software company that my standards are higher than other individuals. Even thoughI have not spent a lot of time with L4 (L4 in its current state is not usable for me because of the missing features); I have found a couple of bugs. In my opinion, these bugs should have been caught when the developer was doing his/her unit testing.

Bob, there is a reason why you are putting out fires, there is a reason why you have having customer support issues, there is a reason why people are comparing L4 to Microsoft Vista/ME, and you are smart enough to know what this reason is, and it is not the number of units of L4 you have sold. Your high sales only put a huge spotlight on this issue.

Floyd Johnson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97170#Comment_97170

I stumbled upon this article about Google:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/25/google.labs.graduation/

It seems to describe the process that I am seeing in the development of LOGOS.

Blessings,

Floyd

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97815#Comment_97815

It could be from the fact that I too was a software developer/ project manger for a software company that my standards are higher than other individuals.

Don't count on it ... I thought that a billion dollar a year payroll was sufficient motivation for adequate testing. That is, until I hired a programmer for web programming who came from the medical equipment sector. Shall we say his 10 years of programming MRI's and the like taught me a great deal about designing one's testing around the needs. [:)]

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97816#Comment_97816

I stumbled upon this article about Google:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/25/google.labs.graduation/

It seems to describe the process that I am seeing in the development of LOGOS.

Yeah, sort of. They let people play with features ahead of time and then if they are popular, they release them into the main version of Google. They might be releasing things to Google Labs while they are still working out the bugs, but I haven't seen any bugs in any of the Google Labs features, and I've played with a bunch of them. One of my favorite Google features, Google Sets, has been in Labs forever (several years) and has never "graduated" into the mainstream. It's not because it isn't finished yet or is buggy or anything, as far as I can tell. I just think it hasn't been particularly popular, and they don't want to clutter the main Google UI with stuff that most people aren't going to use.

There has, however, been a documented trend, which Bob and Bradley have alluded to in some other posts, of software companies moving into more of a "perpetual beta" mode. (Facebook does that. They are always rolling out new releases which have bugs in them and every user is forced to participate in the public beta where they would choose to or not. At least with Logos we have a choice.) The mantra "release early; release often" which comes from the Open Source movement is quoted in Logos circles too. See Bradley's posts in this thread. See also the long discussion on the benefits vs. drawbacks of Logos's release model in this thread; there's more in here. See also Bob Pritchett's tweet here which links to an article called Embrace the Concept of "Permanent Beta" -- so apparently Bob is at least intrigued by that if not fully in support of it.

Incidentally, I have come around somewhat in my thinking on this. In one of the above-mentioned threads, when 4.0a was in beta testing, I wrote "I can't afford the time to be in permanent beta mode all the time so I'm not going to participate in the beta for that even though I did for 4.0." But I'm back to being in the beta for 4.0b and have been all along from Beta 1 up to now (Beta 12). It has more to do with how much time I've been willing (lately) to commit to Logos -- narrowing down reproducible cases of bugs, and reporting them, etc. It has been extensive, but I'm choosing to do it because I love Logos and the people who make it, and I want to see it improve.

I still think there would be a huge benefit to having the product better tested internally before releasing it to a wide-spread beta test, because then it's only absorbing lots of hours of a few people's time rather than many. I do understand the benefits of mass collaboration, of many hands making light work, and it is applicable sometimes in software development and testing. But there's a cost/benefit tradeoff when much of the work is being done redundantly. Many of us heavy forum users are running up against the same bugs over and over, and taking time to patiently explain to other users how to get around them. I really wish I didn't have to do that. I know I don't have to -- I'm volunteering at this, but I mean the need is there and it's great. I could drop the ball and other users here would pick it up for me (and I do that from time to time when I'm busy with other things) -- Logos employees don't have time to and aren't in general doing that. It's wonderful that Logos has such a large and loyal user base who are willing to help out. But it doesn't need to be so time consuming for us all. A small investment in time up front in better testing would alleviate a lot of angst among users, and would redound to Logos's ultimate benefit in the long run as it would maintain its reputation in the hearts and minds of its users.

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97831#Comment_97831

It could be from the fact that I too was a software developer/ project manger for a software company that my standards are higher than other individuals.

Don't count on it ... I thought that a billion dollar a year payroll was sufficient motivation for adequate testing. That is, until I hired a programmer for web programming who came from the medical equipment sector. Shall we say his 10 years of programming MRI's and the like taught me a great deal about designing one's testing around the needs.

Hi MJ,

My statement about higher standards when it comes to beta software was in reference to the people who thinks that it is neat to help Logos find bugs in their program.

I agree 150% with Rosie's statement about beta software. Beta software is used to test new features to see if they are usable, if the users want this new feature, etc. . .

I believe the main function of beta programs (users) is not to find bugs in the program. Finding software bugs is the responsibility of the development team.

Matt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/97815#Comment_97815

Bob, there is a reason why you are putting out fires, there is a reason why you have having customer support issues, there is a reason why people are comparing L4 to Microsoft Vista/ME, and you are smart enough to know what this reason is, and it is not the number of units of L4 you have sold. Your high sales only put a huge spotlight on this issue.

Ay, there's the rub. If the product had been properly tested and fleshed out, then Logos support wouldn't have been overwhelmed. It's not a matter of terminology either. A beta means "Hey, we're feature complete. We've unit-tested. We've regression tested. We now need to see if there's anything we've overlooked or introduced that we didn't intend to." It does not mean "Hey guys, it built this morning with no errors! Let's ship and start the revenue stream!"

I wish that Bob, in his blog entry On Failing Our Customers had been more forthcoming and stated the obvious, "The product was not ready. We apologize for the many, many headaches we've caused our customer base and the countless wasted hours due to my blunder in allowing the software to be released too early. We will do tangible things like 'X', 'Y', and 'Z' to ensure that our customer's time in beta-testing our product will be recompensed." It seemed an especially spurious post considering that Bob is the man who penned a book and runs a website entitled 'Fire Someone Today.' A cynic might easily draw the conclusion that Logos has exploited the Christian character of their customer base.

I can say this: In *general*, the support in these forums from the volunteers when contrasted with the 'official' Logos support, makes the latter look very bad indeed. If it weren't for the support of the volunteers in these forums, Logos 4 just might have been Logos' swan song. Mark that I said 'In general.' I am issuing a blanket statement based upon my experience with both forms of support. This is not meant to cast aspersions upon any one or the other individual contributors from either camp.

Matt