FreeLists / webproducers / [webproducers] Re: persuading a project manager that formal testing is important???

[PeterV <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:56 PM 6/27/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>And I'll go one step further! In commercial software having the better
>product is a sure fire bet not to win. The "first and better" product
>will always die after the fast to market product with a larger
>advertising budget kicks ass.

Yes, But that's no argument against testing, it's an argument for short 
development cycles *with* Q&A and it's an argument FOR user testing.

>Also keep in mind that another hallmark of commercial software products
>is that they don't do everything that a user wants - otherwise they
>would be using custom software.

Again, same thing.

>Another odd thing about commercial products is that having worked on
>over a dozen commercial titles myself, I have yet to see any of them
>get past the 1.0 mark. I would see some titles get to that stage, but
>there were very few. In fact most commercial publishers need to get
>several titles out to market in a season, then they wait to for a
>winner - and then pick that title for an upgrade. Of course most of the
>titles that I worked on which sold were just put together with other
>titles at a discount by year two.

That's interesting :)

>By the way it's important to note that commercial software and custom
>software are very different subjects in terms of QA. In fact custom
>software seems to be about nothing else but testing, adding features
>and making changes to "get it right".

And that's a scary look into the world of commercial software (coming from 
custom software). I always had the impression it was the other way round :)
Peter


__________________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe send a blank message with unsubscribe in the subject to 
webproducers-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

To access our webform (instead of sending e-mail) for popular commands 
including subscribe, unsubscribe, digest, and vacation  visit  
www.WebProducers.org. You can also access the list archive at the website.

Questions and comments are welcome just e-mail me, morry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx