[haiku-development] Re: Haiku R1/alpha decisions

As expected, people spent a lot of time telling how the alpha should or should not be. But nobody has a clear idea on what an alpha actually is expected to be. Let's decide this first!
I've been luck enough to see or test alphas and betas of some very famous games. The distinction is clear:
1) in the alphas, the game is essentially unplayable. The engine is there: buggy and unstable as hell, but it's in its definitive shape. What's missing is the content: flat lands, incomplete/untextured objects, missing features.
2) in the betas, the game is playable to a good extent: there isn't accesible unfinished content, just some glitches and bugs here and there, sometimes excessively hard, sometimes excessively easy. More content is added and bugs are squashed with the successive releases.
In the alpha phase, nobody expects to be able to play the game. It's just a way to tell people hey, we're working. This is were the final content and features will be chosen, eventually discarding less desidered features according to the feedback to speed up development and keep costs low. Bug reports are accepted, but they aren't given much importance.
The beta phase is a completely different situation. The game is almost what is going to go on the shelves, so developers are focused on completing and fixing the planned content. Bug reports is the most wanted feedback (there's even a button "report a bug" everywhere), while all other feedbacks are just put away or taken into accounts for future patches or releases.
An operating system, or an application, is not like a game: there isn't "content" to add, only features. But the procedure still applies.
The alpha should not be expected to be stable or coherent in any way. It must be able to boot on most situations without doing damages. The user should be able to sneak around a little, surf some websites, type something, code a little, browse his files, play some MP3, read some documentation, run some demo and trivial games. But that's it: he shouldn't be encouraged to effectively use the alpha, but to share his thoughts about it, to point out the areas that require more work.
The betas should iron out all of this, and focus on stability and finishing touches. Bug reports must be encouraged, taking precedence over everything else. 


Well, these are my thoughts. Sorry for the long mail :-)


Best regards,

Gabriele

Other related posts: