Author: Marc van Hal
Date: 13:31:59 11/22/00
Go up one level in this thread
On November 22, 2000 at 13:54:04, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On November 22, 2000 at 11:05:36, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >>Just a simple question: if Rebel Tiger cannot mate with bishop and knight, as >>has been said here and nobody has rejected that statement, what kind of work >>beta testers did? Or maybe I am mistaken about what a beta tester does? I >>supposed that it is a heavy work, a systematic effort to grasp problems. Now it >>seems to me it is not so, at least not always. It seems more or less as a review >>where you play the program and from time to time you write a note or two about >>the Gui or something than can appear during the game. So if not bishop+knight >>situation appears, the problems is not grasped. In fact, that kind of endings >>are very rare, but then, if beta testing is just to look at just what appears, I >>wonder which is the difference between betatesting and toying. >>I have never offered myself to beta testing nothing because precisely of that: I >>have no time not the desire to do such a heavy effort in detail. Sometimes in >>the past I have reviewed programs -programs that I have bought- and I did that >>in confessed subjetive terms, so everyone has been free to take it as a >>entertaiment or as some kind of light info, but of course nobody, never, thought >>I was doing a full job of the kind K.K - Alan Tomalty- did. >>So my point is: please, do not engage in such comitments unless you are prepared >>to go to the end. Do not do that because I put my faith in what you test, other >>people put his faith also and so decisions are taken because we think "well, all >>these enthusiastic beta tester cannot be wrong". >>Just a last thing: I do not say this from a disppointment with Rebel Tiger. I >>like it very much and I am sure that anyway Theron will deliver a patch long >>before I ever reach an ending of that kind: in fact it will never happen because >>I always surrender with just one pawn less. My disappointment is with my fellows >>here, specially with those that sometimes make his comments from the highness of >>his status as beta testers but then, out of the blue, facts show thet did not >>perform the work as was due to be done. >>Sorry if I hurt somebody. All this is writen under the premise B+N mates are not >>in Tiger capabilities by now. >>Fernando > > >I have beta tested lots of hardware and software (no, not chess programs). In >every case, I was given a specific set of things to try, to test, to play with, >etc. And then a set of specific questions I had to answer, plus room for >any other comments I had. > >The alternative is just to give somebody a copy of something, say "use this for >a while and let me know what you think." You certainly get less info back that >way. But it takes less effort on both sides as well. > >Formulating a beta test plan, distributing the program, getting the results, >analyzing them, turns into a 'project'... I don't think chess engine authors >do this sort of detailed plan at all... In my eyes this is What they should do look at the good and bad qualetys of the product Give a report on bugs cq problems they faced. And try to give some helpfull tips (if possible) at the programmer If you only ask for opinions in a revieuw you only do what most firms ask you after you buy the product mostly when you want to register it. Or if you want to download a shareware product from them. But I gues you right if you say that Microsoft or so works like this The software industry is the only brange where it sometimes works in this way Actualy when you buy the product then your still a betatester. do the same thing in the car industry and you will loose milions Cars have to be replaced and so on.
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