Author: Komputer Korner
Date: 17:37:27 12/03/98
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On December 03, 1998 at 12:31:24, Peter Stein wrote: >Rebel 10 has the following bug: > >1. In a bishops of opposite colors ending Rebel 10 stopped play > at the 163rd move with a pop-up message that flashed "maximum > move count exceeded". > >2. I saved the game via the menu, but when I later tried to > retrieve the game from the database it could not be found. > A thorough search of the database revealed that the game > was never saved! > >Other serious problems include: > >1. Random crashes. These seem to occur with a specific combination > of settings, unfortunately I've not had enough testing time to > zero in on exactly which combination. > >2. Extremely poor play when using the Fischer clock. When I play > 2/6 I've noticed that Rebel 10 plays endings very poorly often > losing dead drawn endings. Sometimes it hangs pieces before we > even get to an ending! This maybe in some way related to the > random crashes. > >At any rate this product did not undergo very rigorous quality >control before being released. Rebel 9 was much more stable. If >the addition of new features and enhancements destabilizes the >software I think it's fair to say that the vendor does not have >a software development process in place. > >For the record, I'm both a professional software developer and a >NM so I think I'm reasonably qualified to assess software, particularly >chess software. On that subject I would encourage our professional >software reviewers to be a bit more thorough. Time and time again I've >read glowing reviews only to discover the most basic user interface >bugs were not detected. Reviewing software is a little more work then >simply checking off the list of new features and issuing a few mouse >clicks. > >Peter Stein >nbi@xnet.com For the first time in 3 years, I was not invited to be a beta tester for Rebel. In my review I do note one bug that I found, but you can't expect reviewers to flush out bugs in the limited time allocated for writing the review. I however did list 48 flaws with the program. I find usually 40 in every program. When beta testing Rebel 9 a year ago I had noted weird crashes but Ed could never reproduce them. -- Komputer Korner
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