Beta's

Why

Published on October 26, 2003 By Hippie In Misc

I don't understand why when a "beta" of something comes out, everyone, including me, rushes to download it. I think it's like buying a computer that's not quite finished. Wait.....that was a bad anology, because there is'nt any such thing as a "finished computer". How about, like buying a house, but they don,t have the doors on yet. Why can't they wait till the product is finished. Like I've said before, I love object Desktop, but when I bought it in May, they were saying "The New Desktop X 2. It still is'nt 2, supposedly, it will be tommorrow. It wil probably be " Beta DesktopX 2". It's just really strange, and something to think about. If this had happened 20 years ago, people would say they were crazy, now they can't wait.

Comments

Draginol

on Oct 26, 2003

So what problem are you having?

russellmz

on Oct 27, 2003

depends on the company or type of beta.

there are some companies that put out almost finished betas since they know it will be widely downloaded. or a beta downloaded 100,000 times with no reports of smoking computers.

i read of a penguin behavior where the first few penguins get pushed into the water by the sheer mass of penguins behind them. then the penguins wait and see if they get eaten to see if there are any predators in the water. that's how i prefer to try out betas: thousands of people d/l and it ran with no problems? let me at it...

KarmaGirl

on Oct 27, 2003

Some people like to try new things as soon as possible. Others don't. That's why some products (like Object Desktop) have a choice. There are a lot of people who like to be part of the development of a product. Running betas allows you to report things that could be fixed in the "released" versions. It's also impossible to tell how long a beta cycle will be, because its based on fixing the issues.

Community AT Work

on Jun 06, 2005

Google is the king of beta testing.

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