[sword-devel] Testing Programs...

[Chris Little]

> I am wondering if we are going to be testing our future software
possibly
> within the public.  The reason being, rather than our wasting time
finding
> tiny errors and such, we could hold a 'beta test' and give the
software to
> around 1000 people or so, and tell them to report any tiny bug they
see to
> the bugs forum on sourceforge.  This way we could not only get
feedback on
> how people like the program, but we could spend even more time working
on
> the project, setting up a website, developing frontends, and so on...

There are over 200 people subscribed to this mailing list, who should be
testing the software.  Right? :)

I think once the new site is up, it would be very smart to release betas
publicly.  Technically 1.5.2 should be considered beta, even if it is
more stable than 1.4.7 was.  I'd like to go a tiny step further and
suggest that we also set up a beta modules ftp site where modules would
undergo similar scrutiny to a new version of Sword.  Believe it or not,
database integrity has increased greatly with some of the new tools
available to module makers, but errors do still crop up.  It might also
give us a good way of determining which modules the public at large
considers unorthodox.  A beta site would also give me a nice place to
put modules that only work in with beta versions of Sword rather than
overwriting older versions that do work with the latest release.

--Chris