Do you use pre-development software to develop commercial products?

Question

So, the question is ... did you use a product preview or technology (community preview, beta or release candidate, etc.) to develop your own product using

For example, you may have created a website using Microsoft ASP.Net MVC (which just went through RTM yesterday) or embedded software for SQL Server 2008 RC 1..etc

If so..

1. What steps have you taken (or taken) to minimize the risk of problems with the release of the product before release?

2. Do you wait a certain period of time (until the product is a candidate for release, for example) before working with the product?

3. What are the main advantages (against risk) of working with pre-release technologies?

Answer 1

Almost all successful software projects that I have ever been released (erm, published - websites) using a large number of beta versions.

We mainly evaluate the test coverage of these (mostly open source projects) and the previous post for not doing stupid things.

Any old beta will do as long as it does what we need;) But usually we leave immediate snapshots after major overwrites.

These days we test the test, so we know if our material works. If there are errors in the libraries, we are left with the older version or correct the errors. We can also immediately evaluate if there are serious errors in the update, since it will violate our own tests. Therefore, the use of "incomplete" software does not really matter much. Access to the latest features is always the reason, sometimes we do this to get important fixes.

Answer 2

If I really do not need something, I usually wait until everything is checked by the wider market before solving problems with them. For this, I do not just accept new things. It depends on the number of eyes that I want to see before I work with it.

There are enough problems for me to design / develop systems without having to monitor the infrastructure.

Obviously, if the client accepts an earlier version of the technology, my hand is forcibly.

Answer 3

it depends on how much you believe in this software - basically it will solve your problems with the user more efficiently than your current software. therefore, when asp.net 2.0 was first viewed, we adopted it immediately (because we thought it was a huge improvement over asp.net 1.1)

but not so for asp.net mvc. Now, if we decided to accept the preliminary software below, my answers to your 3 questions:

regarding your first point - the kind of promotion you got these days with the IDE - there is very little risk associated with breaking the code with the final version. and these companies do a very good job of informing them in advance of the changes. the greater risk is whether this technology will be accepted by the masses, whether your client will be ready to pay an extra dollar for this.

regarding your second point - no, if we are firm about the new version, then at the moment when it ends, we will begin to examine it in order to have an additional edge.

relative to your third point -

advantage - if the software solves problems at an affordable price - then you used the jackpot as an early adopter. you can charge more for these skills, as it’s obvious that there will be less supply and more demand

risk - if the software is not covered by the masses - your time and money is invested in sewers; -)

Answer 4

I dont know.

I usually wait until Service Pack 1 before I start using the product for commercial purposes.

I found that in odd cases when I broke this rule, this led to unnecessary stress and pressure on developers to solve problems.

Answer 5

Sometimes we need it if it has a bug fix or performance improvement. If the FAE (Field Application Engineer developer) says it is stable, I am ready to try it.

Answer 6

For me, this concerns the time required for the product to exit the door. For example, I work in Silverlight. Some of the features that will be available in SL3 are needed for the next version of our software. If we want to release very quickly after SL3 becomes RTW, we NEED to evolve against the beta. We can not wait long.

Answer 7

It depends on situation. In the previous assignment, we used the ADO.NET Entity Framework while it was in beta. We thoroughly tested the beta and we used automated unit tests and code coverage analysis to make sure we were thorough. Beta passed our tests.

This turned out to be a good step. This saved us a three-month wait for the final version, and it took only a few hours to fix the hacked changes between beta versions and versions.

What I would not use is pre-software, which I'm not sure that it will ever be released, or well supported. This includes open source software if I don't want to support it myself.

Answer 8

If your product is shipped or installed on client computers, be very careful.

For web systems (including components such as Silverlight), this is possible. My previous company deployed systems based on the beta version of ASP.NET (before it was officially released).

This can be a good alternative in some cases (e.g. breakthrough technology). However, great caution: the more code, the more you have to change. Beta products do not have an expected lifespan, support, or legacy. Therefore, you should expect that you will have to replace any build of code based on the beta product.

For me, I will almost certainly avoid this unless absolutely necessary. Ask yourself: why are you using beta? If this is a very good answer, just think about the risks. Otherwise, run after the car .;)

Answer 9

Sometimes you have no other choice. For example, when a new version of a CTP tool simply removes existing technologies.

For instance:

When the Windows Workflow Foundation is released, there are several alternatives. We looked at the time frame of the development cycle (1 year +) and realized that it would be useful to take a chance and start research / development using the CTp version. It turned out that he paid for this project.

Another example is the new Sync Framework. It came out only with SQL CE providers, although we need SQL EE / STD providers. We prototyped with CE suppliers and updated when the new EE supplier was released.

Our only option is to use SQL Server merge replication or similar technology. Ugh!

Answer 10

As a rule, I never use such unstable components in production software.

If you need quality, you must build on a solid foundation.

I know that many large software companies do not use new components and technologies until they become mature enough - just to stay on the safe side.

It all depends on the risk that U agrees to accept.