Wizards: Musings on the new DDi disaster

[Sunseeker]

Ahh, so your statement is not really relevant to the CB 2 at all.

Only if you don't get the point that software is never stable. Otherwise, no.

 

[knifie_sp00nie]

If you think this launch was bad go read about Google Buzz. And does anyone remember Windows ME? People also forget that the original iPhone didn't have apps like it does now. That made for a good bit of nerdrage. The giants of the industry mess up routinely.

 

[Imaro]

Only if you don't get the point that software is never stable. Otherwise, no.

And yet you seem to miss the point that there has to be a certain level of stability before Go-Live... or you shouldn't.

EDIT: Or you should expect your paying customers to be irritated, annoyed, and angry... especially if you replaced software that was more stable.

 

[Sunseeker]

And yet you seem to miss the point that there has to be a certain level of stability before Go-Live... or you shouldn't.

EDIT: Or you should expect your paying customers to be irritated, annoyed, and angry... especially if you replaced software that was more stable.

Yes, and it was stable, as stable as it could be before it was getting hit by hundreds of people at a time from a dozen different browsers on a dozen different operating systems.

And the original CB was only "more stable" because it had gone through the initial instability phase.

 

[Imaro]

Yes, and it was stable, as stable as it could be before it was getting hit by hundreds of people at a time from a dozen different browsers on a dozen different operating systems.

And you know this how? Apparently it wasn't stable enough for a large portion of their user base...so I'm not sure exactly what value "stable as it could be" even equates to. I'm sorry WotC knows how many subscribers to DDI it has, it should have expected and tested against that many people trying to access the app at one time beforehand (and I'm not even certain that was the problem.) I also find it hard to believe that they didn't at leats smoke test their web app in different browsers for compatibility issues so that they could warn the user base not to use certain ones.

And the original CB was only "more stable" because it had gone through the initial instability phase.

Irrelevant to me as a user. What is relevant was that it was stable and you replaced it with somethig that wasn't... and told me it would be better.

 

[Scribble]

I think that after all is said and done at the end of the day...

At least none of us had to kill our dog as she was rapidly changing into some sort of vampire zombie thing...

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:")

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."
Singin': "Don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

 

[nedjer]

Cool dog

I've gotta have some sympathy when the protests are about a software delay of a month or two. This ain't entirely the world of adaptable humans. One line of conflicting css, one file error carried through the workflow or one character of Javascript out of place and the code can unravel. Creating the 'damned if you do, . . .' conundrum.

Do you quality test at every step and slow development to a crawl without more staff, or do you go for it. If you ain't got the staff you go for it and face either the elation of pulling it off or the 'dashed on the rocks' when you don't.

It may be fair to say the software team should have more resources, but chances are the coders themselves are chained to their keyboards night and day.

 

[IronWolf]

Do you quality test at every step and slow development to a crawl without more staff, or do you go for it. If you ain't got the staff you go for it and face either the elation of pulling it off or the 'dashed on the rocks' when you don't.

Testing is an important part of software development and product roll-outs. Limited staff can have an impact, but there is a middle-ground. Some form of public beta testing. This could include invite only beta testing. Invite some people to bang on it a bit. The big bugs will surface pretty quickly. Sure some of the more obscure ones will persist, but you can easily get that low hanging fruit out of the way.

 

[nedjer]

Testing is an important part of software development and product roll-outs. Limited staff can have an impact, but there is a middle-ground. Some form of public beta testing. This could include invite only beta testing. Invite some people to bang on it a bit. The big bugs will surface pretty quickly. Sure some of the more obscure ones will persist, but you can easily get that low hanging fruit out of the way.

Don't pay for RPGs any more, so I don't know the software well enough to see just how much low hanging fruit is left on the branches. I'd kind of assumed from comments that it works OK-ish. However, if it tanks on a regular basis why didn't they just outsource it to MS and let them patch it every month?

 

[JoeGKushner]

If you think this launch was bad go read about Google Buzz. And does anyone remember Windows ME? People also forget that the original iPhone didn't have apps like it does now. That made for a good bit of nerdrage. The giants of the industry mess up routinely.

And are you saying as a result of these errors there are no negative, especially financial consequences? Corporations that I've worked out that skipped several generations of Windows products probably point to a different theory.