[jawsscripts] Re: Petition
- From: Chris Smart <csmart8@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2012 12:01:35 -0400
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freedom-scientific-bug-fix-problems
is the link. sign if you wish.
At 11:22 AM 10/6/2012, you wrote:
>Ok, I should have stopped this thread a tad bit
>earlier, but let's put this to bed, please.
>
>Thanks
>
>Take care,
>Sina
>
>Website: www.SinaBahram.com
>Twitter: @SinaBahram
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: jawsscripts-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:jawsscripts-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Kennedy
>Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2012 6:55 AM
>To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [jawsscripts] Re: Petition
>
>You get my vote! Want to run for Quality
>Control Zar? No, sorry. Zars are
>appointed by the president...
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jim Snowbarger" <Snowman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: <jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2012 1:55 AM
>Subject: [jawsscripts] Petition
>
>
>In case you have not already seen this, a link
>to a grass roots petition to
>FS to improve product quality:
>http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freedom-scientific-bug-fix-problems
>
>Ok, I'm gonna wax eloquent for a bit.
>I signed this petition, not because I don't have
>respect for the guys at FS
>and what they have accomplished. Nor because I
>don't have sympathy for the
>enormous challenge they face, trying to keep up
>with all the changes that
>continue to prolipherate. Quite to the contrary, I do respect their
>accomplishment, and think they've got a tough
>job. , For 15 years, I have,
>and continue to, benefit from their work. I
>remain committed to JAWS,
>because it is still the most powerful tool I
>have available to do my work.
>I say, if NVDA can do it, and JAWS presently can't,
>just give me a few minutes, and it will.
>
>But, I signed because I generally concur with
>the basic sentiment expressed
>in the petition that JAWS is a critical piece of
>software for me to conduct
>my life. It is not a game, or an incidental
>amusement, it's a critical
>tool. And, as such, it deserves some serious
>quality control attention.
> To be fare, it's not just JAWS that has the
> bugs. Buggy software is the
>norm these days, everywhere you look. Most of
>it has some imperfection or
>other, and much of it is downright experimental,
>shouldn't have even been
>let out of the lab. Much of this is driven by
>the pressures of a foney
>ephemeral market place that doesn't know what it
>wants until it sees it, and
>then it likes it for a day and gets bored, Move
>on. Just throw that away.
>Who cares, it probably had bugs in it
>anyway. The problem is so pervasive
>in the industry at large that, people like me,
>who write safety-related
>software are forced through unbelievable rigor
>to prove, six ways to Sunday,
>that everything works, exactly as it was
>intended to work, every single
>time. No room for mishaps. It doesn't crash,
>you never need to reboot it.
>It doesn't sometimes do this, and sometimes do that, it is dependable.
>For every module, or logically related group of
>modules that is developed, a
>rigorous and exhaustive set of unit tests are
>defined and implemented, to
>run that unit through all it's paces, even to
>the extreme of having to
>define adequate test cases to cause every single line of code to be
>executed. And, before the entire system is
>built, all modules are run
>through their unit tests, and the results
>confirmed. Then, the entire thing
>is assembled, and a whole batch of integration
>tests is run on the assembled
>system. Those tests accumulate as the product
>evolves. And, with every new
>release, old tests are run again to prove that
>stuff that used to work,
>still does, exactly as it did when it was first
>introduced, as modified in
>subsequent releases.
>
>They make us go through all that pain and
>suffering precisely because the
>state of quality in the industry at large is so
>bad. Developers seem to
>just kind of get it working, and then throw it
>out there for the consumer to
>"enjoy". Notice the quotes.
>
>But JAWS isn't a foney, funny, throw away program like that. It's an
>important tool.But, when you think about it,
>doing all the testing such as
>what I described for all of JAWS, on all the
>operating systems, and service
>packs,with different application versions, video
>cards, , and I don't know,
>processor manufacturers? Surely not. But,
>anyway, that test effort is
>HUGE. I'm sure they do testing. I'm just not
>sure what form that takes.
>Anyway, if we get them to be more rigorous, it
>is going to take them longer
>to do stuff.
>The rate of releases would slow down. That
>means the tick rate on your SMA
>slows down too, and your SMA lasts longer.
>And, FS's income would fall, even as it works harder.
>Problem is, the monkeys have to be fed.
>So, FS earns a fixed amount of income by ticking
>the SMA's and a fixed rate.
>If we compel them to release fewer features, but
>with higher quality on the
>one's they do release, they can get their tick
>rate, we can get our quality,
>and we can know that we paid a price for that
>quality, only if we believe
>that the number of features we used to get per
>major release should be
>considered the norm, and so dropping back from
>that so-called norm, is
>perceived as a cost. But, if the so-called
>norm was actually artificial,
>in that the cost of persisting bugs, and the
>aggravation of dealing with new
>features that don't work quite right, made that
>artificial norm less than
>optimal, then the relationship between that,
>and the situation we were
>pondering of fewer features but higher quality,
>is irrelevant,because we are
>not supposed to get as many features as we are
>now getting. If we were, it
>would be possible to provide them with the
>quality level we expect. It
>apparently isn't, so we're not.
>But, we were getting that many, which means
>stuff was not like stuff was
>spoasta be.
>But, that should be abnormal.
>In other words, the higher quality, fewer
>features case should be the true
>norm. Can you look at simply moving from
>fantasizing an artificial norm, to
>mentally adopting the true norm as a cost?
>
>What do you know, higher quality, zero cost.
>
>So anyway, I'm sure I'm just preaching to the
>quire to say that JAWS has,
>for ages and ages, been plagued with a
>disturbing degree of variability, as
>well as regression as new releases are poked
>out. Perhaps , it would make
>more sense to release once certain quality
>objectives for the required
>feature set have been achieved, rather than
>because it is October again.
>I have always lived by the aphorism, keep your
>older versions handy, for a
>very good reason. And so, I do.
>
>Anyway, because this is such an important tool
>for us, It seems good to
>collectively remind FS that, while we thank them
>for their work, we'd like
>them to do a little better job focusing on achieving, and maintaining
>product quality.
>
>Ya think so?
>
>
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