[sldev] Just askin': How are we doing?

[Nicholaz Beresford]

Joshua Bell wrote:
> Nicholaz Beresford wrote:
>> The other (big) thing, and I think the comments on the blog for
>> the 1.17.1 and 1.18 release announcements support that, would be to
>> make the 3rd quarter the quarter of "bug fixing".  
> Oh darn, sounds like I do have to go read those comments. *sigh*
> 
> Seriously though - feedback on how we're doing on bugs would be 
> appreciated. The signal:noise ratio on most of our feedback mechanisms 
> is extremely low. Every time I post to the blog saying "we're releasing 
> 1.X which has 40 bug fixes" and the comments are "why aren't you fixing 
> bugs?". Or my favorite: "Why was a Linden on the beta grid testing 
> things when he should be fixing bugs?"

What's interesting is that I find the comments on the blog
quite precise.  If I filter out 20% personal pet issues and
abusive stuff, it's easy to see what people care about.

Number one is logins and general grid health.  You can fix
all the bugs you like, if the grid isn't working, complaints
about that will drown out everything.  (Nobody cares about
viewer crashes if they can't even get in or can't get anywhere).

If grid and login works, what affects people most is communication,
like friend list, lost inventory, group notices ... that kind of
stuff.

If that also works, the smaller stuff will come up and it may
really be hard to pick what's most important there.

I may have a tinted view, but I think the comments on those two
posts were mainly positive, in the direction that "oh yes, please
fix bugs and don't break new things".  Even the announcement
that Windlight was put to rest for a few weeks was taken
positively in the sense that it's better to hold things back
until it's working okay, than making one release too many
which breaks things.

I think it's been the consistent theme ever since I joined
SL (some time in February).  It also was the prime theme from
the Open Letter.

I'm a software developer myself with my own line of software,
so I know both perspectives.  Sometimes things need to be done
and they're bound to break something somewhere.  But with my
software (and also when using software) I found that people
want stability first and then features.


Nick


Second Life from the inside out:
http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/