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Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20010]

Tue, 10 May 2005 11:17

Eclipse User

People should be encouraged to download and use the latest milestone
build (currently 3.1M6) instead of the last stable build (currently
3.0.2). Milestones are of high quality and developers need timely
feedback on problems. Therefore the milestone build should be the most
prominent download on the page
(http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php). The New and Noteworthy
page also needs to be linked prominently in order to advertise new
features that users should try out in this milestone.

A bugzilla entry has been opened for this. Please see/cc/vote for:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=90371

--Ed

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20050 is a reply to message #20010]

Tue, 10 May 2005 13:20

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

Ed Burnette wrote:
> People should be encouraged to download and use the latest milestone
> build (currently 3.1M6) instead of the last stable build (currently
> 3.0.2). Milestones are of high quality and developers need timely
> feedback on problems. Therefore the milestone build should be the most
> prominent download on the page
> (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php).

-1 People should be encouraged to download the last stable build.
Milestones are _not_ uniformly high quality, but since Eclipse is an
early adopter community, developers get lots of feedback, anyway.

Bob

The New and Noteworthy
> page also needs to be linked prominently in order to advertise new
> features that users should try out in this milestone.
>
> A bugzilla entry has been opened for this. Please see/cc/vote for:
>
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=90371
>
> --Ed

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20083 is a reply to message #20010]

Tue, 10 May 2005 14:35

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: reply.group.com

-1
Bad idea. It would discourage newcomers.
Ed, will you recommend your customers with a beta version of your product?

"Ed Burnette" <ed.burnette@sas.com> wrote in message
news:d5qjoe$gfc$1@news.eclipse.org...
> People should be encouraged to download and use the latest milestone build
> (currently 3.1M6) instead of the last stable build (currently 3.0.2).
> Milestones are of high quality and developers need timely feedback on
> problems. Therefore the milestone build should be the most prominent
> download on the page (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php). The New
> and Noteworthy page also needs to be linked prominently in order to
> advertise new features that users should try out in this milestone.
>
> A bugzilla entry has been opened for this. Please see/cc/vote for:
>
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=90371
>
> --Ed

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20118 is a reply to message #20083]

Wed, 11 May 2005 00:03

Eclipse User

Yes, if my product was open source and I had no testing staff. I'd want
to get bug reports right away and get fixes and improvements in the
customers hands right away.

Doesn't it discourage newcomers if they download Eclipse and expect to
find some feature, like JDK5 support, but it's not in last year's
version? Then they have to do that big download all over again.

I'm very puzzled nobody is agreeing with me on this one.

SJ wrote:
> -1
> Bad idea. It would discourage newcomers.
> Ed, will you recommend your customers with a beta version of your product?

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20121 is a reply to message #20118]

Wed, 11 May 2005 10:49

Eclipse Webmaster

Messages: 607353
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Personally I use Eclipse to get my job done, so I don't care as much
about the new features, I just want a reliable product to work with.

There are plenty of folks out there who like to use the bleeding-edge
stuff (3.1M6 gets about 3000 downloads per day). I'm just not one of them.

Ed Burnette wrote:
> Yes, if my product was open source and I had no testing staff. I'd want
> to get bug reports right away and get fixes and improvements in the
> customers hands right away.
>
> Doesn't it discourage newcomers if they download Eclipse and expect to
> find some feature, like JDK5 support, but it's not in last year's
> version? Then they have to do that big download all over again.
>
> I'm very puzzled nobody is agreeing with me on this one.
>
> SJ wrote:
>
>> -1
>> Bad idea. It would discourage newcomers.
>> Ed, will you recommend your customers with a beta version of your
>> product?

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20124 is a reply to message #20118]

Wed, 11 May 2005 15:34

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: ian.no.spam.please

Ed Burnette wrote:
> Yes, if my product was open source and I had no testing staff. I'd want
> to get bug reports right away and get fixes and improvements in the
> customers hands right away.
>
> Doesn't it discourage newcomers if they download Eclipse and expect to
> find some feature, like JDK5 support, but it's not in last year's
> version? Then they have to do that big download all over again.
>
> I'm very puzzled nobody is agreeing with me on this one.

I think maybe it's because you're aiming in the wrong direction.

If your goal is to get JDK5 support into people's hands, and I agree
with you that this is a good, then you should be advocating for more
frequent milestone releases. But I don't think you'll get a lot of
agreement on recommending that all users become beta testers. Many (as
has been said) just want to use a stable product, and that should be the
emphasis - quality is job #1, as Ford used to say. Getting new features
out for test? Maybe that should be #2.

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20126 is a reply to message #20121]

Wed, 11 May 2005 15:37

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

3000 downloads a day suggests Ed's proposal is a solution in search of a
problem.

(Ed: In the same spirit as your suggestion that I object to the proposal
because milestones break XMLBuddy, I'm thinking you proposed it because
year-old releases don't have the features you write books about. ;-)

Bob

Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy) wrote:
> Personally I use Eclipse to get my job done, so I don't care as much
> about the new features, I just want a reliable product to work with.
>
> There are plenty of folks out there who like to use the bleeding-edge
> stuff (3.1M6 gets about 3000 downloads per day). I'm just not one of them.
>
>
>
> Ed Burnette wrote:
>
>> Yes, if my product was open source and I had no testing staff. I'd
>> want to get bug reports right away and get fixes and improvements in
>> the customers hands right away.
>>
>> Doesn't it discourage newcomers if they download Eclipse and expect to
>> find some feature, like JDK5 support, but it's not in last year's
>> version? Then they have to do that big download all over again.
>>
>> I'm very puzzled nobody is agreeing with me on this one.
>>
>> SJ wrote:
>>
>>> -1
>>> Bad idea. It would discourage newcomers.
>>> Ed, will you recommend your customers with a beta version of your
>>> product?

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20129 is a reply to message #20126]

Thu, 12 May 2005 00:36

Eclipse User

Bob Foster wrote:
> 3000 downloads a day suggests Ed's proposal is a solution in search of a
> problem.

Do you realize that's 5 or 6 times less than the number of downloads for
the release version now?

> (Ed: In the same spirit as your suggestion that I object to the proposal
> because milestones break XMLBuddy, I'm thinking you proposed it because
> year-old releases don't have the features you write books about. ;-)

Yeah, gotta earn my 50 cents per hour somehow. :)

I'll concede the thread, but will close with a final thought. I attended
a talk by John Weigand at EclipseCon where he credited the stability of
the release largely to the frequent milestones and the stability of
those milestones. The milestones were stable because lots of people used
them and reported problems in them. And lots of people used them because
they were promoted and advertised through things like the download page
and the New and Noteworthy page.

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20132 is a reply to message #20129]

Thu, 12 May 2005 12:24

Eclipse Webmaster

Messages: 607353
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Ed Burnette wrote:
> Do you realize that's 5 or 6 times less than the number of downloads for
> the release version now?

And there's nothing wrong with that. Does the number of users need to be
the same as the number of testers? The latest milestone is #2 of the
top-10 on the downloads page, and it likely always will be. People who
are inclined to the latest and greatest will get it from that link.
Downloading the latest milestone != more people submitting bug reports,
because there is no prominent link on the download page that sais "if
you have issues with milestones submit a bug report". E

Most other sites feature a release build as the prominent link, such as
http://www.mozilla.org/. If I want a nightly or a stable build, I'll go
looking for it.

--

Eclipse WebMaster - webmaster@eclipse.org
Questions? Consult the FAQ at http://www.eclipse.org/webmaster/faq.html
View my status at http://www.eclipse.org/webmaster/main.html

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20135 is a reply to message #20050]

Thu, 12 May 2005 17:52

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: daniel.megert.gmx.net

Bob Foster wrote:

> Ed Burnette wrote:
>
>> People should be encouraged to download and use the latest milestone
>> build (currently 3.1M6) instead of the last stable build (currently
>> 3.0.2). Milestones are of high quality and developers need timely
>> feedback on problems. Therefore the milestone build should be the
>> most prominent download on the page
>> (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php).
>
>
> -1 People should be encouraged to download the last stable build.
> Milestones are _not_ uniformly high quality,

Bob, can you give some examples that lead to this statement?

Dani

> but since Eclipse is an early adopter community, developers get lots
> of feedback, anyway.
>
> Bob
>
> The New and Noteworthy
>
>> page also needs to be linked prominently in order to advertise new
>> features that users should try out in this milestone.
>>
>> A bugzilla entry has been opened for this. Please see/cc/vote for:
>>
>> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=90371
>>
>> --Ed
>

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20138 is a reply to message #20135]

Thu, 12 May 2005 22:28

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

I did in the bug report. In 2.0 editor accelerator keys broke early and
stayed broken for several milestones because people were busy working on
other ways to define accelerators. Java editor auto-formatting breaks
pretty much every time someone changes it. The first stab at javadoc
autoformatting is a good example. Whether auto-brace generation consumes
the next line was in churn for several milestones. In 3.1M6 the Run >
SWT Application option broke. And so on.

You can't seriously question that things get broken in the milestones?
If the phrase "_not_...high quality" stuck in your craw, I didn't mean
that good people aren't trying hard to make them high quality. I know
they are. But when code is changing, especially in the early milestones
when the only filter is the discretion of the committer, things break.
That's software. Sometimes they stay broken for awhile due to developer
priorities. That's people. No project is immune.

Bob

Daniel Megert wrote:
> Bob Foster wrote:
>
>> Ed Burnette wrote:
>>
>>> People should be encouraged to download and use the latest milestone
>>> build (currently 3.1M6) instead of the last stable build (currently
>>> 3.0.2). Milestones are of high quality and developers need timely
>>> feedback on problems. Therefore the milestone build should be the
>>> most prominent download on the page
>>> (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php).
>>
>>
>>
>> -1 People should be encouraged to download the last stable build.
>> Milestones are _not_ uniformly high quality,
>
>
> Bob, can you give some examples that lead to this statement?
>
> Dani
>
>> but since Eclipse is an early adopter community, developers get lots
>> of feedback, anyway.
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> The New and Noteworthy
>>
>>> page also needs to be linked prominently in order to advertise new
>>> features that users should try out in this milestone.
>>>
>>> A bugzilla entry has been opened for this. Please see/cc/vote for:
>>>
>>> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=90371
>>>
>>> --Ed
>>
>>

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20141 is a reply to message #20135]

Mon, 16 May 2005 13:41

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: Lamont_Gilbert.rigidsoftware.com

Daniel Megert wrote:
> Bob Foster wrote:
>
>> Ed Burnette wrote:
>>
>>> People should be encouraged to download and use the latest milestone
>>> build (currently 3.1M6) instead of the last stable build (currently
>>> 3.0.2). Milestones are of high quality and developers need timely
>>> feedback on problems. Therefore the milestone build should be the
>>> most prominent download on the page
>>> (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php).
>>
>>
>>
>> -1 People should be encouraged to download the last stable build.
>> Milestones are _not_ uniformly high quality,
>
>
> Bob, can you give some examples that lead to this statement?
>
> Dani
>

3.1m5a

That is example enough. I think the non milestone versions are meant to
be useable by those that are developing applications. Safe to release
your app to a customer based on that. But not so for the milestone builds.

Nevertheless, it does confuse people when they join the community and
are downloading 3.0.2 because they think thats the latest version...

CL

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20145 is a reply to message #20129]

Mon, 16 May 2005 13:45

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: Lamont_Gilbert.rigidsoftware.com

Ed Burnette wrote:
> Bob Foster wrote:
>
>> 3000 downloads a day suggests Ed's proposal is a solution in search of
>> a problem.
>
>
> Do you realize that's 5 or 6 times less than the number of downloads for
> the release version now?
>
>> (Ed: In the same spirit as your suggestion that I object to the
>> proposal because milestones break XMLBuddy, I'm thinking you proposed
>> it because year-old releases don't have the features you write books
>> about. ;-)
>
>
> Yeah, gotta earn my 50 cents per hour somehow. :)
>
> I'll concede the thread, but will close with a final thought. I attended
> a talk by John Weigand at EclipseCon where he credited the stability of
> the release largely to the frequent milestones and the stability of
> those milestones. The milestones were stable because lots of people used
> them and reported problems in them. And lots of people used them because
> they were promoted and advertised through things like the download page
> and the New and Noteworthy page.

I think 3.1 is adding a lot of advanced stuff that your average user
would nto see, but lots of app developers see and intend to use. I have
downloaded each of the milestones because I probably reported a bug
during each one, and was waiting on the fix in the milestone. Im about
to get m7 because of a very important enhancement that includes as well.
But I generally skipped m6, which was probably the first one i skipped
since it had none of my needed improvements.

CL

Re: Download page should highlight latest milestone [message #20160 is a reply to message #20145]

Wed, 25 May 2005 09:33

Eclipse User

An Eclipse installation will typically have numerous plugins. If the
latest milestone breaks a plugin (as is the case with M7 and my PHP IDE)
you depend on, you aren't going to be using that milestone.

--Dion

> I think 3.1 is adding a lot of advanced stuff that your average user
> would nto see, but lots of app developers see and intend to use. I have
> downloaded each of the milestones because I probably reported a bug
> during each one, and was waiting on the fix in the milestone. Im about
> to get m7 because of a very important enhancement that includes as well.
> But I generally skipped m6, which was probably the first one i skipped
> since it had none of my needed improvements.
>
>
> CL
>
>
>

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