lately? since 1980s
Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously! You never hear about a car would accidentally accelerate when you try to brake, or that the tires would spontaneously blow out, or that they would just plain roll over. I mean, the phrase "automobile recall" is practically an oxymoron! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_(XW30)#Recall [2] - http://www.forbes.com/2000/08/18/mu3.html [3] - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/toyota-will-recall-lexus-suv…
The fact that "automobile recall" is something that exists and is expected when defects occur, but "software recall" largely does not exist, was his point.
It's almost as if software and automobiles were completely different things! These comparisons are pointless.
Reliability of hardware or software is a trade off. If your software or hardware is responsible for keeping people alive then more time and money is spent on ensuring its stability and that is then factored into the cost.
Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously! You never hear about a car would accidentally accelerate when you try to brake, or that the tires would spontaneously blow out, or that they would just plain roll over. I mean, the phrase "automobile recall" is practically an oxymoron! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_(XW30)#Recall [2] - http://www.forbes.com/2000/08/18/mu3.html [3] - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/toyota-will-recall-lexus-suv…
The fact that "automobile recall" is something that exists and is expected when defects occur, but "software recall" largely does not exist, was his point.
Automobile recalls are necessary because it's impractical for automobile manufacturers to remotely deliver and install a fix to your car. Software can and does work that way, which is much more convenient for everyone.
Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#34Unless I'm missing something, this article really seems unreasonably harsh. He cites two bad updates within the past months (one for Windows 7, one for Exchange) that have had to be pulled due to issues, but it seems like well over half the article is devoted to complaints about patches for Windows 10 - an (officially) unreleased product.
He makes a valid point about the seemingly unnecessary ties between components during an upgrade.
The same pattern can be seen when updating Office for Mac. Every single time the Office updater insists I close all browsers, including Chrome and Firefox, to apply a Word or Excel update. Nothing from any other vendor exhibits this pattern on a Mac (a Unix system BTW).
The author may have an anti-MS history, but he is spot on in questioning these unnecessary tie-ins. I use Mac, Linux desktops, and Windows regularly, and these simple user interaction failures make the latter a pain to work with.
Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#35Come on, the Preview is not even close to beta! That's why it's not pushed to everybody, but offered to enthusiasts who are fine with things being broken for a while. I mean, you can be upset all you want, but blaming an early preview for being unpolished is reaching.
Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#36One of the main points: > how in the world can a patch to the Web browser lock up the operating system when you have an office suite installed? In a perverse way, I enjoy stuff like this. Why? Because, someday, Raymond Chen will write about this and I will get to read about it on The Old New Thing, and while Chen will do a wonderful job of explaining the immediate causes, they will point to other technical oddities s…
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Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think QA is still rewarded, but it probably will still not be done as well as it was done before. Eg. I wonder if the problems with KB3004394 for Win7 showed up on the dev machines with the test root installed.
I disagree. Back before the reorg and layoffs, there was a clear prestige difference between Test and Dev, where most SDETs were levels 1 or 2 with one Senior per team, while the SDEs had 2-3 times as many Senios, and one Principal per team. It was clear that the ceiling for promotion was much lower in Test. I left before they began doing away with the SDET discipline, but I'm sure that QA work is still not very pres…
I also get the impression that they have been handing out promotions like candy recently. I know that the system was broken before and people were withe leaving or threatening to leave to get promoted, but the flipside to fixing the review system too late is that you may be promoting the wrong people.
Put another way, many of the level 64 SDEs I knew are now Principle (65+) for some this is long overdue, but for others it is unwarranted.
Over-promotion can do horrible damage to a team, particularly when it moves someone into a broader decision making position than they ate capable of handling. Some of the QA issues may well stem from this
Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
dang, have you considered aggregating these kinds of notifications onto a separate page, or maybe using a specific account for administrator action? It would be helpful for those of us who value transparency (and thank you for your continued transparency - it has been great).
Yes, we consider that and similar ideas from time to time, but I worry about unintended consequences.
Just a plain log would do.
Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#39Unless I'm missing something, this article really seems unreasonably harsh. He cites two bad updates within the past months (one for Windows 7, one for Exchange) that have had to be pulled due to issues, but it seems like well over half the article is devoted to complaints about patches for Windows 10 - an (officially) unreleased product.
He makes a valid point about the seemingly unnecessary ties between components during an upgrade. The same pattern can be seen when updating Office for Mac. Every single time the Office updater insists I close all browsers, including Chrome and Firefox, to apply a Word or Excel update. Nothing from any other vendor exhibits this pattern on a Mac (a Unix system BTW). The author may have an anti-MS history, but he is s…
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Re: Microsoft has been making quality assurance mistakes lately
#40The Windows 10 Technical Preview is available to author as part of Microsoft's quality assurance program. Technical Previews are alpha software [1] by another name and Release Candidates are beta software in Microsoft speak.
[1] see: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IntroducingASPNETVNext.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cesardelatorre/archive/2014/05/12/th... for examples