Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!uw-june!moore
From: moore@cs.washington.edu (Charles Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: HyperCard 2.0
Summary: no ship date better than constantly receding ones
Keywords: System software, Hypercard
Message-ID: <13000@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 11 Sep 90 05:31:19 GMT
References: <378@irst.UUCP> <44630@apple.Apple.COM> <2577@east.East.Sun.COM>
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 32

In article <2577@east.East.Sun.COM>, msmiller@gonzoville.Eng.Sun.COM (Mark Miller) writes:
> 
> It will
> take years before people ever again believe a ship date for Apple
> software - that is, when a date is given - which ain't even happening
> now. The only thing worse than being constantly given later and later
> ship dates is being given no ship dates whatsoever.

I respectfully disagree.  The standard in the industry has been to
always provide a ship date which almost invariably slips and usually
slips by a lot.  Software development being the art (not science) that
it is, it is not possible to set a reliable ship date until the
product is quite near completion.  Even then, the probability is high
that you will be wrong since "quite near completion" is itself a
matter of belief.

If, however, a company provides a ship date, outsiders will likely
believe that date (to a greater or lesser extent) and begin to make
plans around it.  Then, when that date slips, they will be hurt
because their plans will fail.  If, on the other hand, a company
announces no ship date, it effectively tells all outside parties that
they should make no plans that depend on the date of availability of
the product.  In this latter case, no damage to outsiders will result
from the vagaries of the software development process.

I applaud Apple for (at least initially) taking the latter approach
with System 7.0.  "Sometime in the 1990's" is the kind of ship date
that nobody should have been tempted to build potentially damaging
plans around.


Charles Moore