Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!bath63!pes
From: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: MWC 3.0
Message-ID: <2273@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Mar 88 10:06:14 GMT
References: <2600@crash.cts.com> <162@bdt.UUCP> <236@gandalf.littlei.UUCP>
Reply-To: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee)
Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
Lines: 25

In article <236@gandalf.littlei.UUCP> ajw@.UUCP (Waldock) writes:
>Now that Mr. Beckemeyer (a good guy) has made this extremely valid point
>about Mark Williams Company (also pretty much good guys), maybe some
>readers of this group will pause for the odd nanosecond before flaming
>Atari (hiss the villain!!) for not having shoved "fixes" out of the
>door while they were still warm on the coding pad.


David Beckemeyer's point is valid, of course.  And, of course, it also
applies to Atari.  However, we've been hearing from Atari about the things
they're going to fix for some time now.  Over a year, in some cases.
There thus seems to be reasonable cause to suspect that they have fallen,
or are in danger of falling, into the mirror-image of this issue.  To wit,
the 'continual fiddling' syndrome -- I'm sure we all know programmers who
suffer from it.  (I certainly know some, and indeed I am aware that I
personally am prone to it and so have to conciously avoid it.)  You know
the one, don't you?  'Well, I've fixed bugs A, B, and C, but in the process
I realized that D could use a little bit of poking with, so I need another
week...'  And then, 'Well, while I was poking D, I noticed that E is a bit
suboptimal...'  And so on.  There does come a time when you've got to bite
the bullet, freeze a version, and get it out the door -- resigning yourself
to the fact that you're NOT going to be able to find and fix everything.

Of course, Mark Williams have a bit of an edge, as they are dealing in
software (discs) rather than hardware (ROMs) -- but even so...