Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!chinet!saj
From: saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: bios function 0x7f
Summary: Atari does regression testing
Message-ID: <7429@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 11 Jan 89 17:38:28 GMT
References: <1263@atari.UUCP> <3774@druhi.ATT.COM> <1268@atari.UUCP> <527@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 39

In article <527@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk>, ralph@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Ralph Mitchell) writes:
> In article <470@bdt.UUCP> david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) writes:
> >In article <3186@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
> >>Moral: Atari should say "the following programs are going to break in rev
> >>such-and-such of TOS. Other programs that make this, thato, or the other
> >>assumption will also break. We're giving you X months warning. These changes
> >>are necessary to fix the a, b, and c bugs and to add these enhancements...".
> >
> >Maybe in a perfect world they *should* do this, but in the real world there's
> >no way in heck they *can* do it.  It's a no win situation for Atari, so
> >they have to take the "lose the least" option.
> 
> 
> Just how do you suppose Atari are going to find out who has been making use
> of the bugs in TOS ??  How many suppliers can you name that have declared
> "Note: This program makes use of TOS bug such-and-so." ??
> 
> I think it unreasonable to expect ATARI to keep track of ALL 3rd party
> software and to find out which suppliers are using which bugs.  If a
[ some good stuff omitted]

As one of the people who has suggested such a thing in public, I'd like to
answer.  Atari is pretty conscienscious about trying to keep a copy of any
commercial program around (I hear this from developers).  From the discussion
of what was done BEFORE BETA TEST on the new ROMS, it appears that they are
also rather conscienscious about testing.  It's pretty clear that when a
change breaks lots of software or at least one strategically important
program, an effort is made to understand why.  Therefore, Atari gets enough
information to give warnings of the form 'We wanted to fix this problem, but
too much software needs it the old way, so We're telling you now that it will
change in the future'.  In general, they even have enough information to tell
the affected developers 'THIS means YOU'.  The key problem is with important
programs which are either totally unsupported (yes, often because Atari 
didn't help at the right time) or are from tiny shops which can't do fixes on
an externally-imposed schedule.  And I'd suggest that the cure for the 
problem is to improve Atari (How many official or semi-official vapor 
announcements have you heard in the last 6 months?  Care to compare that with
the prior year?  Attaboy!) and to improve the ST.  A better machine from a
better company will attract developers.