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Re: My Adventure as an ADM Beta Tester
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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.
Outliners.com Message ID: 2705
Posted by daly_de_gagne
2005-02-10 08:29:04
Stephen, I don’t want to get into a debate here about what happened with you and ADM. However, Eric’s point could have been put another way, namely that there are times when your posts have a rough edge to them, and I think that’s what he’s responding to when he talks of a demanding tone.
I feel badly that you chose to share with this group in the manner you did what happened re ADM. Your post suggests to me that you are still smarting from the experience, otherwise why the snide tone (eg. “self-styled CEO”). Or: “This reference to ‘colleagues’ in what seems to be a two-man partnership that contracts with temporary East European programmers and with a part-time secretary should give you something of the flavor of this group.”
You seem to be slamming ADM for being small, for not living up to some standard of entreprenneurial magnitude. I have no idea what ADM’s org chart looks like, other than, like you, I know it to be a small operation. That being so, look at what has been accomplished in a relatively short time, and is still being accomplished. It’s too easy to take pot shots at people who are working bloody hard.
Eric works at another job and in his spare time (which I suspect becomes like a second full time job, manages ADM). There are times an astute reader can see the guy is under pressure. He is at least as responsive to the testers and (on the other group) users as the folk at Ultra Recall are. He has opened up the development process to testers in a way that few other developers do, except perhaps for some of the open source folk (except we don’t work with code) in the sense that many of the changes, enhancements, new features of ADM have been tester suggested and driven.
Your post to this group would perhaps be more balanced if you had included in it a sense of the dialogue going on at the time of Eric’s comment to you and your response to it. You will recall there were various reports about bugs and glitches, and Eric was responding to these generally in a manner that reflected, “Yes, you’re right. We’ll get these fixed.”
Your concern about backup issues is, of course, valid. And a reading of the discussion on the list makes it clear that Eric’s agrees. In your post to this group you say that ADM “mislead” users re backup. I wish that you had included the other word you had used on the ADM group: “unintentionally.”
Re a plan for ADM: Eric has often provided an overview of AM’s development plan and rationale. You may not agree with it, but that doesn’t take away fromt he fact that he has put forward a plan.
You write: “Infrastructure is ignored in favor of multiplying the flashiest features for the least cost—that’s my take, anyway. By infrastructure I include such matters as the robustness of the database engine, the ability to back up data, and other safeguards such as undo in the tree. (Notice that this infrastructure was present from the beginning in Ultra Recall, in preference to frills like hyperlinks, which they will add in a future version.)”
“Flashiest features?” Would those be the features you don’t see as necessary, or which woulnd’t be necessary to you? In retrospect, Eric et al may wish they had covered some bases better than they had; on the other hand, I submit the size of their operation, with the attendant issues of capital, coupled with the fact that ADM isn’t a Windows kit product, are mitigating factors.
Your comment about “frill like hyperlinks” leaves me incredulous. Hyper links have been around for a long time, and are hardly a frill unless you have no need for them. I am glad that both ADM and UR are recognizing the importance of this “frill” as a significant way to move through related pieces of data. Incidentally, if one is going to compare, it is probably a safe bet that UR is a larger operation than ADM.
You write: “Participants appear motivated mostly by wanting features they personally need, which they tend to equate with the needs of the general user.” Stephen, who is “the general user.” I suspect there is no such person. Jan, who probably is the most serious and thorough tester of ADM, uses the program much differently than I do. I do not need all the features that Jan uses (and vice versa). So does that make me a general user, or Jan? Or does it simply mean that people will use the features that are relevant to how they work and what they want to get done. There’s a tendency in some of your comments to see anything that isn’t useful to you as not being necessary, or not of interest to the general user, and it was surely reflected in this instance.
You write: “The ADM milieu, in brief summary, is constrained by the need of the “CEO” to be constantly complimented about the program and to downplay or ignore criticism.” And, referring to your time as a tester: “Anyway, it was educational, if more in the way of observing how pathological narcissism affects the development of a computer program than in how programs are best developed.”
These comments are over the top. Eric has no such need to be “constantly complimented,” and he doesn"t “ignore criticism.” He gets his back up when the tone is rough, but most people do. He appreciates a compliment, but most people. As you well know, he responds to issues and suggestions and criticisms of the product all the time, and has made this part of the development process, as it should be. The dig about “pathological narcissism” is a cheap and undeserved shot.
Putting my critiques of your post aside I am sorry, for one, to see you leave the tester group because your suggestions often had merit as far as I am concerned. And it was clear that Eric appreciated your input. I wish that you would return to the tester group.
Daly