From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Sep 26 18:13:26 1995 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) id SAA20026 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 26 Sep 1995 18:13:26 -0700 Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [192.216.222.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id SAA20006 for ; Tue, 26 Sep 1995 18:13:23 -0700 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id SAA24297; Tue, 26 Sep 1995 18:12:39 -0700 To: Terry Lambert cc: kelly@fsl.noaa.gov, gryphon@healer.com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-ports@freebs.org Subject: Re: ports startup scripts In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 26 Sep 1995 17:22:48 PDT." <199509270022.RAA08773@phaeton.artisoft.com> Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 18:12:39 -0700 Message-ID: <24295.812164359@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk > The product is QA'd with the validation suite. 2 hours were required for > the validation suite, which is interesting, considering POSIX validation > takes less time to run. Sorry, this statement simply leads me to believe that you've never worked on anything of significant size or complexity. 2 hours is about how long it took to brief the QA team on how to structure the run at most large ISVs I've worked at! :-) If you got the results back in 3 or 4 days you considered it a rush job. Plus it's an on-going thing. You need to re-QA on *every* point release you might make for that platform. You ever worked in a Crosby method "zero defects" shop? There are *procedures* for all this stuff and checklists to be followed. I don't care how bloody well written the software was, in a lot of cases this is simply *not* a technical problem! It's a problem of "1 platform = 1 overall pain in the butt, always" Multiply this by 6 and you're lucky if you can sit down. No holy grail of software design will save you from going through regression tests as complex as certain types of SDI targetting software, to say nothing of the paperwork. Sorry. You also presuppose an idea world where I have the *choice* of writing god's gift to portable code and aren't simply stuck with porting a large legacy application to all these new platforms. The times where I actually got to write a major shelf application from scratch and according to my standards can be counted on the fingers of a penguin! Usually the scenario is that the Windows weenies get to write it as a Windows app because they only represent about 500 times the revenue you do and the 500 pound gorilla gets to sleep wherever he wants, and you're stuck trying to port it to UNIX. WABI? Don't make me laugh until tears run down my face. Jordan