Comment On One Version to Rule Them All

Oh man.

Oi! I'm lucky I haven't had to face anything like that. But let me tell you, if I did, the next email would have been to a local recruiter or headhunter to find me a new friggin job.

This would actually also make a good Dilbert Strip.

That's how product/project managers are found ... the people who fail out of the CIS/CS programs.

I'm fairly sure I work for these people.

That's exactly the sort of request I'm seeing on a day-to-day basis.

It's hard to stay sane.

Simon

Jeremy D. Pavleck:

Oi! I'm lucky I haven't had to face anything like that. But let me tell you, if I did, the next email would have been to a local recruiter or headhunter to find me a new friggin job.

I guess you've got less in emergency savings than I do. My next email would be "I resign", and I'd worry about finding a new job later.

They really do have a good point. But even better than just removing the information, they should have each release report as being version 1.0.0 with the subtitle: We got it right the first try!

OMFG!!! It would have made every painful moment at work worthwhile were I the one to experience these emails firsthand!!!  I don't think I could ever stop laughing!!!  EVER!!!  My eyes! The goggles! The bleach! They do nothing to stop me from laughing! 

Alex Papadimoulis:

______________________________________________________________________
From: {Marketing Director}
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:08 AM
To: A----- Selvan, {Product Manager}
Subject: Re: Software Version

This is a good point. This is *not* the information we should be
conveying to our customers. A-----, please make sure it's removed in
the next release.

If s/he had suggested something like 'let's use the release date to indentify the product instead' it might make some sense.  I mean, who really has two releases in the same day?

To remove it altogether seems impossible.

As retarted as this request is, the ones I see make this seem reasonable!

Just use the release date.  Problem solved.

The solution they decided on: they wrote "No, dumbass, it did not take 448 tries to make it 'right'"

The screenshot may show up on "Pop-Up Potpourri Friday."

Right, because "Version 0.01, build 0" instills so much more confidence in the user.

Captcha: quality.  How fitting.

Suddently, the whole progression of Windows release naming schemes makes sense:

Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 95a, 95b, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista(Longhorn)

And oddly enough, the CAPTCHA is "quality"

That is awesome beyond words.

Silly as the request is one could rename 'Version' to 'Release Code' and then take some sort of hash of the version and build number. 

It will be a pain for support to have a little de-hasher program and a pain for the customers to recite some long string of senseless letters and numbers but hey we're all used to that from trying to register WinXP anyway

Or one could just do like the TV industry and use roman numerals... I wasn't until the year 2000 roll over that most people figured out what all the crap at the end of the show was.  In a few years they'll all forget and their will be enough digits that it will fall back into a senseless blur of Cs and Vs again. 

This is killer.  I *love* when management and marketing conspire.

The next step is to enlist the aid of the VP of Support (or similiar role) and get them to go fight the idiots in marketing and product management. Support is going to have to deal with customers calling in an not knowing how to determine what version they have, so they should have something to say about removing the version from the app.

Stupid people abound. If you say you're going to quit or resign, then you are just as stupid because you're going to find the idiots cousin at your next job. Adapt. Overcome.

 

 

Anonymous:

As retarted as this request is, the ones I see make this seem reasonable!

Sad when you can't spell retarded. :)

Oh Gawd. Obviously these people have never had a chance to test a beta with build numbers strewn all over the place.
<sarcasm>
Everyone knows that Windows 95b (4.03.1212 ( Version 4, Build 1212)) is MUCH more stable than Windows XP SP2 (5.1.2600.2180 (Version 5.1, Build 2600 patch 2180))... I mean c'mon! 5.1 took 1388 more builds, and then it still needed 2180 patches!!!
</sarcasm>

These people should not be making technology related decisions. I guess when 99.99% of the world is full of retards, then the last 0.01% are left to do all the heavy thinking... I really think that product managers should be able to be fired by the engineering staff, not the other way around.

write "Version 2.8 (build 448)" as "2-8-448" and call it "support number"

I experienced the reverse of this issue once.

I was working for a network operations center, and I was asked to find some issue tracking software - preferably free. So I found some trouble ticket software which was free. It wasn't particularly flashy or exciting, but it worked, and the price was right.

My manager rejected it out of hand. Why? Because it started numbering issues at #1.  "We can't have that," he spluttered. "The first issue we put in, the guy will know he's the first person on the system."

I boggled. "So? We're on a first name basis with all of the people who are allowed to call us."

"But they'll know it's a new system."

"They're gonna know anyway! They'll know as soon as we start giving them ticket numbers, because we didn't have them before!"

We never wound up using any issue tracking software.

OMFG! This is so utterly completely totally stupid. And sad. And so absolutely believable which makes it much worse.

Captcha = billgates. Are those parts used in banknote readers?

So the version of the app i work on is 8.95 so under this rule it took us 895 releases to get it right... dang the build number isnt shown.

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

As retarted as this request is, the ones I see make this seem reasonable!

Sad when you can't spell retarded. :)

Some would say you'd have to be retarded not to be able to spell retarded! But those people are jerks. Let's not speak of them! ;)

sincerely,
Richard Nixon

They just need to reset the build counter :)

Microsoft guys could do that too, they probably just don't now how, or too lazy anyway

Captcha: billgates ,pretty ominous :)

"Please have your team remove this information in our next release."

Good thing that's probably the last request they are ever going to make concerning versions. After all, without release numbers, how could they properly identify the *next* release? :)

sammybaby:

I experienced the reverse of this issue once.

I was working for a network operations center, and I was asked to find some issue tracking software - preferably free. So I found some trouble ticket software which was free. It wasn't particularly flashy or exciting, but it worked, and the price was right.

My manager rejected it out of hand. Why? Because it started numbering issues at #1.  "We can't have that," he spluttered. "The first issue we put in, the guy will know he's the first person on the system."

I boggled. "So? We're on a first name basis with all of the people who are allowed to call us."

"But they'll know it's a new system."

"They're gonna know anyway! They'll know as soon as we start giving them ticket numbers, because we didn't have them before!"

We never wound up using any issue tracking software.

Why didn't you just offer to generate (say) 574 dummy issues and mark them complete?

Can you imagine what these people would see if they saw the CVS/SVN logs? "Why in the hell did you check this file in 1,842 times! Can't you code properly to start with?!"

I've been on the receiving end of this kind of request before.  Since our software had to be certified by an external body, they didn't want hard and fast version information because then we'd have to resubmit each release for certification.  Since that cost time and money, we couldn't have that.

So we had to "name" each release.  I decided that we'd name them after elements.  Our first release after moving to this scheme was thulium, element 69.  I really wanted to name the next release thalium just to make support cry, but instead (IIRC) we went with arsenic.

I quickly found another job and don't know what was the next release after that.

This was the same company that shipped a debugger with the software.

emurphy:

sammybaby:

I experienced the reverse of this issue once.

I was working for a network operations center, and I was asked to find some issue tracking software - preferably free. So I found some trouble ticket software which was free. It wasn't particularly flashy or exciting, but it worked, and the price was right.

My manager rejected it out of hand. Why? Because it started numbering issues at #1.  "We can't have that," he spluttered. "The first issue we put in, the guy will know he's the first person on the system."

I boggled. "So? We're on a first name basis with all of the people who are allowed to call us."

"But they'll know it's a new system."

"They're gonna know anyway! They'll know as soon as we start giving them ticket numbers, because we didn't have them before!"

We never wound up using any issue tracking software.

Why didn't you just offer to generate (say) 574 dummy issues and mark them complete?

 

That's even more hilarious considering that the customer would get this new ticket and would probably know it was a new system.  Then they would realize that they were ticket #574 and think that the company was completely worthless to already have 500 tickets within a day!

sammybaby:

My manager rejected it out of hand. Why? Because it started numbering issues at #1.

We never wound up using any issue tracking software.

That's silly. Couldn't you just file some bogus first [cool looking number] issues, so the client would know you're the coolest on the world? :D

emurphy:

Why didn't you just offer to generate (say) 574 dummy issues and mark them complete?

I can see it now.

"You just installed this new trouble ticket tracker software last week, and you've already had 574 issues with your software?  Sheesh, are you people incompetent?!"

I only know this the other way round. Sales people (who also happen to be the managers, it's a small company) selling e.g. "Product II, Version 7.3" because it sounds good. In fact, since every project is specifically made for that customer, internally we have no version numbers at all - just release dates; e.g. ACME 2006-06-27 is the version for ACME, as released on Jun 27, 2006.

Sweet jesus in a can.

I would have shot back an email stating that if they could find ONE (1) major piece of software on their computers (bonzai buddy, etc doesn't count) that didn't have an About dialog, that I would back down.

I especially liked this bit:

We can't be at all accessible to the client, we'll just have to find another way.

I think they are right. He can always change version and build number to md5(version and build number).

It looks cool:

Version d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e

Anonymous:

I've been on the receiving end of this kind
of request before.  Since our software had to be certified by an
external body, they didn't want hard and fast version information
because then we'd have to resubmit each release for
certification.  Since that cost time and money, we couldn't have
that.

So we had to "name" each release.  I decided that we'd name
them after elements.  Our first release after moving to this
scheme was thulium, element 69.  I really wanted to name the next
release thalium just to make support cry, but instead (IIRC) we went
with arsenic.

Wait, so a numbered release counts as a release, but a "named" release
doesn't?  WTF?  (Hmm, "Vista" is starting to make sense
now...)

Anonymous:

I quickly found another job and don't know what was the next release after that.

Am I the only one hoping it was ununquadium?  Or better yet, something lame like "francium".

Anonymous:

This was the same company that shipped a debugger with the software.

I don't even want to imagine those support calls.

From: A----- Selvan
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:08 AM
To: {Marketing Director}, {Product Manager}
Subject: Re: Software Version

> A-----, please make sure it's removed in the next release.

Do you think it's a good idea even to HAVE a next release?  Do we want to give the customer the impression there was something wrong with the last release?

so what is the QA department to do with this?

Blindly test builds without knowing what version / build they are testing?

Furthermore, how would one report issues on said product, Internally and externally.

Sure, for the clients you can track release dates, however for internal testing there are constant builds being deployed.. so where does this leave you?

Anonymous:

Just use the release date.  Problem solved.

You're probably too young to remember a product called "Clipper", or you've drunk enough to purge the memories.  They used to have a naming convention of the season and year of release (like "Summer 85" or "Winter 86" (those are just made up, I don't remember the actual releases).  The problem was the users started complaining if they went more than one or two seasons without a release, thinking the product was stagnating.  So they brought out "Clipper 5.0", and went back to a conventional numbering system.

Anonymous:

They just need to reset the build counter :)

Microsoft guys could do that too, they probably just don't now how, or too lazy anyway

Captcha: billgates ,pretty ominous :)

bad idea, the version numbers are how Microsoft setup programs determine which copy of the file to use. You wouldn't want to install an older game, and have Direct X 9 overwritten by Direct X 7, or download drivers for a new music player, that breaks all your codecs. As long as any new version of a library file (.dll usually) implements the old interfaces, this works, but an older file can't really implement new interfaces.

(Of coarse, SxS makes this obselete, but as SxS itself is fairly new...)

Anonymous:

I think they are right. He can always change version and build number to md5(version and build number).

It looks cool:

Version d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e

Very cool, because if either the client or the help desk gets even a single character wrong, you can say "sorry, invalid version number" and close the ticket.

emurphy:

Why didn't you just offer to generate (say) 574 dummy issues and mark them complete?

Strangely enough, the CIA did that with the Bay of Pigs invasion.  The Cuban expats they were training were given id numbers, but they started the numbering system at some arbitrary large number (I think it was 8,000) so that if any were captured the Cuban defense would think they were facing a bigger force than they were.

PaulTomblin:

You're probably too young to remember a product called "Clipper", or you've drunk enough to purge the memories.

Actually I think drinking (a lot) is a good idea for anyone exposed to Clipper though I doubt enough booze exists for everyone.

Alex Papadimoulis:

We can't be at all accessible to the client, we'll just have to find
another way.

The reason is simple: when they see  "Version 2.8 (build 448)," they
will think that it took us 28 releases and over *four hundred* builds
to get right.

Come on, if A----- really wants to give an impression to the client, why not manage the team in a way that they will get the application in the first release (without any bugs)?

PaulTomblin:

emurphy:

Why didn't you just offer to generate (say) 574 dummy issues and mark them complete?

Strangely enough, the CIA did that with the Bay of Pigs invasion.  The Cuban expats they were training were given id numbers, but they started the numbering system at some arbitrary large number (I think it was 8,000) so that if any were captured the Cuban defense would think they were facing a bigger force than they were.

I favor starting at some large, arbitrary number and counting down. When you get to zero, you can't have any more issues. Which is good, because you don't want customers or clients to get the idea that you actually have issues to resolve.

Plus, when you get to, say, number 32, you'll say "Thank God I'll soon be through with this s**t!"

From: {Marketing Director}

Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:08 AM

To: A----- Selvan, {Product Manager}

Subject: Re: Software Version



This is a good point. Software should *not* be allowed in the hands of our customers.
A-----, please make sure it's removed in the next release.

Hey now!  I liked Clipper.  It was one cool language for it's day.  Beat the heck out of dBase and FoxPro.

Anonymous:

Suddently, the whole progression of Windows release naming schemes makes sense:

Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 95a, 95b, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista(Longhorn)

And oddly enough, the CAPTCHA is "quality"

Who, wait! What happend to NT 4.0, NT 5.0 ???

RatDancr:

Hey now!  I liked Clipper.  It was one cool language for it's day.  Beat the heck out of dBase and FoxPro.

True, the language was nice, but the database system sucked. Those plugable database drivers like Advantage etc. sucked too.