Messages

1

General Board / Re: Bugs in EA

« on: July 06, 2002, 07:28:29 am »

Bugs exist in all but the most trivial of applications and may not be discovered for some time after release despite extensive testing and subsequent use. What is important is the company's attitude to fixing them. When most other things are equal, I advise clients to choose non-mainstream software on the basis of the availability and frequency of a bug-fix list. It shows an active and responsive company. I know beta testers for Microsoft who tear out their hair because they are still reporting major bugs in a candidate release only to find that it has been sent for manufacture. I have given up reporting bugs to MS because apart from thanking me they do nothing.

The support for EA is, as Alan says, exceptional, as is their response for feature implementation - sometimes embarrassingly so. I often feel guilty (but not too guilty) for asking because of the speedy and enthusiastic responses.

We should all be very, very grateful that we have discovered EA.

Philip

2

General Board / Re: Display an OR relationship between 2 associati

« on: March 13, 2002, 07:42:38 am »

Make that two requests - I needed to OR today (don't we all?) and have found I can't!

3

General Board / Re: UML 1.4

« on: February 17, 2002, 04:38:57 am »

Hi Alan

I agree it *should* be a no-brainer, but I doubt that it is. The bean counters would love it but they only get involved once the candidates have been decided by people who are quite often looking over their own shoulder. The unfortunate fact is that, like women in the workplace needing to be substantially better than their male counterparts to get promotion, a small company's products, if not unique, have to be very much better than those of the big boys. They need an edge, and in this case I think it would be being fully compliant, because nothing else is.

4

General Board / Re: UML 1.4

« on: February 16, 2002, 05:28:28 am »

Rose for most of its life has not been fully compliant with the prevailing standard, and it has not done it any harm. It is true to say, though, that "no-one was ever fired for buying Rational" - not so for a little company's product. EA could do some significant damage if it were always fully compliant with the current standard. Very hard work but also, I suspect, very profitable.

Philip

5

General Board / Re: Prototype Tutorial

« on: February 15, 2002, 11:18:09 pm »

Sounds good to me. Why not start off by releasing what you've got and see what feedback is generated. For distribution, probably PDF as it's pretty well universal.

Philip