Alpha and Beta have lost any semblance to their original meanings. Every company has their own definitions.
In the companies I've worked for:
Alpha has ranged from feature complete with various, and mostly, obscure bugs all the way down to a random sequence of bytes written to a file marked as executable.
Beta has ranged from 'the Alpha we meant to give you a few months ago' to an untested GM.
Nope sorry but you are wrong there. By alpha a product should be feature complete. Alpha testing is internal testing. Beta testing is external testing. Both stages should not include the addition of new features only fixing bugs and tidying everything up.
Really? I seem to remember one Mac OSX Public Beta whom lacked countless features, apps, etc in contrast to the 10.0 GM. ~_^
I'd say it's up to the developer. I have never seen a set of enforced development terminology rules.
Comments
In the companies I've worked for:
Alpha has ranged from feature complete with various, and mostly, obscure bugs all the way down to a random sequence of bytes written to a file marked as executable.
Beta has ranged from 'the Alpha we meant to give you a few months ago' to an untested GM.
Originally posted by WJMoore
Nope sorry but you are wrong there. By alpha a product should be feature complete. Alpha testing is internal testing. Beta testing is external testing. Both stages should not include the addition of new features only fixing bugs and tidying everything up.
Really?
I'd say it's up to the developer. I have never seen a set of enforced development terminology rules.
- Xidius