3 ms·

In addition to testing in advance that your own (hard|firm|soft)ware will work, some people will just want to get new features early and are willing to deal wit

by Ukv 2y ago

In addition to testing in advance that your own (hard|firm|soft)ware will work, some people will just want to get new features early and are willing to deal with the potential extra bugginess.

ItsBob 2y ago
True. I'm a .NET dev and for the most part that's always worked on Windows really well so bugs (apart from the ones I introduce) are pretty rare.
porphyra 2y ago
Yeah some hobbyists just like to try new features. I remember when Windows Longhorn (pre Vista) was in beta and I would download the ISO and burn a DVD just to try out the latest transparency effects and the sidebar lol.
apocalyptic0n3 2y ago
Yeah, this used to be me. I don't do it anymore but I used to spend a great deal of time playing with beta versions of Android, Windows, Firefox, and various iPod and Mac customization applications. I just enjoyed playing with the new features, figuring out how to break them, reporting those issues, and then helping get them fixed (even if I wasn't contributing code at the time). I don't have the time anymore, but it was one of my favorite activities when I was younger.
- accrual 2y ago
  Same here. I remember playing with Beta versions of Windows Vista on my parents home PC. Ended up wrecking the system because I wasn't technical enough to fix it when it broke... but was still an important milestone in my journey today. At the time, XP was 6-7 years old, and the screenshots of a shiny new Windows OS made me so itchy to try it out. Vista looked magical compared to XP just before release, it was the dawn of the frutiger aero aesthetic too. Very optimistic vibes back then.
  - Tijdreiziger 2y ago
    > Ended up wrecking the system because I wasn't technical enough to fix it when it broke... but was still an important milestone in my journey today. Ha, I remember dual booting Ubuntu and wrecking the bootloader, rendering my machine unbootable. Fun times, lol. Taught me a lot, though.
    - accrual 2y ago
      Definitely! We wouldn't learn and become successful technicians if it wasn't for all the failures.
  - apocalyptic0n3 2y ago
    Yeah, I was the same way with my iPod. I was contributing to iPod Wizard and one of the QA testers for iPod Linux, iPod Wiki, and Rockbox. I would install unstable firmwares on my iPod a few times a week and spend a few hours testing. I bricked my iPod more times than I could count. I had two iPod hard drives that I would swap between and I had a way of wiping the drive once it was out of the casing. To this day, I have no idea how my iPod 4G survived as long as it did.

by Ukv 2y ago

In addition to testing in advance that your own (hard|firm|soft)ware will work, some people will just want to get new features early and are willing to deal with the potential extra bugginess.

ItsBob 2y ago

True. I'm a .NET dev and for the most part that's always worked on Windows really well so bugs (apart from the ones I introduce) are pretty rare.

porphyra 2y ago

Yeah some hobbyists just like to try new features. I remember when Windows Longhorn (pre Vista) was in beta and I would download the ISO and burn a DVD just to try out the latest transparency effects and the sidebar lol.

apocalyptic0n3 2y ago

Yeah, this used to be me. I don't do it anymore but I used to spend a great deal of time playing with beta versions of Android, Windows, Firefox, and various iPod and Mac customization applications. I just enjoyed playing with the new features, figuring out how to break them, reporting those issues, and then helping get them fixed (even if I wasn't contributing code at the time). I don't have the time anymore, but it was one of my favorite activities when I was younger.

accrual 2y ago
Same here. I remember playing with Beta versions of Windows Vista on my parents home PC. Ended up wrecking the system because I wasn't technical enough to fix it when it broke... but was still an important milestone in my journey today. At the time, XP was 6-7 years old, and the screenshots of a shiny new Windows OS made me so itchy to try it out. Vista looked magical compared to XP just before release, it was the dawn of the frutiger aero aesthetic too. Very optimistic vibes back then.
- Tijdreiziger 2y ago
  > Ended up wrecking the system because I wasn't technical enough to fix it when it broke... but was still an important milestone in my journey today. Ha, I remember dual booting Ubuntu and wrecking the bootloader, rendering my machine unbootable. Fun times, lol. Taught me a lot, though.
  - accrual 2y ago
    Definitely! We wouldn't learn and become successful technicians if it wasn't for all the failures.
- apocalyptic0n3 2y ago
  Yeah, I was the same way with my iPod. I was contributing to iPod Wizard and one of the QA testers for iPod Linux, iPod Wiki, and Rockbox. I would install unstable firmwares on my iPod a few times a week and spend a few hours testing. I bricked my iPod more times than I could count. I had two iPod hard drives that I would swap between and I had a way of wiping the drive once it was out of the casing. To this day, I have no idea how my iPod 4G survived as long as it did.