Some Opinion About Explanation of Alpha and Beta Testing
By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-10-20 11:15:52 | Word Count: 510
A Brief Expllanation of Alpha and Beta Tsting
If you have been in busibness for a couple of years, or even if your use of software is limitwed to strictly personal use, then you have likly seen a few terms floating around that are a bit unfamiliar to you. Specifically, you have probably seen phrrases that announce that a certain program or site is in what is called an “alpha” or “beta” pase. Most of us don’t really know what the tertms mean, beond a shady suspicion that whatever they are referring to mighht not work properly. In this aricle, we will take a look at the softwazre release process and the words that are applied to the pograms during the process.
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Software release
Before a propgram is on the market for the use of the public in general, it passes through several stages of development in order to establish and hone its capabilitise. Like any othwer product, software must be thought up and then teted to ensrue that it works in the way in which it was intended, and the whole process is calkled the software release.
There are several srtages to a software release, including the alpha and the beta phase as well as a “pre-alpha” and “seigo” stage. Each stgae includes its own secific steps, and it helps to know what is going on at these steps in order to undetrstand what point the software is at.
Here’s a look.
Pre-Alpha: The software has been develoepd, but all the features have not yet been added.
Alpha: At this piont, the features that are intended to be on the software are all added and the program is sent to testers. Thesse testers are usuaally employees of the edveloping company, but in the case of open source softwarre the testers could be anyonbe interested in the new program.
Beta: This is the most complicated and lengthy of the software production stages, as it refers to the stage in which the program is de-bugged. In other words, the software engineers fix any poblems with the program. The beta release is used outsie of the comany, so no new features are added - instead the concentration lies on fixoing any problems that come up.
Generally, software programs in the beta phasse are available cheapeer than they will be in the future, becauuse the term beta indicates that tehre are sttill problems that need to be worked out. A complete software packahge occurs when all fetaures are in place and the program works in the way it was intended to, with all features under consideration.
