I quite like this idea. So many companies now do this. Safari nightly builds etc etc
These arent nightlies though
Its something in between
betas is a balance - ship too many (like a nightly) and a lot of folks just tune out. Too few and then you get the issue where folks are delayed in their testing. And i think this is why some places have moved to having a nightly for the adventurous and then a more LTS version that is stable for some period (maybe 3 - 6 months)
it lets them iterate rapidly and fix few things in each build and makes it easier to identify bugs from deltas - BUT it also requires a decent population using those I think
and those that are NOT wanting to be on the bleeding edge have something more stable for a long term
but thats not quite what they seem to be doing
until we see how this new set up shakes out its hard to know if its going to be better, worse or what
Iâm not sure if this was happening before the API 2.0 release, but during that beta period it seemed a lot of people were running into âshow-stoppingâ bugs and therefore pausing any further testing until those were fixed. I know I was one of those, and itâs partially because itâs hard to dedicate time to testing their product (Iâve got enough of my own testing to do), so youâd like to do something productive with it instead of just poking around randomly. If your testing can include further development on a project or two, then you donât lose as much productivity - when the beta period is over you should be able continue with what youâd worked on during beta.
So if thatâs the reason why they see delayed testing during beta, then it means they need to do a better job of releasing quality code. Beta testing should be for minor bugs, not show stoppers. Those should have been caught by the developers or at least during the alpha stage. I got the feeling, and I think others did too, that the Xojo team did very little testing and just let us find all the major bugs for them.
Trust me your not alone in feeling that users were guinea pigs
I dont know if this new style will help or hurt
But until it even gets start who knows ?
Iâd would have thought weâd see a release we could try out by now
We can only hope the delay means theyâre trying to minimize the major bugs to prevent that scenario. But I wonât hold my breath (or âvaporâ).
1 Like
We can only hope
I just watch the ânewestâ list in Feedback to see what others are finding
I donât get the point of Geoffâs blog post at all. Itâs a bit of a nothing event. When Dana posted about it in the official forum I assumed theyâd actually be some news about 2020R1 but nope.
I thought so too
But the whole blog post was what he already said in the Q & A video about Builds not betas
Oh well. The blog DID have on tidbit I liked to see 
Which was?
Iâm a bit confused by your thought process here. Itâs a beta, by definition itâs out there for users to find bugs and report back? Thatâs not being a guinea pig, itâs being a pre-release tester which you have to apply to be and agree that you understand itâs an unfinished and unstable product.
Beta code should be pretty solid
Thats not always true and often it feels like Xojo betas are âyeah works for me so beta test itâ without a really thorough internal QA
Depending on what license you hold you dont even have to apply
It is, or was, part of Pro and Pro+ licenses
I dont believe they have altered that
Imagine that in the previous times, you usually issue (more or less):
40 alpha,
40 beta,
20 final candidates.
Now, with the newly [ann] you will have 1 thru 100 versions to test.
What is the difference ?
As I wrote elsewhere: âDid the fisherman catch a fish ?â
And the answer is âYES !â
BTW: and opening the beta testing by the money (one that pay for the Pro(s) versions)⌠is as stupid as that change: someone who is capable to pay for a Ferrari is not capable to drive it like Alain Prost (IMHO).
Note: it can be the case, but probably 1 on 1,000,000,000 
At last, take a look at macOS and Vice Presidents testing it ! How many stupid changes have been done along the years ! Let the big wigs do what they do best and engineers (and testing people) do the samâŚ
until this starts we have no idea how it will pan out
I do know that some people deliberately waited until FC because until that point they felt it was too unsafe to work with the new version since a feature they worked with in a beta could disappear or get significantly changed. This could make render whatever work they did with the beta unusable and they would have to revert to a much older code base and start all over.
I dont know if this new approach will alter that in any way.
None of us do until it actually starts and weâve done a few cycles with it.
What I want is a âSTABLEâ flag on the list of releases, like:
Download:
Xojo 27.0.1.2398
Xojo 27.0.1.2721
Xojo 27.0.1.3275 (Stable)
Xojo 27.0.1.4200
Xojo 27.0.1.4578
A stable one is a âfrozen featuresâ but âfixed known bugsâ one.
Critics says that Xojo never had one. Could they have it now?
1 Like
All we know is whats been said in the Q & A video and the blog post
Have no idea if some releases will be marked as âStableâ or âLTSâ and what that might mean (ie/ back ports of critical fixes to them) or if this will just be successive releases which is roughly what they do now except they name them 20109r1.1 2019r2.1 etc
More information from Xojo would be welcome
Iâve seen some releases marked as âbleeding-egdeâ and âstableâ. Good idea.
âbleeding-egdeâ is always the last one released, it can, or can´t be STABLE.
You donât have to be a PRO user to be a pre-release tester:
https://forum.xojo.com/38207-welcoming-more-pre-release-testers
Xojo model does not support LTS model. LTS means supporting 2 branchs at the same time. But having STABLE releases is an obligation. Put features in, get feedback for a time. Bug found? Work in another build fixing it. No reports? Set it as STABLE and start a new cycle of inserting new features.