Erik Brooks: I am sick and tired of hearing about 8.5.1
August 25 2009
Erik's posting merits some attention for the challenges and concerns he raises:
I'm sure some people are jumping right in here with a raised eyebrow so let me say this up front: I'm not tired of hearing about new features coming in 8.5.1.I left some comments on Erik's site but let me address some of these points here:
What I'm tired of is finding and hearing about all of the things that are still broken in 8.5 FP1 that won't be fixed until 8.5.1 ships. Some of which have apparently been "fixed" since March but still didn't make it into 8.5 FP1. Perhaps 8.5.1 is so far behind the usual schedule because it's got so many wonderful new things in it. That's nice, but it's got me worried. If there are more regressions is it going to be another 7 months before 8.5.1's first Fix Pack? If this is the new Lotus release schedule, the quality better be way up there. 8.5.0 simply doesn't cut it.
1) Yes, 8.5.1 is both a maintenance release and a feature release, as I explained back in June. However, we are extremely aware of the risk of introducing new issues and regressions with the new features, and have taken the extra time to precisely address this delicate balance.
2) Erik is right -- we need to start getting the fixlist updated to indicate the *numerous* SPRs that have been addressed already in 8.5.1. Some of them made it into 8.5 fixpack 1, but the threshold for inclusion in a fixpack is much higher than a maintenance release.
3) The FixPack probably should have come a month or two sooner. But we are doing maintenance releases on a different cycle now...in part this is because of our use of the agile development methodology, which is what is leading to inclusion of some features in the maintenance releases. The target for 8.5.2 is Q2 2010, to give you an idea of our intended next cycle. If needed, a fixpack (or more) will come in-between.
4) Again from the June post, we decided to focus on 8.5.1 vs. split personality to do an 8.0.3 in order to signal that for all customers, 8.5.1 should be the next destination.
I am confident that 8.5.1 will be a very high quality release. If you are in the beta or design partner program, you already know this (and if you are not and want to be, follow the above link to the June post and find out how to get into the beta). I read the comments in the design partner and beta forums and know that already, Domino Designer 8.5.1 andd overall client performance have all improved. I'll try to pull out some specific quotes on this later in the week.
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- 2
Henning Heinz | 8/26/2009 6:57:01 AM
Your link to the beta program doesn't work for everyone although this would have been an easy way for keeping me quiet for a few weeks or months. At least I never got a response back. It is great to hear that 8.5.1 now is what 8.0 should have been. Of course you can always argue about code quality. For me the R8.X codestream did not fit my expectations (although I do see the potential that hopefully is now available in 8.5.1). If you wait for an international release you will probably have to wait a bit longer too.
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Urban Hillebrand | 8/26/2009 6:58:53 AM
@1: This bug bit us, too. For mailfiles however you could use the convert task to update many or all at once.
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Erik Brooks | 8/26/2009 7:57:29 AM
Thanks for the reassurances about 8.5.1, Ed. No, we can't participate in the managed beta yet - we won't have time to test for another month or so, by which point the public beta should be out.
It's funny that you guys are mentioning the Design Task problem... I saw that back in 8.5 Beta 1 and Beta 2. I didn't report it, because I thought "heck, it's *LOAD DESIGN*. It's been around since sliced bread. Surely IBM already knows about that from their internal testing. They couldn't *possibly* ship this with such a glaring problem."
Either IBM missed that in their testing or they knew about it but didn't have the resources to fix it by gold. I don't know which of the two I would prefer.
Regression bugs are MURDER for Domino due to the sheer vertical-ness of the platform. New features can be incrementally enabled, so if something NEW is broken I can just avoid using it until it's fixed. But for something OLD to break is usually a show-stopper.
E.g. there's some "partial refresh" problems with XPages. Big deal - there's workarounds, including "don't use XPages yet". Same with DAOS. But NotesViewNavigator crashes? "Load Design" problems? These are both pieces of 10+ year old functionality that simply can't break.
It's all about the apps, and... here we are with apps that won't work. And we have *no warning* they won't work since the Fix List db is MIA.
The old 4-month QMR/QMU/FixPack/whatever cycle is apparently gone as well (can we get a formal statement about what to expect there?) so it also restricts the availability for fixes we *do* get. I obviously don't have the internal access to know for sure, but I'd wager that Lotus support is spending more time managing/building hotfixes on top of 8.5 / 8.5FP1 than they would if they had managed to ship an 8.5FP2 by now. And customers are waiting longer for fixes as a result.
We'll beat up 8.5.1 in the public beta when it gets here. You can be certain of that. I just hope to god that the additional new stuff doesn't break the old.
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Henning Heinz | 8/26/2009 8:06:05 AM
I haven't heard of a public beta. I just thought we will have a managed beta and then the final release in October (not officially announced yet).
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Peter LaComb | 8/26/2009 8:18:10 AM
For me, 8.5.1FP1 (as a client - haven't had the chance w/ the server yet) is awesome except for Designer. The weird screen refreshes are gone, and it rarely crashes. That Designer is getting some love is awesome - it has potential, and if it's polished up, it could really make Notes/Domino development great again. But then, I'm currently getting spoiled by all the awesomeness in the dev tools from another vendor (not Domino dev tools).
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Ben Langhinrichs http://www.geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/GeniiBlog | 8/26/2009 8:32:30 AM
@Erik - Tsk tsk. While I am sure the bug is annoying, I hope you have at least learned not to EVER assume that a bug is known and not report it in a beta. It was probably known, and would probably not have gotten fixed anyway, but it is a bit like not voting - you automatically lose some opportunity to complain if you assume things will be handled "by someone else" and they aren't.
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John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 8/26/2009 9:00:09 AM
@4 Erik - there is no public beta for 8.5.1 - there has never been a public beta for MRs. That is why you can join the managed - Ed made it super easy. So if you want to verify something, get in now.
Peter - your using 8.5.0FP1, not 8.5.1FP1 ...
- 9 Erik Brooks | 8/26/2009 9:46:45 AM
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Erik Brooks | 8/26/2009 9:57:20 AM
Weird - I accidentally hit submit with no content and it let me post. Feel free to delete @9.
@Ed/@5 - Is this true? No public beta? If that's the case then we definitely need to get into the managed beta.
@Ben - Yeah, no joke. We're never assuming anything from here on out.
- 11
Peter Presnell | 8/26/2009 10:07:38 AM
Hi Ed,
I have heard you mention several times that IBM is now using an agile methodology for Notes. It sounds like a positive step. But I am curious what the tangible outcome of this process are (now and moving forward).
Previously we used to receive QMRs providing us with a minimum wait of 3 months before getting fixes for issues (and sometimes new features). The process also used to allow us to refer to the Fix database to see a list of all the fixes well ahead of them being released. This all helped us manage expectations (when/what). With a new "Agile" methodology I suspect there may be a few people expecting more frequent releases.
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Peter LaComb | 8/26/2009 11:06:23 AM
@8
John - yes, my mistake.
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Brian | 8/26/2009 1:24:05 PM
Not for nothing, but when is lotus going to get with the program and and allow you to update the software like other software makers allow you to do?
Going out and hunting down fix packs, hot fixes and service packs are about as much fun as getting a root canal.
I understand that this thought process might not work with the server, but the client software should have had this functionality built into it a long time ago.
- 14
John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 8/26/2009 2:22:20 PM
@13 Brian - for every person like you and me asking for a client side software update, there are clients who wouldn't want that to ever work. So I agree it would be a good idea, but it has to be 1000% blockable by policy before it is ever released
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Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 8/26/2009 2:24:24 PM
@13 - You mean with a centralized update server, like Smart Update or an Eclipse update site? Or are you talking about for administrators to find the fixes in the first place?
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Peter LaComb | 8/26/2009 3:05:10 PM
@15 - In Notes I'd think having the server auto-download client updates (as configured by the admins) and distribute them by the already nice smart upgrade would be nice.
Wouldn't hurt to have the server download (but not install) it's own updates.
Of course, those kinds of things usually imply smaller/more frequent fixes rather than the current larger/fewer.
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Brian | 8/26/2009 3:31:17 PM
@14 I agree that a feature like this would need to have the ability to turn it off or on as desired. Also have several options . . like the ability to accept only updates that the admin deems as ok to install.
@15 - Both. Having a central update site from IBM or let the admins keeps a central site in house that would allow the clients to pull updates from. The Smart Upgrade is great for somethings, but in this day and age there should be a better and easier way to get updates to the clients.
Furthermore, if IBM is on this "agile methodology" then putting out fixes and patches on individual bases would be easier to roll out to everybody using method above.
One of the things that I hate hearing from support it that I have to wait till the next update is out to fix a SPR.
After so many updates are produced, then they could wrap them up into a service pack.
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Leonard Gray | 8/26/2009 4:35:59 PM
I'm with Erik here. We needed 8.5 to address deficiencies with roaming's poor handling of ID files. The ID vault is too appealing to pass and we jumped all over 8.5.
Now, we're stuck with MAJOR applications that will not run with 8.5 Standard client, and run marginally with 8.5 basic client.
I'm also facing database corruption out the wazoo, probably due to our adoption of database design and document compression, once again to help people out with their quotas. In 15 years of doing this, I've never seen the ODS cause data to become lost.
We need things fixed much more than we need new features.
If your beta is a recent build, we may be interested in seeing if it corrects at least the application problems.
I'll check the link...
- 21
Erik Brooks | 8/26/2009 5:21:14 PM
@Ed - I'm not talking about the announcement to "merge" 8.0.3 through 8.5.1. You made that crystal-clear.
If you read my comments in that blog post you'll see that @22 I'm talking about the schedule *between* updates. I'll copy/paste to save you the lookup:
===========
MRUs are advertised as being released at 120-day intervals (it used to be 90 days):
{ Link }
...but I'm pretty sure that window hasn't been met in the past few years. Since around 7.0.1, if I recall.
===========
As a customer, I just want my expectations managed. Can we get an official statement on how many months we should expect between releases of each type?
@19 - I've heard of others experiencing db corruption in 8.5 too. I would always recommend waiting a couple of dot-something releases before jumping on a new ODS.
- 23
Erik Brooks | 8/26/2009 8:09:43 PM
Thanks, Ed. That helps clarify things some. But there's this at the end...
"But we do post the delivery schedule of the upcoming MR(s) and Fix Pack(s) in the Fix List database on the Upcoming Releases tab."
The horse is beaten, dead, and buried, but a lot of us will be much happier and less surprised by bugs when the FLDB is being populated again. I see unread marks toggling in that thing nearly every day (I open it through the client), so there's obviously *some* kind of activity there.
I'm glad to hear that there's so much focus on 8.5.1's quality. There obviously *has* to be if Lotus wants rapid customer uptake, especially with 8.0.x being funneled to that release and 7.0.x being EOLed. We're one of those leapfrog customers - sitting on 7.0.3+five hotfixes at the moment, and dying to get on 8.5.x. But the backend has to be there, no regressions. We have one of the most complex (if not THE most complex) Domino web apps in the entire world.
I'll make sure we're in that managed beta ASAP.
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Henning Heinz | 8/27/2009 3:01:06 AM
I now got a mail with access information so everything is fine now. Thank you.
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ursus schneider | 8/27/2009 3:27:40 AM
@3 - this only works if you first convert to another template first (8.0.2 for example) and then back again. Any changes the user has made to eg. the inbox are unfortunatly lost - this really upsets my users :o)
- 26
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/27/2009 5:54:01 AM
@19 - If you're really seeing those problems in 8.5, you need some rollout help. You should contact a knowledgeable business partner as soon as possible. (Full disclosure, I work for such a business partner.)
We've done both internal and customer rollouts of 8.5.0 with no corruption problems, no backwards compatibility problems, and using both the Standard and Basic clients. And I know we're not alone in our success in this community.
Seriously, allow someone to help you with this.
- 27
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/27/2009 5:58:01 AM
@23 - If anyone else said that, I'd call 'em out. But I'm curious, have you done an LOC count lately on non-generated code? Or better yet, dumped all the unique design elements to DXL and done a node count?
- 28
William Smith | 8/27/2009 9:51:45 PM
@19/@20/@26 - We have had similiar problems with custom built internal applications that have issues with 8.0.2 & 8.5 It is probably time for us to verify whether or not the recent client fix packs have resolved the multiple SPRs that we have for both of these builds.
- 29
Pierre Passin | 8/28/2009 9:13:31 AM
I have to admit I was shocked when I saw that out of the 8 HFs we were running in our production environment, only 3 were covered by FP1. Several memory leaks (which had caused multiple crashes) were not covered.
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Erik Brooks | 8/28/2009 1:43:46 PM
@29 - Yeeeeup. That's what I'm talking about.
@27 - Libraries alone total around 200,000 LOC, there's another 25,000 or so of javascript. A DXL node count would be interesting and likely add a truckload.
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Pierre Passin | 8/28/2009 11:28:43 PM
Crap, I need to start watching Boston Legal in order to get into the Managed Beta
All in all I can only second Erik's poistion - I have a problem with the load design command that has been confirmed by IBM support. This error does not allow me to update the mail template (where I have made a LOT of changes) which has had a major impact running Domino for us. I have had to resort to doing the design update PER MAIL FILE (we have about 130 users) using the Notes Client about once every two weeks. I was told by IBM support to not make so many changes to the Mail template (yeah, right) and to wait for 8.5.1 to fix this error (although the error was introduced with 8.5 which was released God knows quite a while ago). All in all not a very good solution to my problem!!!! This is not what I expect when I pay for support!
On a positiver note I am part of the managed beta and must say am VERY happy with 8.5.1 :o)