Subject: Regression Testing? [was Re: Fwd: Re: Release Schedule]
From: horkana (horkana@tcd.ie)
Date: Tue Jun 05 2001 - 07:21:50 CDT
Martin Sevior wrote:
>
> New features are added to the 1.1 series. The idea is that people who want
> the features available in the 1.0 AbiWord and aren't interested in in
> bleeding edge can be sure of getting a really solid, stable application.
>
After 1.0 we will need Regression Testing
Stable and "Just Works" should included a stable file format.
When Abiword reaches 1.0 that should mean a supported file format, and
all later versions of Abiword should be able to import them. If
possible Abiword 1.0 should be able to make a decent attempt at opening
documents from later versions of Abiword.
Microsoft Word is always at least back compatible with the old versions
and the old versions at least tries to read docs from newer versions.
As Abiword uses Text/XML it should just be able to ignore any tags it
does not understand and show the text instead (possibly even avoid data
loss and allow documents to be round tripped between versions).
We can plan ahead for this and have error messages that are more lucid
and informative than "bogus document", for example:
"Import Error. This document was created in a newer version of Abiword,
some formatting will be ignored."
If the templates include examples of all the features in v1.0, then they
could be very useful for testing against.
From the screenshot on the Abisource Home page:
"... Users are tired of the crazy upgrade cycle which has become the
norm for so many desktop applications..."
even if you don't have to fork out $$$ every time, it takes
time/effort/retraining if your entire office is forced to move over to
the next version because the boss keeps sending out unreadable docs in
Word 2000 format.
The mythical "church secretary" is not going to want to have to go
through removing all markup with a text editor either.
Sorry if I've overstated my point i just think it is a really important
feature that must be planned for.
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