Google Schedules Chrome 6, 7, and 8 For This Year 138
An anonymous reader writes "Google said that it will be releasing a new stable version of Chrome every six weeks, which is about twice as fast as the release pace today. The goal is to make new features available when they are done and to make Chrome releases more predictable. Has anyone complained that there were too few new Chrome releases? Mozilla has been releasing a major new browser update twice a year and Microsoft is on an 18-24 month pace. Firefox's 4.0 Beta 2 is scheduled for release soon, and it appears that Mozilla is somewhat paranoid about the Black Hat Conference. 3.6.6 was planned to be the original 'Black Hat release'; now we are at version 3.6.7 and Mozilla has already a build candidate of 3.6.8 that will be released depending on news coming out of Black Hat."
huh. (Score:5, Interesting)
could this be for marketing reasons? (Score:1, Interesting)
version numbers (Score:1, Interesting)
What happens after version 12? Do we go to version 13 or skip that like buildings do with floors?
Anyway Firefox V4.0 is in beta, while 3.7 is still in alpha.
Idiots (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone that says, "Oh, Internet Explorer 9 is better than Chrome 5" is an idiot.
That's like saying, "Terminator 4 is clearly better than The Godfather, look it's 3 versions newer!"
Has anyone been complaining? Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Certainly, there have been complaints that features that are stable in the beta channel not being in stable; having more frequent feature releases to stable addresses that.
Re:could this be for marketing reasons? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but that's because Google is (unsurprisingly, as they are one of the companies whose practices are held up as models of lean methods) implementing a lean approach to what a "major version" is: a "major version" just means a stable release that contains anything other than bugfixes. Instead of setting up a system where there are a bucketload of features in each "major release" that all have to get ready together, with long times between major releases, they have lots of major releases, on a regular schedule, with whatever features are ready.
Re:Speculation (Score:3, Interesting)
If you know the history of browsers it's the most obvious one too. This goes back to IE and Netscape era, where Netscape actually skipped over a version number because IE was "leading" them. Now Google does the same bullshit...
Re:Idiots (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Speculation (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the transitions between those names weren't major revisions - they were re-badging to avoid getting sued. (Phoenix -> Firebird, Firebird -> Firefox)
Release Early & often..... (Score:4, Interesting)
is not always good. If you are talking about changes like Safari 4 to 5 where nothing changed much in terms of interface and user interaction, it's just a version number. But if you start monkeying around with the UI and changing things that quickly. You make people mad.
As an example I'll use Blender 3D. I used to work as the IT guy in a post production shop that mostly used Lightwave about a decade ago. I got to learn some of the basics, but 3D was a hobby along with video editing. I did some work on the side with FCP, but all the 3D work I did was pure fun & hobby. I was no where near talented enough to do it pro and the $2000 price tag of Lightwave made it a bit pricey (especially given the rendering times). Blender became usable for my goals in the 2.3x series and best of all I could get relatively cheap distributed rendering. I forget the exact details, but it was something like $50 per month unlimited frames of Blender. And I could do it month to month. So basically I'd create my scenes. That usually would take 3 - 5 months to get a few minutes of video. Once I had enough scenes to render about 5 minutes worth of animation, I'd buy a month subscription to the service and render away with multiple passes, etc..
Well, then things started to change with the 2.4x version where it seemed like just as I got used to the new interface, boom, everything suddenly changed and I'd spent the next month trying to figure out where all the old buttons went and what the new ones did. Then the physics engine changed and all the previous scenes I had with particles effects would have to be redone and this continued it seemed like every 6 months. As someone who got to use the program a few hours a week, it seemed like every 6 months I was trying to relearn a program I had been using since 2000.
Meanwhile, in the last couple years if I had used Lightwave, I would have had to upgrade once between Lightwave 8 and 9. And frankly, the interface hasn't changed that much since I started using the application in 1999 with version 5.6. A few things have moved, a bunch of features have been added, but basically I can load up the demo of 9 and within a weekend have my first scene ready to render. The overall style of the interface hasn't changed that much.
Re:version numbers (Score:1, Interesting)
Microsoft Office jumped from 12 to 14.
Re:Speculation (Score:5, Interesting)
The Larry team at Sierra On-Line felt they were falling behind to King's Quest in the late eightees. King's Quest was already at number 4 in 1988, while a year later Larry only released part 3. To get ahead, the folks at the Larry team decided to skip part 4 altogether and go straight on to Larry 5.
Except this isn't right. The reason there was no Leisure Suit Larry 4 was, in the words of the creator:
So why did Leisure Suit Larry 5 follow Leisure Suit Larry 3?
Why wasn't Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work named Larry 4?
There are several reasons:
I always assumed the series would be a trilogy. It just seemed right. I was pleased that people enjoyed Larry 2 enough to convince Sierra that a third installment would be well received. Therefore, I made the ending of Larry 3 air tight: Larry and Patti were together at last; Larry was telling his life story through a computer game; it appeared they would live happily ever after, etc.
While Larry 3 was in "crunch mode," I was working 'round the clock to get it out in time for the 1990 holiday shopping season. I grew tired. And tired of Larry. When Sierra employees asked me about the next Larry, my disgusted response was, "There's not going to be a Larry 4! I'm stopping with three."
When we finally gave up trying to develop a multi-player on-line adventure, I came up with some fun ideas for the fourth game, but I was stuck for a beginning. I couldn't figure out how to start the story because I had left Larry and Patti living happily ever after, remember? How to get them out of Coarsegold?
When my design for the fourth game was well along, one day, in the hallway of Sierra, I ran into an employee I hadn't seen for quite some time. Her first question was, "So what are you working on these days, Al? Larry 4?" And I, in true smart-ass fashion, replied, "No, Larry 5! Of course I'm working on Larry 4!"
A light bulb went off!
Why not? Who says sequels must always be "in order?"
I started bouncing the idea off people. Inevitably, their response was, "Larry 5? What happened to Larry 4?!"
That was exactly what I wanted. Suddenly I was completely freed from the restraints of the Larry 3 ending. I could have the new game begin anywhere. The idea was wacky, silly, dumb in a perfect "Larry-esque" way. And, it solved the "mind share" problem--how to grab people's attention and make them think about the next Larry game and had they missed something?
And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the whole truth about what happened to Larry 4!
Either that or my dog ate the floppies!
Black Hat? (Score:2, Interesting)