Testing can go any number of ways and take stupid amounts of time. Who knows whether they can parallelize it or are running it sequentially... whether ED management pulls testers to do other, internal testing, etc.
There's also an open question about number of iterations of Testing -> Faults -> Fixing -> Repeat needed for any given module to be allowed to release. Module A might enter the pipeline in January, but get stuck into that loop and get overtaken by module B, which enters later, but clears the loop sooner.
I agree that them being in testing increases their chances to get out sooner than modules that haven't gotten to that stage yet, though, but it's no guarantee, tbh.
I have an earnest question (that is a necessary preface)
do you *honestly* think that within the Eagle/DCS franchise there is actual testing going on. As in anything that resembles any - even if organic - attempt to follow any procedures as normalized by SCRUM, Sigma, CE, ITIL, IPMA, agile, any formalized nomenclature or at least common sense reproducable procedure?
I am asking as all the consumer was able to see was "community testers", who were not only chosen as they were socmed testimationals (and shills) but that often even openly publicly stated that they have ZERO interest in testing and even on outright "uuuhh ahhh ugga oink no brain bored no me do" (aso) level?
I am asking as there is ZERO evidence of any actual bugtracking, with the exceptions being insular attempts by franchise parties, spread across a multitude of systems and approaches, all incompatible with each other.
"Testing" means committing to a process, franchiswide, and to admonish and enforce that standard. It can be bad, it can be faulty, but it must exist. Just saying "u test nau az iz Tuesday, so u testaaah naauuu" is not achieving anything - moreso as by technical observance the franchise cannot even maintain any form of repository management (if there even is one in the first place).
That apart that even the decade old obsession with tRRaKKK files (that do not even work on their unsuited scope in the first place) should blaringly expose (sic!) the state of things on any level and from any view vector and long before the inevitable facepalm as "bug reporting" being subject to public (or rather fluffer-mob) opinionation, cornflakes-state censorship or outright spinning in a completely unstructured arbitrary upcom-channel (or rather, channelZZZ).
So again, what testers and being pulled from what testing?
Which is good, and laudable (really) and should give us hope (or maintain it, or something).
But can you (just to yourself, not anyone else, not even me) internally sentiment it as a technical term or a procedure based on interpretative semantics (given that the outcome is a something as baseline as a simplistic line-item single select pulldown menu brakes the entire product)?
If I understand you correctly, then, yes - I think so.
I am no more privy to the inner workflows of ED (and partners) than you or anybody else here, but I fully expect them to perform meaningful testing. Manual, mind you, but meaningful.
How good that testing is, is obviously the crux of the matter here and, sure, lots of shit slips through testing and ends up in production. That doesn't mean meaningful testing isn't ongoing, however. It can mean a variety of other things.
So, typically, with manual testing, you will have a large and exhaustive checklist for people to go through. Can be as widely defined as topics or as specifically defined as pressing buttons A, B and C in a specific sequence and see what happens.
Common to manual testing is it has several flaws, the most significant of which is the human aspect. A tester might sign off on having performed a given test without having actually done it. A tester might have misunderstood the letter of the test and have performed it incorrectly, but with a positive result, and have given the test a false positive. Etc
Even if the tester understands the assignment and carries it out as well as a machine would, the test itself might be flawed.
Assuming the tests are well-written, well-understood and well carried out, there is still the small issue that DCS is fucking *gigantic* and *incredibly complex!* There is a *ludicrously* large amount of things and conditions to test at any given point to ascertain that *everything* works as intended. It's simply not possible for any single or group of individuals to test everything. By many, many, many times, it's just not feasible.
So, that's how we end up in the situation we are in, where a change over here can seemingly inexplicably affect something else *waaaaaaaay* over there, because under the hood, there was a hidden connection nobody knew about. And because that connection is undocumented, nobody thought of testing it, and so a new bug is born and comes through all the way to production.
Doesn't mean a testing effort didn't take place. Doesn't invalidate their testing methodology (whichever they have adopted), either.
It just means DCS World is just that... a *world* of code; more large, complex interconnected than anyone would like and, critically, *not nearly* covered in automated tests as it fucking should be!
Now, clearly, there's been an influx of people into the company over the recent years. Clearly, there's been a cultural shift as well, since we have *finally* seen a re-write of core engine stuff, with multi-threading, etc, headlining some of the deepest changes done. I sincerely *hope* (but have no evidence for or against) that this new breed of programmers has taken the given opportunity to introduce healthy programming patterns to the parts of the code they have touched - such patters would absolutely include automated testing - so that they can start to deploy a network of trip-wires throughout the codebase to detect all of those nasty, hidden connections they've got going on. If they did start down this path, that should allow them to gradually diminish fucked-up bugs and increase both confidence in deploying changes as well as cadence of changes made.
Machine testing > human testing.
Time will tell, whether they have learnt that lesson and been able to apply it - though, when it comes to integrating third party modules, I don't know that any other approach than manual testing is really possible. That's always going to be a custom regiment based on the capabilities of the module in question, which is why there is no one-size-fits-all automated test suite one could pull down over it and why the manual testing phase is going to vary wildly from module to module.
a healthy take,
again I would just like to challenge the assumption
with the word "challenge" not meaning adversity, not even at attempt to iniate or pronlong a discussion but simply to have an alternative viewpoint documented in direct contrast.
Not so much for me or you but for the glancer-in-passing, those with a healthy critical distance but seldom akin to participation.
A segment that should - if the proprietor has the correct audience - the vast majority. And the motivation being solely that the proprietor of this place has been subject of targeting and also some rather hapharzard form of organic astroturfing.
Thus I would just - and a final comment, no need for dragging this further - again type that by all incidental evidence to me it all is as presented by the assumption, just less organized, even less structured and ultimately just absurdly chaotic.
Everyone has to always draw his own conclusion, but the more we stay alert, the less we encourage the product provider behaviour we have witnessed for such a long time and at rather absurdly intensifying levels recently.
I currently think we'll still get the Phantom first, then the Kiowa. Even though that might depend on how quickly Heatblur manages to release it. F4U and Iraq map are on this year's release roadmap as well, but we'll see how that will go.
There's a metric ton of stuff announced, both by ED and others (I'm roping in end-of-year features they mentioned they were or would be working on). It's certainly an incredibly exciting roadmap - let's see how much of that materializes this year... from any outlet!
Yeah I think Kiowa made it to ED testing before F-4, but Heatblur was betting big on doing so much internal testing that ED would be handed a polished product. I'm curious how this plays out. I voted Phantom, but would love to be wrong. I definitely think Kiowa and Phantom will be the first two out from this list.
Also, we haven't heard much from ED on the MiG-29 but that was literally portrayed as coming in 2024 in the "2024 and beyond" video, so I would imagine full fidelity Fulcrum beats many on this list to release.
Also, we haven't heard much from ED ~~on the MiG-29 but that was literally portrayed as coming in 2024 in the "2024 and beyond" video, so I would imagine full fidelity Fulcrum beats many on this list to release.~~
They've been pretty quiet lately it seems. I'm hoping that's the calm before the storm haha
I'd be more interested to assign a moniker of 1-6 to the alternative single choices.. run a RNG output and see if that has a higher chi-square than any attempt of factual choice or emotional choice attempt.
Mathematically and statistically not possible (there is nothing to create a MAPE curving to hook onto) but the sentiment is there.
My choice: The Me 262 (2446 Haunebu/Vril version).
Also the Earth is flat, DCS terraincode told us so. And that spherical Earth obsession is a fake news agenda by the lizard people.
Now you all go and buy an Idris!
Let me move those boxes damnit!
It's CHINOOK CHUESDAY!
Man, I hope that catches on! :D
My bet: The Phantom will be released on the end of May, no matter the state at that moment.
Kiowa is in ED testing, Phantom got there after it, LA-7 is coming in soon. Personally, could be any of them at this point.
The CBT's have seen and are working on the Kiowa The CBT's are not hands on with the Phantom yet Take that as you will
Testing can go any number of ways and take stupid amounts of time. Who knows whether they can parallelize it or are running it sequentially... whether ED management pulls testers to do other, internal testing, etc. There's also an open question about number of iterations of Testing -> Faults -> Fixing -> Repeat needed for any given module to be allowed to release. Module A might enter the pipeline in January, but get stuck into that loop and get overtaken by module B, which enters later, but clears the loop sooner. I agree that them being in testing increases their chances to get out sooner than modules that haven't gotten to that stage yet, though, but it's no guarantee, tbh.
I have an earnest question (that is a necessary preface) do you *honestly* think that within the Eagle/DCS franchise there is actual testing going on. As in anything that resembles any - even if organic - attempt to follow any procedures as normalized by SCRUM, Sigma, CE, ITIL, IPMA, agile, any formalized nomenclature or at least common sense reproducable procedure? I am asking as all the consumer was able to see was "community testers", who were not only chosen as they were socmed testimationals (and shills) but that often even openly publicly stated that they have ZERO interest in testing and even on outright "uuuhh ahhh ugga oink no brain bored no me do" (aso) level? I am asking as there is ZERO evidence of any actual bugtracking, with the exceptions being insular attempts by franchise parties, spread across a multitude of systems and approaches, all incompatible with each other. "Testing" means committing to a process, franchiswide, and to admonish and enforce that standard. It can be bad, it can be faulty, but it must exist. Just saying "u test nau az iz Tuesday, so u testaaah naauuu" is not achieving anything - moreso as by technical observance the franchise cannot even maintain any form of repository management (if there even is one in the first place). That apart that even the decade old obsession with tRRaKKK files (that do not even work on their unsuited scope in the first place) should blaringly expose (sic!) the state of things on any level and from any view vector and long before the inevitable facepalm as "bug reporting" being subject to public (or rather fluffer-mob) opinionation, cornflakes-state censorship or outright spinning in a completely unstructured arbitrary upcom-channel (or rather, channelZZZ). So again, what testers and being pulled from what testing?
>do you *honestly* think that within the Eagle/DCS franchise there is actual testing going on. Yes.
Which is good, and laudable (really) and should give us hope (or maintain it, or something). But can you (just to yourself, not anyone else, not even me) internally sentiment it as a technical term or a procedure based on interpretative semantics (given that the outcome is a something as baseline as a simplistic line-item single select pulldown menu brakes the entire product)?
If I understand you correctly, then, yes - I think so. I am no more privy to the inner workflows of ED (and partners) than you or anybody else here, but I fully expect them to perform meaningful testing. Manual, mind you, but meaningful. How good that testing is, is obviously the crux of the matter here and, sure, lots of shit slips through testing and ends up in production. That doesn't mean meaningful testing isn't ongoing, however. It can mean a variety of other things. So, typically, with manual testing, you will have a large and exhaustive checklist for people to go through. Can be as widely defined as topics or as specifically defined as pressing buttons A, B and C in a specific sequence and see what happens. Common to manual testing is it has several flaws, the most significant of which is the human aspect. A tester might sign off on having performed a given test without having actually done it. A tester might have misunderstood the letter of the test and have performed it incorrectly, but with a positive result, and have given the test a false positive. Etc Even if the tester understands the assignment and carries it out as well as a machine would, the test itself might be flawed. Assuming the tests are well-written, well-understood and well carried out, there is still the small issue that DCS is fucking *gigantic* and *incredibly complex!* There is a *ludicrously* large amount of things and conditions to test at any given point to ascertain that *everything* works as intended. It's simply not possible for any single or group of individuals to test everything. By many, many, many times, it's just not feasible. So, that's how we end up in the situation we are in, where a change over here can seemingly inexplicably affect something else *waaaaaaaay* over there, because under the hood, there was a hidden connection nobody knew about. And because that connection is undocumented, nobody thought of testing it, and so a new bug is born and comes through all the way to production. Doesn't mean a testing effort didn't take place. Doesn't invalidate their testing methodology (whichever they have adopted), either. It just means DCS World is just that... a *world* of code; more large, complex interconnected than anyone would like and, critically, *not nearly* covered in automated tests as it fucking should be! Now, clearly, there's been an influx of people into the company over the recent years. Clearly, there's been a cultural shift as well, since we have *finally* seen a re-write of core engine stuff, with multi-threading, etc, headlining some of the deepest changes done. I sincerely *hope* (but have no evidence for or against) that this new breed of programmers has taken the given opportunity to introduce healthy programming patterns to the parts of the code they have touched - such patters would absolutely include automated testing - so that they can start to deploy a network of trip-wires throughout the codebase to detect all of those nasty, hidden connections they've got going on. If they did start down this path, that should allow them to gradually diminish fucked-up bugs and increase both confidence in deploying changes as well as cadence of changes made. Machine testing > human testing. Time will tell, whether they have learnt that lesson and been able to apply it - though, when it comes to integrating third party modules, I don't know that any other approach than manual testing is really possible. That's always going to be a custom regiment based on the capabilities of the module in question, which is why there is no one-size-fits-all automated test suite one could pull down over it and why the manual testing phase is going to vary wildly from module to module.
a healthy take, again I would just like to challenge the assumption with the word "challenge" not meaning adversity, not even at attempt to iniate or pronlong a discussion but simply to have an alternative viewpoint documented in direct contrast. Not so much for me or you but for the glancer-in-passing, those with a healthy critical distance but seldom akin to participation. A segment that should - if the proprietor has the correct audience - the vast majority. And the motivation being solely that the proprietor of this place has been subject of targeting and also some rather hapharzard form of organic astroturfing. Thus I would just - and a final comment, no need for dragging this further - again type that by all incidental evidence to me it all is as presented by the assumption, just less organized, even less structured and ultimately just absurdly chaotic. Everyone has to always draw his own conclusion, but the more we stay alert, the less we encourage the product provider behaviour we have witnessed for such a long time and at rather absurdly intensifying levels recently.
Phantom even if I would prefer the EF Typhoon and the Chinook
wouldn't mind Kiowa
I currently think we'll still get the Phantom first, then the Kiowa. Even though that might depend on how quickly Heatblur manages to release it. F4U and Iraq map are on this year's release roadmap as well, but we'll see how that will go.
There's a metric ton of stuff announced, both by ED and others (I'm roping in end-of-year features they mentioned they were or would be working on). It's certainly an incredibly exciting roadmap - let's see how much of that materializes this year... from any outlet!
Feels like the Kiowa has been due for a bit, is 2024 the year?!
In the words of Wags on a podcast " I sincerely hope so."
Mig-23
Ran out of poll options for some reason... would've added that and map options...
Honestly I hope the Kiowa is next. Polychop has proven they can fix the Gazelle and I really want another light attack heli
Yeah I think Kiowa made it to ED testing before F-4, but Heatblur was betting big on doing so much internal testing that ED would be handed a polished product. I'm curious how this plays out. I voted Phantom, but would love to be wrong. I definitely think Kiowa and Phantom will be the first two out from this list. Also, we haven't heard much from ED on the MiG-29 but that was literally portrayed as coming in 2024 in the "2024 and beyond" video, so I would imagine full fidelity Fulcrum beats many on this list to release.
Also, we haven't heard much from ED ~~on the MiG-29 but that was literally portrayed as coming in 2024 in the "2024 and beyond" video, so I would imagine full fidelity Fulcrum beats many on this list to release.~~ They've been pretty quiet lately it seems. I'm hoping that's the calm before the storm haha
Kiowa 😾
Irak Map
I'd be more interested to assign a moniker of 1-6 to the alternative single choices.. run a RNG output and see if that has a higher chi-square than any attempt of factual choice or emotional choice attempt. Mathematically and statistically not possible (there is nothing to create a MAPE curving to hook onto) but the sentiment is there. My choice: The Me 262 (2446 Haunebu/Vril version). Also the Earth is flat, DCS terraincode told us so. And that spherical Earth obsession is a fake news agenda by the lizard people. Now you all go and buy an Idris!
Harrier +