That's the way I always understood it to be. Alpha = Executable and usable to a certain extent, feature incomplete, bugs galore. Beta = Generally solid, feature complete, may contain a few bugs.
The problem is that not all developers adhere to this versioning philosophy. Look at Parallels. While their betas are generally of very high quality, each beta iteration is known for gaining new features over the previous iteration.
The problem is many developers have extended beta to equal = still implementing new features, may contain bugs, and have come to lean on the "release candidate" phase, which is almost always feature complete, and exists for the sole purpose of squashing bugs before shipping.
by Ted — Dec 26
That's the way I always understood it to be. Alpha = Executable and usable to a certain extent, feature incomplete, bugs galore. Beta = Generally solid, feature complete, may contain a few bugs.
The problem is that not all developers adhere to this versioning philosophy. Look at Parallels. While their betas are generally of very high quality, each beta iteration is known for gaining new features over the previous iteration.
The problem is many developers have extended beta to equal = still implementing new features, may contain bugs, and have come to lean on the "release candidate" phase, which is almost always feature complete, and exists for the sole purpose of squashing bugs before shipping.