Following from a recent post about Gourmet Recipe Manager I received a question from Dawn:
Hi Matt,
This looks interesting. I went to download it and notice a second one that has the word "unstable' in the title and am feeling nervous.
What does that mean? Regards Dawn.
Good question Dawn. We all hear about Beta software on the internet but what is it and when should you use it?
When writing programs from scratch the authors usually go through a development cycle as depicted in this graphic from Wikipedia (click the pic for more detail)
However once a program has reached Gold or general release it can still be under development and further Beta builds testing out new features or changes may be available.
As a typical or average user it is best to avoid beta releases of programs for which you have a full working version. The old adage ‘if it ain't broke don’t fix it’ applies here. However if the beta program solves a problem you are having or includes a feature that you need then that may motivate you to try out the new Beta version.
Of course all software can have bugs and by running Beta software and reporting the bugs back to the authors you can help to have some input and improve the programs you are using. Most of the software in the Linux world and increasingly in the Windows sphere works this way too
In this case Dawn is downloading the program for the first time and she has a choice between the known Stable full release version and the Beta or unstable ‘experimental’ versions. So Dawn should download the Stable version the first time. Later on you can try out the cutting edge releases if you want to.
The link I gave you for download – this one - is linked to the most current Stable release (for Windows). Or go to the program’s website for Beta and Linux releases
Comments for this post
