The Big Beta
Posted by Francis | Posted in Development, Internet Stuff | Posted on 24-02-2009
Tags: beta, Google, meanings, Software development
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Today Gmail went down. It’s hit the news again (tech news that is). On Pocket Lint they had a short article on the outage. It attracted a comment from a person saying “I also love gmail but I’m a bit worried about the fact that it’s still in beta!”.
I’ve seen this kind of quote quite a lot. And it’s an acceptable thing to say, it is in beta. However, Google have changed the meaning of the word Beta. Back in the day with traditional software development, an application would go through Alpha, Beta, Release Candidates then final or something similar (it still does, and will for years to come). Alpha and beta would be for testers and those who dared to install and potentially destroy their machines.