AstroPlanner

The first alpha of V2 was released to a select group of beta testers this week…

“What!” you cry, “How can I get in on the action?”. Well beta testing is going to be different from the previous public beta testing scenario, where everyone and his grandmother could download and play with the current alpha/beta. In particular:

• So many changes have been made to the code that it’s almost a new product. With those major changes come a lot of nasty bugs. If an inexperienced tester was presented with such a can of worms, the word might spread that the new version is a bad deal. For instance, most of the beta testers couldn’t get anywhere with the first release because of some unexpected nasty bugs (which I dealt with rapidly).
• The small team of beta testers currently playing with the app were chosen because of their prior record of reporting bugs and making suggestions for improvements. Once the app is reasonably stable, I will increase the size of that team. Eventually, it will go “public”.
• There is no documentation, which means that I’d rather have experienced, active, and motivated users exploring the new app, since I don’t want to have to generate a user manual before the user interface and features are “set in stone.”
• I plan to do more formal testing, which requires the testers to do more work and interact with me more often. I can’t expect the “public” to do this.

All that being said, if you would like to be included in the expanded beta team in a few weeks time, drop me a line and explain why. I’m particularly interested in people who have one or more of the following characteristics:

• Experienced AstroPlanner user.
• Software development experience.
• Expertise in a specialised area (e.g. double star observing, imaging, variable star observing, minor planet works, AP scripting, etc.).
• Formal testing experience.
• Spare time/cloudy skies to have time to do testing.