From: Gibbs Tanton - tgibbs Date: 2005-07-07T12:59:47+09:00 Subject: Re: Marketing a system that relies on a component that is alpha version 0.1 In America, banks will often start your checks at 1000, even though you never have been with them before. The reason is that many vendors will not accept checks with numbers less than 1000. The vendors feel that if someone hasn't been with a bank long enough to use 1000 checks, then they are too high a security risk. In this case, the check number doesn't reflect your time of service with the bank because the bank has circumvented the process. In the same way, the version number does not reflect the stability of the process because programs with effective marketing will circumvent the process. Maybe its time that we all start our checks at 1000 and our versions at 5.0. -----Original Message----- From: Jenjhiz [mailto:jenjhiz@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 10:56 PM To: ruby-talk ML Subject: Re: Marketing a system that relies on a component that is alpha version 0.1 My posting is not about whether a lower or higher version number is a indication of a product's true robustness, useability, or performance. It is that if you label your product as alpha version 0.1, no matter how good it is, it is an uphill battle for anyone to have it approved by decision makers to be part of its set of corporate tools. It is perceived to be far, far from finished. << if i were competing in the web development arena i'd be quite happy to let them keep working in their antiquated environments - it'd be that much more work for me ;-) >> This view is very likely not shared by Ruby/Rails tool makers and book writers. And, in any case, I have a feeling that it'd be for their and the Ruby community's benefit if they fall for the lure of the lustre of a red jewel than them falling into a nest of snakes. gk ********************************************************************** The information contained in this communication is confidential, is intended only for the use of the recipient named above, and may be legally privileged. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please re-send this communication to the sender and delete the original message or any copy of it from your computer system. Thank You.