CTACS General meeting for November 20, 2014

Attendance: Mark, Kathleen, Carol, Charlie, Paul and, behind the camera, George.

Mark brought camera accessories that he thought went with the Rebel camera which now takes our official CTACS photos... like a manual in English, a small lense protector case, and a curious sliver of plastic with the following in 4 languages:

Attach this cover to the battery after use.

which leaves several questions hanging in the air.

George brought the Amiga Future Nr 111 for general perusal. After pointing to its current letters to the editor, he read a paragraph or two. There was a nod of agreement that it sounded like a threat to discontinue that "department" of the mag. Then George presented a "sympathy/new year's" card that the group all signed save, Mark (with no explanation), and a few questions for the Amiga Future editors to consider for answers.

Software topics: How do you decide when you will produce "official" QA for some code? Sure, for some very low level subroutines. And, no, for the GUI program that has to deal all of what Murphy can bring when pesky users use it.

Paul listed a few of the things that go into a manager's decision about QA:

Deadlines (Formal QA easily doubles the task)
$ budget contracted. That time costs wages.
Relevance to human safety
Relevance to $ cost for enumerated possible failures
Intended users:
- Yourself for a one time task? No QA required.
- Yourself for repeated use? May choose to fix bugs only as they become known during operation
- Coder tools for a group? Any GUI involved will need little bullet proofing (some of the most demanding of QA efforts) because the users are knowledgeable
- When it is company wide its harder because the resources consumed in the coding efforts are mushier, more subject to individual responsibility, and prediliction.
- For larger code to go with projects under contract to a customer where the requirements will change throughout the project, QA can be a waste of time.. useful for the old requirements and a distraction if used (wrongly) to test with revised needs.. which do not stop coming. You will find that its best to go with the "alpha" and "beta" testing where the software/project are given hard test drives as close to use in intended conditions as time allows.

The order of business for November is nominations for 2015 officers. Charlie presided, but George jumped in craftily nominated himself to continue as the webmaster. That left but one official position these days, President. When quizzed Charlie offered to reliquish the position to upcomers, but, judging by the sudden hush about the table, allowed that he had nothing against continuing for 2015.

That brought the next item up: Voting takes place at the December meeting whose place and date are now to be determined.

Carol suggested Stiles Switch BBQ which is near enough to Kathleen & Charlie that they have tried it out and confirm it as a great place for the annual December "family" meeting. This idea suited everyone after just a few inquiries. Everyone was happy enough to go with the usual meeting time, so there we have it.

December 18, 2014 Stiles Switch 6:30 - 8pm, 6610 N. Lamar at the corner of Lamar and Brentwood. That's the northwest corner in the Violet Crown Shopping Center with lots of parking.

Charlie got posession of the Amiga Future.

Beer consumed. Conan's SAVAGE consumed. Clock time to 8:10pm consumed, we all went out separate ways.

Thr Oct 16, 2014<-- | UP | --> Thr Dec 18, 2014

Last modified: 2014-11-30 10:30