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TPG

Defective update to ver 8.08

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I tried to update to ver 8.08 from an entry that I encountered in my "program list" on my start menu. (I am not even sure how it got there.) Mid-way through the upgrade, I got an error message that the upgrade could not continue with my anti-virus program, Trend Micro's Titanium, being open. Since I was unwilling to close Titanium, I tried to close the TMG upgrade program instead - but it continued anyway. It proceeded for a while and then announced that it had failed and was rolling back the upgrade. That roll-back destroyed not only the upgrade but both the previous ver 8.07 of TMG and my Titanium anti-virus program.

 

Re-installing the Titanium anti-virus program was relatively simple. When I accessed the Wholly Genes site, however, I found that ver 8.07 was listed as the most current version and that there was no ver 8.08 available from that site. When I found access to the ver 8.08 upgrade on one of Jim Byram's postings, I downloaded it - and it installed ver 8.08 without even requesting that I close Titanium.

 

I also had had problems installing the ver 8.07 upgrade in that it indicated that the upgrade had failed and rolled back both the upgrade and the previous ver 8.05.

 

This is unacceptable in what otherwise should be a very simple upgrade.

 

I am losing patience with the amateurism of the Wholly Genes programming staff. The TMG program is very sophisticated and requires more than casual quality controls on the design, implementation, and testing of any new versions. Why should upgrades previous to ver 8.06 have required a manual cleaning of remnants of older versions from the registry and file system? The steps indicated in Jim Byram's posting on the subject are routine and could have been automatically implemented. How did major errors in ver 8.07 slip through and require an almost an immediate ver 8.08 upgrade? If the report writer for version 8.00 was upgraded, why didn't the design accommodate WordPerfect immediately? etc. etc.

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Gosh, Jim, I never took you for being just a simple user. With all of your pinned postings regarding the inner workings of TMG in this very forum, I honestly thought that you had some special status with TMG and its development team. If I mistook you in this regard and you are in fact no more than just one of the crowd, then I apologize.

 

But, none the less, I doubt if contacting Support is going to affect the needed changes in the development, testing, and release environment at Wholly Genes. Perhaps if you had suggested that I contact Bob Velke, it might make more sense. But, I suspect that Bob Velke might be part of the problem.

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I am also just another user like Jim, and cannot give an official response, but in my opinion Bob Velke is the solution, not the problem.

 

You note that "the TMG program is very sophisticated" to which I agree, and I believe it to be the most serious and sophisticated genealogy database program currently on the market. Then you make an extremely common, but inaccurate, assumption when you talk about the "Wholly Genes programming staff" (emphasis added). Like many companies in the genealogy business, Wholly Genes is a small entrepreneurial endeavor. It survives because of a sizable cadre of dedicated volunteer users (like Jim and I, and several others). It would be wonderful if Wholly Genes had a large programming staff and deep financial pockets to do lots of programming and had a formal product testing environment. If that were true then I would share your expectations (and disappointment). But "it just ain't so". It is my understanding that Wholly Genes has very few programmers (mostly Bob), and nearly all testing is done by a small group of volunteer users. With the very limited resources Wholly Genes has, I believe the expectations you now express, and others in the past have expressed, are unrealistic. In my opinion the practical reality is more likely that we users are lucky the product continues to exist at all, much less is constantly being improved based on direct user input, and the inevitable bugs are fixed as quickly as they are. I think it will continue to exist due to the dedication of Bob Velke and a set of volunteers.

 

You are entitled to your opinion, but I believe it to be based on a lack of information. The above reflects my opinion. It is because I believe Wholly Genes resources are very limited, and want to aid the survival of this program which I find so useful, that I volunteer.

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I don't intend to be argumentative. I still think that TMG is the best product available. That is proven by the fact that I still use it. I am aware that Wholly Genes is a "small entrepreneurial endeavor" and that it survives because of a "cadre of dedicated volunteer users" who perform all of the testing. I do not believe, however, that this precludes criticism of the design, implementation, and testing environment at Wholly Genes. Bob Velke may very well be the "solution" to these problems, but it is he who also bears the responsibility of causing the problems by not establishing a more robust development environment.

 

I have been with TMG from almost the beginning and I have seen it grow in complexity by leaps and bounds. Back when Bob Velke started TMG, things were a bit simpler and perhaps it was thought possible to contain everything in the head of one individual. It now has so many features that a completely informal development and testing environment is no longer appropriate. I am not a fanatic who insists on an ultra-rigorous regime of design, implementation, and testing. A small group of programmers and volunteer testers could function well on a program like TMG - if they were provided with an appropriate framework to function within. As one example, just writing code and throwing it out for beta testing doesn't work without some modicum of a test plan which insures that fixes don't imperil old functions.

 

I am not privileged to know what goes on internally at Wholly Genes. I do, however, have some credentials in that I have held positions that were responsible for both large and small scale software development efforts. I also, since retirement, have produced successful shareware programs in my own one man shop.

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Well said, TPG. As a long time user I agree with everything you said in the last post. It is very frustrating and a waste of time to have to deal with program issues instead of genealogy issues, especially program problems that create database problems. I am losing confidence in TMG's ability to produce a quality product.

 

Jim Rassette

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