wp34s vs calculator group (food for thought) Message #1 Posted by Tim Wessman on 18 Apr 2012, 12:09 a.m.
Hello,
First, I want to say that I am a huge fan of the team and what they have done. Cyrille had about given up hope someone would take advantage of the dev kit he managed to get released.
What I am going to say is just something I've been wanting to say for quite a while now. This is in no way a criticism of the fine work they've done. Nor is it a criticism of any individual. Nor may it ever be interesting to you. :-)
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How many people now have been involved in looking at or commenting on the wp34s now? How long has it been under development?
Yet with all of the people banging on it, and all the time spent working on it, why are there still new bugs being found? Why does there keep being people with differing opinions about the way things should be? Why is it not perfect yet with so much help?
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My point is this - I would love nothing better then to have 100+ people testing each unit for a year before it comes out. I would love nothing better then to be able to spent as much time on everything until it is "perfect". I would love nothing better then to revisit old products and continually improve them whenever there is a good idea or a slight reason to do so.
With the 34, everybody has a cable and can update with no issues. There are no support concerns if a mistake is made. There are no consequences past "Dang, I guess we'll fix that in the next revision." There is nobody shipping back boxes of units and refusing to sell them. Anyone involved with ANY retail product can cite loads of similar stories and expriences.
It is one thing to make and sell 100 units. It is a completely other thing to sell 1,000,000.
Unfortunately, that is not how modern business works in general. You get a certain time frame, a certain amount of resources, a certain amount of money slated for support, and then your project is committed and HAS to follow the plan. You get as many people to test as you can, but it is never enough. (You can argue if it should or should not be this way, but that is a different discussion) When problems happen, there is a decision making process to determine how best to resolved the issues.
It just isn't possible to "simply" decide to not ship a product on time, to decide to fix a bug, or to add in new features. There may be marketing activities already under way, agreements with government agencies or retailers, authors and so on. In short, everybody involved may be impacted. A "simple" *technical* fix for a problem may be possible, but everything else involved may make it nearly impossible.
If there is a bug found in a HP calculator, nearly the first thing that always springs out is "I can't believe this wasn't found. If they'd only done <insert something> they would have found it. That was the first thing I did!" Occasionally, there are people who write things like "For every key more than, say, 50 (keys), turn five HP engineers into frogs and let them be eated (sp) by furious dogs." :-)
Now I am not trying to say that there is not room for improvement. Continual improvement of processes and products is a constant goal. You, as customers, have a right to complain and voice your opinion and I am not trying to say otherwise.
Rather, I hope that you can see the similarities AND possibly imagine the differences with way the very public 34s work progresses. It is very easy to forget about all the competing things pulling on the calculator group.
It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with the direction HP takes the calculator group. It is perfectly acceptable to say that a certain product shouldn't have had "time wasted on it". You are perfectly welcome to do or say what you'd like.
We are all passionate about calculators. That is why it is so hard when a bug is found, or actions are not taken like we'd hope them to be. We, as a group of calculator nuts, tend to be very vocal and loud.
If I were to try and sum up my rambling, it would be thus:
Please just remember that the reasons behind the way things happen are very complex. There are many different factors that go into EVERY decision. Just because something did or didn't happen how you'd hope, or a bug was or wasn't found doesn't mean that there isn't a reason or factor behind it. Decisions are not made on a whim. When something makes you angry or annoyed with the calculator group, try to think a little bit about what might be happening behind the scenes where you might not be able to see.
TW
PS - Not looking for any comments saying "I think you and cyrille are doing a fabulous job" or things like that. Nor am I feeling depressed or "picked on" or anything. I just wanted everyone to consider what you've seen with the VERY PUBLIC wp34s and compare/contrast that with what it might be like being such a tiny organization in a large corporate entity.
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Although I work for the HP calculator group, the views and comments expressed here are my own.
Edited: 18 Apr 2012, 12:49 a.m. after one or more responses were posted
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