Mood: Industrious



OK, it’s testing time. The client changes a lot each week. In the 6 months I’ve been with Xfire every aspect of the client has been touched or at least looked at. This makes testing interesting, and with only 5 people testing the client, the Xfire In-game, and the web-site, we are sometimes stretched for time and resources.

Here’s the breakdown:

Week 1:
Monday – Release the client to the masses (force update at around 3PM)
Tuesday – Look for issues that may have slipped through the cracks
Wednesday – Prepare for a Game Support update, and Web Push
Thursday – Game Support update and Web Push. And work on Test Plans.
Friday – Work on Test Plans for the Cycle, and clean up.

Week 2:
Monday and Tuesday – Test new features, and modifications in the Client
Wednesday – Prepare for a Game Support update, and Web Push, continue testing features.
Thursday – Game Support update and Web Push. And work on Test Plans, continue testing features.
Friday – Continue testing features and run a full regression on the client, to ensure that nothing is missed.
Sunday Night – Feature Freeze, no new features may be submitted after this point.

Week 3:
Monday – Test all features, all modifications and perform an abbreviated the Full Test.
Monday Night – Code Freeze, no new code after this point, only emergency fixes.
Tuesday – Kirmse heads down the corridor to nervously ask how things are looking, and asks if we think we should go Beta.
Wednesday – We go Beta after 2 or 3 Release Candidates, and finding several P1 bugs that we missed before.
Thursday – We make a few more changes as needed and go to final RC and put it in the Download Channel. It shows up in everyone’s Files tab, and some install it.
Friday – More research on Bugs, and wait for dire yells of dead clients (typically from GODjonez).

And then the week starts over. Schedules are subject to change without any notice.