Quality is like sex

Written by Nick A.

The recent back to back releases of Joomla 2.5.5 and Joomla 2.5.6 and the internal rush to push a CB 1.8.1 quality release out to the general public reminded me of my AT&T Bell Labs days back in the late 1980's.

It was a period that was inspired by quality metrics and improvement discussions. Phrases like "improve quality by a factor of X in Y years" were common in almost every single presentation or discussion.

In fact we were instructed by our supervisor to make sure we mentioned something about quality in all our talks back then.

I was preparing a talk about a new telecommunications service and how our internal newtwork design tool could support it when I realized that I had not said anything at all about the big Q word. So I prepared an extra single slide to start off my presentation and get the Q stuff over with so I could continue with the real (in my mind back then) important content.

 The slide had a title and three bullet lines:

I recall my supervisor holding his head with both hands when he saw the title but he calmed down when the three bullets were revealed and the audience applauded. I guess lots of people back then were just as confused about quality and how to go about it.

The three bullet statements are just as relevant today. We all appreciate the good end result but seldomly acknowledge it. However, if something goes wrong, then almost everyone finds the time to bitch and moan and complain about the lack of quality and the crappy processeses that are to blame. 

Well, I think it's about time that we all take a moment and consider what we are getting for free with each Community Builder release.

How is it that the CB Team and the Joomlapolis community are conistenly producing high quality releases?

There are many reasons and many factors that can be sighted. I would like to focus on the following 5 aspects of our quality plan:

The effort that goes into each new release is phenomenal.

The fact that people can freely download, install and run CB packages on their websites and we never hear from them (because they do not have a complaint) is a double edge sword.

Sometimes a simple honest review or vote or thank you can make a world of difference.

Discuss this article on the forums. (5 posts)