Other platforms with similar power would take many weeks or months to accomplish what Alpha TransForm can do in hours. Get the facts: What makes Alpha TransForm unique. Friendly Enough for Everyone. Business domain experts can mobilize business processes in minutes without the need for developers; Fully customize the look and feel of apps. The Alpha II ANSIllary software development toolkit (SDK) assists developers in the manipulation of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12N transactions. The ANSIllary SDK parses ANSI files and validates that the files correctly adhere to the corresponding ANSI X12N format.
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software: ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help improve software or fix software bugs still present in the software.
A look at mobile app development with Alpha Software. Alpha Software allows developers to build cross-platform mobile and web business apps. Learn more about how the process works. International Alpha Developers Network. As the worldwide Users Group for Alpha Software developers, our mission is to ensure developers have access to the information, services and support they need to create world-class business applications. Alpha Software jumped into the burgeoning low-code development market with a platform aimed at citizen developers, especially those looking to create mobile applications. The company's TransForm platform has a built-in programming language developers can use to add customized functions. Jul 18, 2019 Application development would be writing code to execute the tasks you describe to a level of pushing buttons and having data processed by Alpha. I develop functionality that has Alpha import, parse, divide, subdivide, evaluate, combine, compile, assemble and export data into files and reports. At least that's what I do as a developer.
2Stages of development
2.3Beta
3Release
4Support
History[edit]
Usage of the 'alpha/beta' test terminology originated at IBM. Similar terminologies for IBM's software development were used by people involved with IBM from at least the 1950s (and probably earlier). 'A' test was the verification of a new product before the public announcement. 'B' test was the verification before releasing the product to be manufactured. 'C' test was the final test before the general availability of the product. As software became a significant part of IBM's offerings, the alpha test terminology was used to denote the pre-announcement test and the beta test was used to show product readiness for general availability. Martin Belsky, a manager on some of IBM's earlier software projects claimed to have invented the terminology. IBM dropped the alpha/beta terminology during the 1960s, but by then it had received fairly wide notice. The usage of 'beta test' to refer to testing done by customers was not done in IBM. Rather, IBM used the term 'field test'.
Stages of development[edit]
Pre-alpha[edit]
Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the software project before formal testing. These activities can include requirements analysis, software design, software development, and unit testing. In typical open source development, there are several types of pre-alpha versions. Milestone versions include specific sets of functions and are released as soon as the feature is complete.
Alpha[edit]
The alpha phase of the release life cycle is the first phase to begin software testing (alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, used as the number 1). In this phase, developers generally test the software using white-box techniques. Additional validation is then performed using black-box or gray-box techniques, by another testing team. Moving to black-box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release.[1][better source needed]
Alpha software is software that is not thoroughly tested by the developer before it is released to customers. Alpha software usually contains serious errors;[2] therefore it can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version.[3] In general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a feature freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete. A beta test is carried out following acceptance testing at the supplier's site (alpha test) and immediately prior to general release of the software as a product.[4]
Beta[edit]
Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the software development phase following alpha. Software in the beta stage is also known as betaware.[5] Beta phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs.[6] Software in the beta phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, speed or performance issues, and may still cause crashes or data loss. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing. The process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it. Software beta releases can either be public or private, depending on whether they are openly available or only available to a limited audience. Beta version software is often useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization and to prospective customers. Some developers refer to this stage as a preview, preview release, prototype, technical preview / technology preview (TP),[7] or early access.
Beta testers are people who actively report issues of beta software. They are usually customers or representatives of prospective customers of the organization that develops the software. Beta testers tend to volunteer their services free of charge but often receive versions of the product they test, discounts on the release version, or other incentives.
Perpetual beta[edit]
Some software is kept in perpetual beta, where new features are continually added to the software without establishing a final 'stable' release.
As the Internet has facilitated rapid and inexpensive distribution of software, companies have begun to take a looser approach to use of the word 'beta'.[8] In February 2005, ZDNet published an article[9] about the recent phenomenon of a beta version often staying for years and being used as if it were in production level, disparagingly called 'perpetual beta'. It noted that Gmail and Google News, for example, had been in beta for a long time although widely used; Google News did leave beta in January 2006, followed by Google Apps, including Gmail, in July 2009.[10] This technique may allow a developer to delay offering full support and responsibility for remaining issues. In the context of Web 2.0, people even talk of perpetual betas to signify that some software is meant to stay in beta state. Also, 'beta' is sometimes used to indicate something more like a release candidate, or as a form of time-limited demo, or marketing technique.[11] Since the introduction of Windows 8, Microsoft has called pre-release software as a 'preview', rather than beta. All pre-release builds released through the Windows Insider Program launched in 2014 are termed 'Insider Preview builds'.
Open and closed beta[edit]
Developers may release either a closed beta also called private beta, or an open beta also called public beta; closed beta versions are released to a restricted group of individuals for a user test by invitation, while open beta testers are from a larger group, or anyone interested. Private beta could be suitable for the software that is capable to deliver value, but is not ready to be used by everyone either due to scaling issues, lack of documentation or still missing vital features. The testers report any bugs that they find, and sometimes suggest additional features they think should be available in the final version. Examples of a major public beta test include the following:
Early customers purchased a 'pioneer edition' of the WordVision word processor for the IBM PC for $49.95. In 1984, Stephen Manes wrote that 'in a brilliant marketing coup, Bruce and James Program Publishers managed to get people to pay for the privilege of testing the product.'[12]
In September 2000 a boxed version of Apple's Mac OS X Public Beta operating system was released.[13]
Microsoft's release of community technology previews (CTPs) for Windows Vista, between September 2005 and May 2006.[14]
From 2009 to 2011, Minecraft was in public beta.
From December 29, 2014, all owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One were able to download and play the Beta of Halo 5: Guardians free of charge until January 18, 2015. Users of the Beta were reminded via an in-game popup that the release was a Beta and could contain some glitches, and were encouraged to communicate them through the Halo series online community.
Open betas serve the dual purpose of demonstrating a product to potential consumers, and testing among an extremely wide user base likely to bring to light obscure errors that a much smaller testing team might not find.
Release candidate[edit]
Alpha Software Developers Download
A release candidate (RC), also known as 'going silver', is a beta version with potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. In this stage of product stabilization, all product features have been designed, coded and tested through one or more beta cycles with no known showstopper-class bugs. A release is called code complete when the development team agrees that no entirely new source code will be added to this release. There could still be source code changes to fix defects, changes to documentation and data files, and peripheral code for test cases or utilities. Beta testers, if privately selected, will often be credited for using the release candidate as though it were a finished product. Beta testing is conducted in a client's or customer's location and to test the software from a user's perspective.
Release[edit]
Once released, the software is generally known as a 'stable release'. The formal term often depends on the method of release: physical media, online release or a web application.
Release to manufacturing (RTM)[edit]
The term release to manufacturing (RTM), also known as 'going gold', is a term used when a software product is ready to be delivered. This build may be digitally signed, allowing the end user to verify the integrity and authenticity of the software purchase. A copy of the RTM build known as the 'gold master' or GM is sent for mass duplication if applicable. RTM precedes general availability (GA) when the product is released to the public.
Alpha Software Corporation
It is typically used in certain retail mass-production software contexts—as opposed to a specialized software production or project in a commercial or government production and distribution—where the software is sold as part of a bundle in a related computer hardware sale and typically where the software and related hardware is ultimately to be available and sold on mass/public basis at retail stores to indicate that the software has met a defined quality level and is ready for mass retail distribution. RTM could also mean in other contexts that the software has been delivered or released to a client or customer for installation or distribution to the related hardware end user computers or machines. The term does not define the delivery mechanism or volume; it only states that the quality is sufficient for mass distribution. The deliverable from the engineering organization is frequently in the form of a golden master media used for duplication or to produce the image for the web.
General availability (GA)[edit]
Milestones in a product life cycle: general availability (GA), end of life announcement (EOLA), last order date (LOD), and end-of-life (EOL)
General availability (GA) is the marketing stage at which all necessary commercialization activities have been completed and a software product is available for purchase, depending, however, on language, region, electronic vs. media availability.[15] Commercialization activities could include security and compliance tests, as well as localization and worldwide availability. The time between RTM and GA can be from a week to months in some cases before a generally available release can be declared because of the time needed to complete all commercialization activities required by GA. At this stage, the software has 'gone live'.
Release to web (RTW)[edit]
Release to the web (RTW) or web release is a means of software delivery that utilizes the Internet for distribution. No physical media are produced in this type of release mechanism by the manufacturer. Web releases are becoming more common as Internet usage grows.
Support[edit]
During its supported lifetime, software is sometimes subjected to service releases, patches or service packs, sometimes also called 'interim releases' or 'maintenance release' (MR). For example, Microsoft released three major service packs for the 32-bit editions of Windows XP and two service packs for the 64-bit editions. Such service releases contain a collection of updates, fixes, and enhancements, delivered in the form of a single installable package. They may also implement new features. Some software is released with the expectation of regular support. Classes of software that generally involve protracted support as the norm include anti-virus suites and massively multiplayer online games. A good example of a game that utilizes this process is Minecraft, an indie game developed by Mojang, which features regular 'updates' featuring new content and bug fixes.
End-of-life [edit]
When software is no longer sold or supported, the product is said to have reached end-of-life, to be discontinued, retired, deprecated, abandoned, or obsolete, but user loyalty may continue its existence for some time, even long after its platform is obsolete—e.g., the Atari ST and Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
After the end-of-life date, the developer will usually not implement any new features, fix existing defects, bugs or vulnerabilities (known before that date or not) or provide any support for the product.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
^'Encyclopedia definition of alpha version'. PC Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2011-01-12.
^Ince, Darrel (ed.). A Dictionary of the Internet (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN9780191744150. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^'The Next Generation 1996 Lexicon A to Z'. Next Generation. No. 15. Imagine Media. March 1996. p. 29. Alpha software generally barely runs and is missing major features like gameplay and complete levels.
^A Dictionary of Computer Science (7th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 44. ISBN9780199688975.
^'Definition of betaware in the Free Online Encyclopedia'. thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
^'The Next Generation 1996 Lexicon A to Z'. Next Generation. No. 15. Imagine Media. March 1996. p. 30.
^'Technology Preview Features Support Scope'. Red Hat. Retrieved 2015-03-18.
^'Waiting with Beta'd Breath TidBITS #328 (May 13, 1996)'. Archived from the original on 2006-05-15.
^'A long winding road out of beta | Tech News on ZDNet'. web.archive.org. 2005-02-14. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
^'Google Apps is out of beta (yes, really)'. Google Blog. Google. 7 July 2009. Archived from the original on 21 January 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-12.
^The inconvenient truths behind betasArchived 2011-04-30 at the Wayback Machine
^Manes, Stephen (1984-04-03). 'Taking A Gamble With Word Vision'. PC. p. 211. Archived from the original on 17 March 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
^'Apple Releases Mac OS X Public Beta' (Press release). Apple Inc. 13 September 2000. Archived from the original on 1 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
^'Microsoft Windows Vista October Community Technology Preview Fact Sheet' (Press release). Microsoft. October 2005. Archived from the original on 2011-04-30. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
^Luxembourg, Yvan Philippe (20 May 2013). 'Top 200 SAM Terms – A Glossary Of Software Asset Management Terms'. OMTCO. Archived from the original on 10 August 2013. Retrieved 21 May 2013.Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Bibliography[edit]
Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation by Jez Humble, David Farley; ISBN0-321-60191-2
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Software_release_life_cycle&oldid=918240731'
Last fall Boston Technology Corporation published some interesting statistics about enterprise mobility, such as 'the global enterprise mobility market will be worth as much as $140 billion by 2020' and 'by 2018, more than 50% of all mobile apps will be created without coding.' This latter fact is particularly intriguing given the fact BTC also stated 'a study of 1,000 full-time and part-time employees reveals that 43% of smartphone users and 41% of tablet users are not impressed with the corporate mobile apps they're expected to use.'
More about Mobility
Clearly there is room for improvement in the mobile app space and opportunities to enact this improvement are growing.
'Companies are scrambling to mobilize hundreds of business processes and applications. The demand for mobile applications to speed the pace of business, is, paradoxically, slowing businesses down as they try to keep up with explosive demand for mobile apps,' said Alpha Software Corporation CEO, Richard Rabins.
I recently wrote about Appmobi, a cloud service which facilitates the secure development of mobile apps. Whereas Appmobi focuses more on the management of apps, I wanted to take a look at the development process itself. And so I examined Alpha Software, which just updated their mobile development platform, called Alpha Anywhere.
The app, Pumpjack Pro, was created for a utility company using Alpha Anywhere for their workers to use in the field and serves as a good example of a custom-built app which can perform critical functions needed by employees.
Alpha Anywhere handles the development and deployment of mobile apps in a timely fashion encompassing both the front and back end. Best of all, coding requirements are minimal (in fact, it's described as 'optional') making it usable by developers and non-developers alike. Alpha Anywhere can access all features of a mobile device as well as capture data via a mobile optimized forms capability which facilitates creating user interfaces tuned to mobile use.
Mlb games for pc. As said, no big deal or that interfere with the gameplay.As already said, MLB The Show 16 seeks to be a baseball Simulator.
'In order to be successful, enterprise mobile apps must meet critical user requirements, including intuitive use, the ability to leverage mobile hardware device features, such as touch interaction, geo-location, video, audio, and camera, and the ability to work with large amounts of read/write data - even when working offline,' said Dan Bricklin, CTO of Alpha Software. 'These functions are no longer optional in enterprise mobility - they are critical requirements for mobile app development and success. Alpha Anywhere V4 was developed with the horsepower to quickly meet these requirements with little to no coding.'
According to a recent press release, Alpha Anywhere V4 capabilities include:
' Mobile optimized forms made possible through the new FormView Control and enhanced Adobe® PhoneGap™ Build integration. This exclusive technology allows users to finally make replacing paper and clipboards a reality with mobile apps that can speed data capture in the field with rich media capabilities, annotation, custom keyboards made for one-handed use and context-aware data capture. In addition, each field can be enhanced with custom controls such as checklist swipes and stopwatches for speed and accuracy.
Digital ink and image annotation allowing users to capture handwritten notes, sketch and draw (with a finger, stylus or a mouse) on pictures or images, or add signatures in mobile apps.
Audio capture via a mobile device for dictating notes, equipment sounds, or recording customers' comments at field locations within mobile apps with audio recorder controls.
Seamless access to device hardware including cameras, scanners, specialized hardware add-ons, recording, GPS, and video, to give developers the capability to utilize full mobile device features for automatic or rich data capture within their business apps.
Industry-leading offline capabilities, including client-side data caching, which allows mobile app users to store large amounts of data (GB) or rich media files when they don't have a connection.
Support for OData Web Services to connect Alpha Anywhere desktop, web or mobile apps to a wide range of corporate data sources and systems of record.
Alpha Software Developers
Support for NoSQL (MongoDB), SQLite, and Amazon S3 Cloud Storage, giving developers the ability to leverage some of the most popular technologies in use today.
Access to web sockets for direct messaging, which allows developers to push data instantly to applications in the field, such as auction sites, instant messaging and worker location tracking.
Performance and speed enhancements that speed throughput, enable UX components to load up to five times faster, and power Ajax callbacks on large UX components up to five times faster.
Alpha 5 Software Developers
Alpha Software is also set to release its first mobile optimized forms sample app for customers to quickly understand how to incorporate new features such as customized keyboards, digital ink and large media file storage into their Alpha Anywhere business apps. Thus far, Alpha Software has seen a 50 percent increase in sales this year and, with this release, the company expects this growth to continue.'
In terms of how the software is used to architect apps, a variety of different components that can be assembled to create powerful browser-based apps are available. The Grid component is the most popular for quickly creating common tabular) and dialog-driven developer environment. For mobile applications, the UX component facilitates creating multi-screen, single-page HTML5 and hybrid (PhoneGap) apps out of controls using an intuitive object-tree and property sheet interface. The UX component also provides genies and templates for specifying the visual appearance of controls and data.
In addition to customization through trees of objects, property sheets, and dialog boxes, Alpha Anywhere lets the developer drop into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on the client, and Xbasic, JavaScript (Node.js), and .Net languages on the server, for pinpoint customizations. An extensive library of predefined, dialog box-configured functions are available through its 'Action Javascript' feature.
The actual coding elements underneath the app development process appear as follows:
Here's another example of how a finished app appears:
I spoke with Dan Bricklin, CTO of Alpha Software, regarding the background of their product.
DB: 'Our goal is to make mobile apps buildable, manageable and affordable. Alpha Anywhere is for people who want to get jobs done with data in a more business-oriented area. Developing for Microsoft Access, a very popular way in the past to build business applications, is becoming obsolete; those developers, with domain knowledge and understanding of databases and data structures, now need to move to mobile.'
SM: 'Can you tell me about the history of the company and how the software operates?'
DB: 'The company has been around a long time - back in the mid 80's when I was developing software out of my bedroom I used the popular Alpha Three database system as a customer to run my business,' Dan replied. 'This initially was standalone on a PC, then in the coming decades Alpha was enhanced to run on a network with other PCs and then on a server. Then, in Alpha Software's Alpha Five system, you could develop apps that operate in a server/browser environment using local and remote devices - HTML5 apps for instance. Finally, with today's Alpha Anywhere, you can also create standalone, mobile apps.'
And known bugs which impact in an app.Along with Adobe Photoshop CS6 keygen enhancing the equilibrium of this app, the upgrade fixes numerous security defects and boosts the manner tools get the job done, including 3D functions, charts, and drawings. Photoshop cs6 extended full version. Adobe Photoshop CS6 Key is somewhat hard, especially for novices like me.
SM: 'How about the software interface?'
DB: 'Alpha wants to give you the headroom to do whatever you want. We don't want to say 'you can only build these things then that's it.' You can drop into code when you need to and take advantage of pre-built stuff, lots of lists, hundreds of events you can add code for, either via JavaScript on the client or in a variety of languages on the server. The output is HTML5-based and can run on all modern browsers. You can target both Android and iOS platforms as well. If you want to run offline, we've done a lot of work to make it easy to use these apps like that - they cache data, then send it back to the server when appropriate. These apps can run when you're not connected to a network because that's the way it needs to work in the real world.'
SM: 'Who is your target audience?'
DB: 'Well, Alpha isn't aimed at people who are only comfortable building simple Excel spreadsheets, but if you are comfortable building apps through Microsoft Access, this will be a good solution; the data and user interface design should be intuitive. The target audience is people who are comfortable with apps in a development environment like Access, Excel with VBA, etc. It helps to know HTML and CSS, and even JavaScript. Forrester called it a 'low code' system. You can do most of what you need to do in a visual environment to construct your application. As opposed to 'low-code', there are also 'no-code' and 'code-centric' systems. There are systems (like Appmobi) that take the thing you've built through extensive coding and put a wrapper around it to provide certain types of security which you may or may not need. Alpha Anywhere can be used with some of them. However, for manyWhat else is unique?'
DB: 'The speed of mobile app development and being able to rapidly make changes is important,' he told me. 'Alpha Anywhere builds both the client and the server side of an application at the same time, keeping them in sync. We've built in a lot of things that are really hard to do; for instance you can tell the app to upload a picture to Amazon S3 and then use a link to that picture instead, so the app can cache the picture on the mobile device for offline access. We've done the same thing with audio. It handles write-conflict detection and resolution when multiple users are accessing the same database, even with hierarchical data tables modified offline and then synchronized. We added a lot of stuff in version 4 - support for recording audio, and the ability to specify a sampling rate to get much more compact voice recordings.'
A free trial of Alpha Anywhere V4 is available at their site.