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stranger
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stranger
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i got the opportunity to beta test a new Sandlot game this morning, and it got me to wondering why 'beta'. the obvious would be that alpha testing is done in-house and the beta is second stage, but surely there's more to it. anyone know the first usage?
oh... and last time i posted (under another name, and i can't remember what it was, but) i got some great responses, but then the thread was hijacked* by someone (whose name i can't recall either) who launched a multi-post soliloquey. seriously... there were probably seven posts in a row all from the same guy and he was debating with himself... kinda creepy. so be a dear, whoever you were, and let some other folks answer, k? ;-)
~cd
*it should be noted that i do NOT have a problem with hijacking a thread, as most of us are wont to do more often than not. after all, the new course is almost always more interesting (if not more spurious) than the original, but i'm just requesting that in the event of a hijack, there be multiple hijackers.
peace out...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Get rid of the moving avatar and I'll be happy to talk to you.    We've only had three nasty sock thangs in the past -- what -- almost 6 years? and the most recent one we hope is on their [sic] way out, as well. So good to see you again, xoxo! Meanwhile, I don't know the answer to your question, of course, but surely one of the tech guys will be along shortly. 
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veteran
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Car, welcome
What's a sandlot game
dalehileman
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Carpal Tunnel
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> The next test, the beta test, is done by a limited number of outsiders. yeah, limited like this betap.s. - shirley you're not suprised you couldn't recall posting "under another name".
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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betaThe Jargon File suggests: "More formally, to beta-test is to test a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software by making it available to selected (or self-selected) customers and users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. Alpha Test was the unit, module, or component test phase; Beta Test was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early samples of the production design, and the D test was the C test repeated after the model had been in production a while."
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Kubla Khan Enterprises Inc
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A brand-new software game decree,
Where Alph, the coding river, ran
Through kludges measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests, ancient as the hills,
Paid for by the punters’ naiveté.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart the cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her software fixer!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if the graphics processors were failing,
A spew of error messages was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
The image flickered and grew very pale,
The sound card screamed that it, too, soon would fail:
And 'mid this scrunching code, at once and ever
It flung up momently the Beta version.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through game after game the coding river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
The punters’ voices prophesying war!
The shame of vanish’d coders’ pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Now is heard the mingled measure
From marketing department knaves.
It was “a miracle of rare device,
A piece of software redefining nice!”
A damsel with a computer
In a vision once I saw:
It was a Californian maid,
And on her computer she played,
Sandlot, by her aura.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with coding strong and long,
I would build that software true,
That perfect launch! those sessions nice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
(with apologies to Sam)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh, mav. I am spellbound.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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gave me a Rush, too.
awesome.
formerly known as etaoin...
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stranger
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stranger
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love it, ant. you're the bestest.
now, would you please explain the use of "punters"? the only use i'm family with on this side of the pond is when one chooses to 'punt' on a goal or project, meaning to toss it aside as being unattainable or not reasonably worth attempting, or even if one simply changes his mind.
you mentioned that it means "customer"...in a very general way? is it marketing jargon or in popular use? elaborate, please. and etymology is worth extra points ;-)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Interesting question – it’s one of those colloquial usages I’ve never really stopped to consider.
My meaning is a slangy term for ‘customer’. It’s in common use on this side of the pond and doesn’t sit in any particular frame like marketing, but it is very informal. I had assumed it came from someone who placed a punt or bet, getting transferred to the more general sense of a person putting down money in return for something. Looking it up in my trusty OED2, I find it’s a bit more specific than this in its origins. It gives three general classes of the word, the first all to do with gambling origins, the second to do with the flat-bottomed boat, and the third to do with football – the latter is the newest class, and the former is the oldest, dating from about 1700. Within that first group of meanings are offered 5 definitions:
1. A player who ‘punts’ or plays against the bank at certain card-games: see punt v.1
2. transf. A small professional backer of horses. Also, one who gambles in stocks and shares, or on football pools.
3. slang. A name for a member of various classes of criminal, esp. one who assists in the commission of a crime (see quots.).
4. slang. The victim of a swindler or confidence trickster.
5. colloq. A customer or client; a member of an audience or spectator; spec., the client of a prostitute.
In some contexts almost synonymous with person (but depreciatory).
Under the verb punt it offers the detail of the specific games it derives from:
a. intr. At certain card-games, as basset, faro, and baccarat: To lay a stake against the bank.
I’ll go dig out the bit about the third type of punt, which seems marginally closer to your kind of ‘abandoning’ or kicking of something…
EDIT:
ah, having now checked the noun forms more carefully I can see the boat form is much older than I was suggesting above, going back to a Latinate root:
c1000 Ælfric's Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 166/2 Pontonium, punt. c1050 Suppl. Ælfric's Voc. ibid. 181/31 Pontonium, flyte. Caudex, punt.+ Trabaria, anbyme scip. a1100 Voc. ibid. 287/33 Pontonium, flyte. Trabaria, i. caudex, punt, i. pontonium. 1500, 1552 pontebots, etc. [see 3]. 1568 Withals Dict. 10a/2 Lintres sunt nauiculæ fluuiales, ex arbore cauata factæ, as puntes or troughes be. 1600 Holland Livy xxvi. ix. 589 Much ado he [Fulvius] had, for the great scarcitie of timber & wood, to make punts [rates] and boats for to set over his armie. 1603 I Plutarch's Mor. 1294 She searched for them in a bote or punt made of papyr reed [Žm baqidi paptqmg]. 1615 J. R. Trade's Incr. in Harl. Misc. (Malh.) III. 308 Fishing, which now we use in crayers and punts. etc
And in the gaming origin, it seems closely related to ‘point’:
2. In the game of faro: A point.
1850 Bohn's Handbk. Games 338 Terms used at Faro. Ponte or Punt, a Point. The punter or player.
Cites from OED2
Last edited by maverick; 01/31/06 03:08 PM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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punt n.
An act of punting.
1. Rugby Football. A kick given to the ball dropped from the hands, before it reaches the ground. (Cf. drop-kick, place-kick.) Also in other varieties of football.
2. transf. An upward jerk. rare.
OED2 The citation is the 1845 Rules book from Rugby Scool. I can imagine a possible way this sense of booting a ball might come to get transferred to rejecting something in a more general way, but p'raps your version comes from some other source entirely? Hell, it is SoCal... 
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stranger
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stranger
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wow, i can't believe i've never heard 'punt' associated in any way with gambling. i'm interested to know if other USans have similarly missed the boat (har).
i guess its use in football makes sense, given that the ball is punted by the offense on the fourth down whenever it's clear that the 10-yards-in-four-attempts goal will not be reached. it's in a sense a 'bet' that the distance from the goal added by the punt/kick to the receiving team's drive will increase the likelihood that the punter will get the ball back without the receiving team having scored.
i'll anxiously await the results of your excavation.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Check the edits above, when you get back :]
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Deleted for love.
Last edited by Homo Loquens; 01/31/06 05:56 PM.
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stranger
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stranger
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Doesn't Bert in Mary Poppins (Disney version) want to go 'punting on the Thames'?
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Could well be! Richard Sherman confirmed that what this movie never had was an actual script... “Right, we didn’t have a script,” says Sherman. “All we had was a story concept and lots and lots of music...." More here
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