SCRIPTCASE - BUG MANAGEMENT - debate

Scriptcase 9 General
#1

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I would like to start a debate and see what other think abnout NetMake bug management. I would like to see how many of you are disapointed with the way the bug handling in SC is handled.
For the last few years I think it becomes bigger and bigger issue. I understand SC grows in its complexity and that might require more attention, but in general I can openly say that bug fixing is the least priority for NetMake developers and it only takes place in crucial issues (preventing completely from development). All non-critical bugs are simply unfixed (or I should say 90%+ remains unfixed). I think WE (as community) should bring that topic and demand NetMake to do something about this. I’m becoming extremely dissatisfied with the number of bugs and the fact that most of them remain unfixed for years. 2-3 months ago I posted a list of bugs collected in ONE single post and asked if NetMake can confirm which of those have been taken care of. After few month still not reply, no confirmation, total ignorance. I really want to love this product but there is definitely something wrong going on with the company management and perhaps we should post here some global opinions and keep sending links to this post to the NetMake managers. I personally became so discouraged by the bugs in SC that I would definitely NOT RECOMMEND any of my friends to purchase software (despite its features) because dealing with bugs and issues takes more time than it could be saved by (so called) RAD tool such as SC. At this point(as one user stated in this forum) we saving time on initial code generation, then we loosing humongous amount of time dealing with issues.

Please share your opinions. Email this link to NetMake.

Art

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#2

As much as I like SC, I wish they would fix this forum:

Have a New message button to see only new messages (Portuguese forum has this).
Stop messages having empty subjects.
Assign a NetMake staff member to visit the forums every day. It is most disheartening to make a suggestion or report a bug, and then nothing…
I would like to know that NetMake likes us as customers!

#3

Here is another link to BUGS issues showing complete ignorance from NetMake. I wonder how many people are upset abut bugs management ?

#4

Authur (AKA), Over the years, working with Netmake/SC (I started using SC Jan 2013) and reading your posts and several others… I SHARE the nearly the exact same sentiments as you. However, I have come to the conclusion the OWNERS of Netmake DO NOT GIVE A $H1T about their customer base. IMHO I believe the ownership, quite possible, has NO knowledge of how P!S$ many of US end users are about the way issues with the bugs and some of the archaic functionality of their product is handled.

I have tried all options at my disposal to “find” some way of communicating with the OWNERSHIP. Unfortunately, in many cases, forums, such as this, are left to the masses… When one reads cryptic answers from the SC responders i.e. “issue has been forward to the bug team”. Who is this bug team???

After all the time, effort and money I’ve spent related to the “issues” of the SC product… I am seriously looking for other RAD options… FWIW I have found some that are looking like great options.

BTW… I use an Intel development product (and use the intel forum regularly) and the Intel people as well as the other forum users are GREAT!! This forum (scriptcase.net/forum) would do well to LEARN for how a REAL forum is designed work.

Now that I have that rant off of my chest… I need to get my blood pressure back down and get some work done.

Good Luck!

#5

I do share Arhtur’s concerns about how bugs are managed by Netmake.
Despite I am a paying support user I always experience several difficulties in having bugs recognized as such by SC support and then eventually fixed.
Most of the time I must give up and bypass a bug with workarounds I must find myself.
The typical answer I get from SC support is to “reinstall SC”, even if the bug is there, crystal clear, easily reproducible even on their trial demo web site.
I cannot comment if Netmake’s ownership either cares or not about their customers but facts here speak for themselves.
We all know that bugs are present in all software and SC is obviously no exception; as a user I don’t expect SC to be bug-free but I do expect SC taking care of my bugs submission and fixing them, or at least tell me when they do expect to fix them; even an answer like “your bug is not a priority and we don’t have even a schedule for fixing it” is at least an answer and it’s better than nothing.
IMHO, if SC does not change the way they manage bugs and the way they communicate about bugs they will eventually loose their customers, as soon as some other company comes out with an alternative tool.
SC is a very good product but support and bug fixing are probably the worst I’ve seen in my 25 years IT experience.
Hope this message reaches someone able to take decisions in order to change the current situation.

#6

I totally agree AKA !!
I Have to say that in 30 years of programming, now since 1984 because I programmed with Basic and then Clipper and then C etc etc.
I’ve never seen so 'many problems.
I’m sorry, but after an initial enthusiasm, I have had to abandon SC, continue to pay the license hoping that mayb e one day release a version worthy of the product.
I have had many problems, I also lost my clients for SC issues.
The most 'big problem is that when SC releases a new version, some functionality that previously work well, after the update other app create other problems.
I can not waste my time, every time tha SC releases a new update i can not retry all my projects !!!
I think the changes and updates are tested very superficially by SC !!
The mobile version and unwatchable !
I’m ready to go back to using SC and even to purchase additional licenses !!!
But only after a long period of trial !!
I would be even willing to help financially SC to issue a truly efficient and functional version.
But must offer real deadlines !!
Greetings to all.

#7

I had requested a SC solution to solve this problem,

http://www.scriptcase.net/forum/foru…lank-to-a-grid

even paying !!
No response from Netmake !!
Netmake probably do not need money !!

#8

The point and idea behind this post is to have enough replies to see that this becomes a serious issue and needs to be addressed at the CEO level. Hopefully if we have enough posts here we can bring the company managers and CEO to see it and react. If you know other forum members who share this same point of view have them share their opinion here. TNX

#9

I would add: I understand that working with browser is not simple.
Many of the bugs found by me can be easy to solve, do not understand why Netmake not solve problems sometimes even stupid.
If Netmake solve many problems, SC would be a successful product, but not handled in this way !!
I agree to AKA, SC should improve development time and that’s fine, but then I do not go crazy trying to resolve many problems sometimes very very stupid.
Customers today are very demanding, I happened twice last year 'that after the updates, two of my customers could not issue bills !!
Clearly my customers are angry with me, this for me was a great damage to the image and then my customers do not pay my bills.

#10

This is an issue that is as old as I’m working with scriptcase. A great product, dramatic support and a waste of potential. I have similar experiences as you multisystems2. I don’t want to repeat all I said about support over the years, but after a time of improvements, it’s going down again. Even I don’t get answers any more…

#11

I think the SC managers have only one concern: to build as many features as possible into SC, regardless of the bugs or poor design or limited functionalities of those features.
If, in product comparison tables, SC is listed as having more features than the competitors, it will sell more, right?..

#12

I agree with most of what was said here.

Edit: looks like the issue is now fixed (changelog for ScriptCase v8.1.053)

#13

I find myself having to defend scriptcase here, it is not a bad piece of software, furthermore it has bugs like anything else does, in every case I have managed to over come the so called bugs, its not ideal to have no input or much response from Scriptcase, but has anyone considered maybe just maybe they are fed up with trying to help people complete there project?, It is way ahead of anything thing else out there. most of the time user error is to blame with lack of understanding. it does what it says on the box, a bit querky yes, but i would challenge anyone that says another software does it better. It is a tool to help you on your way, It works, it works very very well indeed. for the price they charge for a licence its not much really for what it does, and the time it saves.

#14

@scottypaul, I agree otherwise I wouldn’t be here on the forum. But what Mamede tells you - and I can confirm that - is that Scriptcase is not paying enough attention to serious security leaks. That’s beyond a simple bug. Here in the European union we have laws now that oblige us to report security leaks to the authorities and severe fines can be applied when you cannot prove that you have done anything in your power to fix, prevent etc. The checkboxes that prevent applications to be run stand-alone is one out of our corners. Since the new law, our university has specialized employees who are dedicated in hacking webapplications. They find a lot of issues in our scriptcase applications. Partly because we might have done things wrong, but partly because of the nature and design of scriptcase. Since there is no feedback of bugstatus and certain parts are encrypted you are not always able to work-around. And if you have a work-around you have to apply that to all your scriptcase applications and we have - with a 10 user licence - quite a lot. So yes, as long as you’re talking bugs and work-arounds I agree with you. But on security issues I simply don’t. And there a lot to share regarding fixes and behaviour, only I don’t want to publish it all here in the open.
The discussion is not about the potential of scriptcase and the improvement of development speed. It is all down the drain if you cannot publish it because of security issues. Scriptcase has a bad reputation on new versions. If 9 comes out, it will be loaded of problems and errors. Why? Because there’s no such thing as a beta team. They “test” it then leave it to the market to find the bugs for them. Therefore professional devs like we are cannot be an early adopter, as we have customers we care about. So if security issues are fixed in 9 we’ll have to wait for months to get these things fixed. In other words, customer care and quality control are the main issues at scriptcase. It has been and it still is and I’m affraid it will not change.

#15

@aducom I was aware of some security issues which i resolved outside of Scriptcase, I use my own now as a base code then use script case for all the forms etc, I abandoned scripcase security a long time ago.

#16

I’m not talking about the security module of scriptcase but real vulnerabilities. They exists in links, uploads, forms, grids etc. and it means that you can retrieve data that is not yours, that you can delete files on the server causing mishaps etc.The list is quite long.

#17

That certainly sounds scary and like something they should get fixed right away in the existing version 8.1.
If one is making public facing systems (i.e. not just systems used internally by a company’s employees), it is particularly urgent.

Albert, have you had no response at all from ScriptCase in regards to fixing these issues?

#18

Hi Frank
We have had severe issues in the beginning of this year and it took a long time to get then fixed. It was a struggle to convince them with the issues and after spending hours providing movies and screenshots (and even suggestions for fixing) they fixed the issues. It’s why there are extra options in the security section, and why the links are encrypted nowadays. Currently we have found more issues (and Mamede did) and reported them to Scriptcase, again with movies etc. But never to be heard about it again. I finally tried by chatting and Laticia is willing to pass things through. But status? No idea. In the reaction of Marcia I get the picture that SC is working hard to get version 9 ready for deployment. Carlos has left the company. And I get very poor response. Yes, that concerns me. They say that they have to install our version to be able to find and fix issues, but I’m pretty convinced that the issues are in the latest 8 edition and version 9 as well.
I have not send our latest issues to SC and will not until we are on a good speaking term again. What’s the use of spending hours and hours while apparently it’s all down the drain. We now rewrite and append code to fix the reported issues of our security team. But that’s a lot of work. If SC would be responsive we could have waited for a structural fix and we just had to regenerate.

#19

With Carlos left I now understand why the service level is getting worse and worse.
I wonder why they don’t open sorce the code. They will get so many free volunteeers willing to improve the product whike still keeping control of the code base.
It would be like having hundred of professional developers working for you for free just for the sake of making SC better and better.

#20

Hi Albert,

Thanks for the update.

Yeah, it is a waste of time, when there is no proper response on their part.