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Proposal: Software Recommendations

Maybe it would be good to have a alpha/beta mark for answers, to show in a standardized way that the software is very good / has lots of promise, but is still either only officially (like wine) or visibly alpha/beta, and could have bugs.

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  • 1
    Even people don't agree with this proposal, downvote should be used for other purpose I think
    – Revious
    Jan 21 '14 at 13:26
6

I am against having a beta flag.

Answers should stay valid for a longer time and such things can change fast. Many programs are labeled beta, but behave perfectly stable (many Google applications for a long time). Others are considered stable but still buggy (a lot of proprietary software shortly after release). There are also programs that worked fine once, but fail in some of their functions now, because they rely on interfaces that have changed (like python libraries or deprecated linux kernel modules).

Possible problems should be pointed out in the text. That way everybody can check if they are likely to affect them. This is much more detailed than a generic flag.

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  • Very true - and symptomatic of the wider problem of updating software. A 'Version 3.0' tag for example wouldn't be a lot of use. The main use as I see it is in questions like "Could I reliably use the Product X Beta without it trashing my data?"
    – Chenmunka
    Jan 20 '14 at 12:51
  • OK, you're probably right . . .
    – MadTux
    Jan 20 '14 at 14:08
-1

Not a bad idea. However, this could be done through the existing tagging system. Just have a beta tag to be added to the answer as appropriate.

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    Can answers have their own independent tags?
    – MadTux
    Jan 19 '14 at 11:12

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