Steve Rowe wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 2:15 pm
The concept of PAW delivering the shared objects for Pafe is showing benefits at some of our customers.
The updates to the set editor and cube viewer are made to the PAW server, so with a single central update it is possible to get new / revised functionality to the client installs.
Where there is a "big IT" production made of updating any user side applications, with release packages, test cycles and client installs in their 100's, this delivers a clear benefit.
That is indeed a very good point... but
if, and
only if, one accepts that it is either desirable or appropriate to design client software on the same basis as a piece of improv theatre and just make s**t up as you go along while hoping that it doesn't blow up.
In a notification sent out today, IBM stated:
IBM wrote:Planning Analytics Workspace, Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel and Planning Analytics Spreadsheet Services Release updates are released independently on a short cadence (SC) cycle of typically once per month. IBM Planning Analytics updates are released on a long cadence (LC) cycle, typically once per 3 months.
OK, disgusting, but OK, this isn't new. But we also have this:
IBM wrote:As of the 2.0.55 SC release of IBM Planning Analytics, new versions of TM1 Web will be released on a more frequent schedule. New versions will be available approximately once a month, similar to the release schedules of IBM Planning Analytics Workspace and IBM Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel.
TM1 Web is no longer included in the 2.0.x LC releases of Planning Analytics.
Call me old fashioned but I've always taken it as an article of faith that this is what software development should look like:
(a) You have an idea;
(b) You make a plan to develop all of the features that you want to incorporate;
(c) You write the code according to the plan;
(d) You test the code;
(e) You go through alpha and beta testing;
(f) You release the software;
(g) You fix the inevitable bugs in point releases;
(h) You listen to user feedback and incorporate new features in major releases.
In this way the user knows what to expect from the software at any given time.
We are not working on cutting edge particle physics at CERN here. When you strip away all of the mystical bulldust of BI ("Cloud!" "AI!", "X Analytics!" "Decision Intelligence!", "Predictive analytics!", better still "Prescriptive Analytics!"), PAFE, PAW and TM1 Web are nothing more than software that queries and/or updates a database, and there are only so many ways you can do that.
Once you pick one, there are only so many ways of writing the software and UI needed to do it.
And if you do it well, it's
done, with only occasional tweaking required.
Which raises the question of WHY THE
**** DO THEY EVEN
NEED TO BE DOING MONTHLY RELEASES, which then need the "advantage" of having UI components picked up from a central deployment?
Are there so many bugs that it requires monthly updates?
Don't answer that.
Did IBM have a complete failure of imagination on step (b), and every couple of weeks someone says "OH wait, I know! Let's create a New! User! Experience!" (And to hell with all of the clients who aren't techies, and just want to get their work done, without needing to re-learn the UI for these "improvements".)
Did they have a complete failure on step (e)?
Again, don't answer that.
As much of a dinosaur as Perspectives is, how often did we need updates to it? (Other than the ones that we never got, but that's a different discussion.) This new and exciting ability to update UI components every month requires you to take it on faith that IBM haven't fracked something up in the latest "short cadence" update because, let's be brutally honest, such things are rarely seen until they go into mass usage which is why most companies don't (and shouldn't) go updating software every fracking month. It's a productivity tool, not a Wordpress site.
If a company builds the thing well in the first place, they don't NEED to be doing never ending release packages for IT to deploy.
Oh, and let's not forget... PAFE itself is included in this "short cadence" meaning that there is STILL a need to deploy new software on the client side, making the incorporation of UI components into PAW... not so much of an advantage.
