Useful terms being used while releasing your product
Essential Terms for Understanding the Pre-release Phase of a Software Product.
Let me start by wishing a very happy new year to every one of you. I hope you enjoyed spending the new year with your loved ones and friends. Have you set any future goals? If not, try writing or reading a story. If you haven’t added one yet, try doing so. So let’s get started with this year’s first blog, which will concentrate on a few terms that are used by several teams to carry out certain tasks before the release of a software product.
We’ll go over a few phrases that developers use as they prepare for a production, QA, or sandbox release. Those are crucial since they are connected to certain behaviors. I shall try to capture what I have encountered so far… 🧐. In order for us to compile them into a single document and make it very helpful for anyone who is unfamiliar with those phrases, if you are using anything else or anything more, kindly leave a comment. So let’s start 🚀
Alpha/Beta or pre-beta release: Typically an early version of your program that is made available to the QA team or some pilot users. Effective user analysis and feedback from Alpha can be added to the team’s backlog. Additionally, there are instances when the users involved in testing are not the same. For example, beta or pre-beta testing may have a greater number of testers than alpha testing.
Code Cut: It could be a snapshot of the product that can be used for release or for other purposes like QA or beta builds, etc. (Usually, a unique number or timestamp is added to the product name to test or validate; this is called snapshot.)
Branch Cut: Making a release-ready separate branch
Feature Freeze: The branch that is being trimmed and prepared for release will not receive any more features. Concentrate only on bug fixes and code stabilization.
Code Freeze: After this, only exceptions (based on team approvals) are permitted in terms of code modifications.
Patch : Minor fixes or updates to product
Hotfix: Urgent fixes or significant defect fixes; deploy or release asap.
Rollback: Return to the prior version in case of any problems.
Deployment: Release to customer
Sanity testing: Testing aimed at quickly evaluating whether the basic functionality of a new software build is working as expected, particularly after a minor change or fix.
Regression testing: Testing that ensures that previously developed and tested software still performs as expected after changes are made.
Sun-set/Decommission: Typically refers to the intentional phasing out or retiring of a software feature, technology, service, or product. It’s the planned process of discontinuing something.
These are phrases that developers typically see on a regular basis, but non-technical individuals such as product owners and analysts may not be familiar with them at first (if they are not from a tech background), so this could be useful to them. Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know if I missed something that we shouldn’t have left. I have come across thus far that I recall 😐.
That’s it. I appreciate you taking the time to read this post, and I thank you. Comment or clap if you find it helpful. And I see you in the next one 🙌
