Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

If it slows down the site and your own site suggests to turn it off and it's a standard recommendation on the forum to tell everyone to turn it off and not use it I think that's a sign that something is broken and not simply an improvement. And it's been like this for a very long time.

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

There is nothing to argue about that Bestsellers+AdvancedStatistic combination should be revised and as Ksenia has already mentioned it will be done in next X-Cart releases.

However, in terms of bugs and improvements this is an improvement. Bug is the programmer's fault. It is a situation where the programmer intended to implement a certain behavior, but the code fails to correctly conform to this behavior because of mistakes in coding. In case of Advanced Statistics it all works as it was intended to work. No more, no less.

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

This is where we will disagree (and your company will continue to suffer a lousy reputation if you seriously believe this) -- blaming a programmer for bad program behavior is only part of the story...

Poor design and user interface choices by program designers are also "bugs". EVEN IF the programmer coded exactly as the designer specified, but the outcome is poorly functional or downright bad, if it doesn't work as the customer is expecting it to, it's a bug.

You can call it whatever you want, but blaming programmers for bugs and not giving program designers the responsibility to design a better specification is, well, lazy/sloppy - and should not be tolerated by professional software teams.

I am NOT being argumentative. Please re-read your post and discuss it with Max. You will want to erase it before Google picks it up. It's not the way X-Cart should be representing itself in public.

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

I see your point of view. However, I'd appreciate if we all kept our temper when you talk about a company you're dealing with. I don't think "lousy" is an appropriate word when you speak of X-Cart. Thank you in advance.

Secondly, it's it seems that you see only what you want to see in my reply. As I've mentioned the functionality will be revised and we all agree that it should be revised. Nothing to add actually.

Finally, I'm speaking of facts.

Bug - definition above.

The term we are talking about is an "issue" - the situation where the software is not doing something that the customer or user wants it to do, and so as a result the requirements of the design need to be changed.

In any case, I respect your right to call it as you want. We appreciate all feedbacks and will definitely take them into consideration while working on next X-Cart releases.

Best regards.

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

Alexander, on the show floor of IRCE, when an SEM or usability expert or other people who help companies make $$$,$$$,$$$ asked about my cart platform, I usually had to justify and defend my choice to use X-Cart. X-Cart has a "lousy" reputation in the industry. It's not my opinion.
And I have no temper at all right now. I'm actually in a very good mood. :-)
The problem is that as long as you and your colleagues truly believe that defects in design are ok, and only programmer bugs in the code are real bugs, you will probably continue to suffer this reputation. I am trying to help your company by presenting a non-emotional, just the facts opinion -- and I hope you choose to embrace these concepts.

Design defects (or simply, bad choices by application designers), well coded, is still a bug. You can call it anything you want, but to end users, if it doesn't work, it's a bug.

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

There are way too many holes in this to let it go. I didn't call it a bug. I can't believe it really works as you intended it to and that you really meant it to slow down sites, fill up databases, and recommend it be disabled. That is not just an improvement. Sounds like time for a third category besides bugs and improvements. A feature that is poorly built and neglected for years is worse than a bug.

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

Every product manager should have this in 72pt type, next to their display. Smartest words I've seen on this, ever.

There is an old saying: "the steps to making a successful software product"

1. make the t-shirts
2. ship the product
3. figure out what the product specs need to be
4. fix the bugs

unfortunately, X-cart sometimes stops before step #3 is completed.
but it's very close if some of these nasties can simply get sorted out WITHOUT adding new features. Reputations can come and go quickly. If Xcart fixes a small list of long-standing bugs, 4.6.1 can be the best release ever.

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

This is good advice, however it leaves you with a problem. After maybe several days/weeks work you now have a development system working and tested, with any mods you have applied or tailoring to the templates; BUT the database is now out of date as any changes (e.g. new products, new customers, new orders) are on the live database.

If you have gone from 4.4.5 to 4.6.0 using the route suggested how do you upgrade the live database and connect the new 4.6.0 store without going through the whole process again (including applying any mods or template changes) ? Repeating all the steps can introduce new errors (especially if you have any user mods).

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

I commented on this issue in this thread:

http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?p=359974
(post #3)
With links to my borderline obnoxious rant. It got obnoxious because nobody from xcart replied... (still waiting for replies about the Books & Magazines template "upgrades")

You are not the first to run full speed into this brick wall of a design defect.

ALL WE NEED is a script to sync or reconcile a live 4.5 database with an upgraded 4.6; 98% of the database will be "upgraded" - we just need to pull a day or a week or a month of customer and order data from 4.5.x to 4.6.x without going through the ENTIRE upgrade again. <sigh>

Re: X-Cart 4.6 released
 

If you have a live store on one hand ( which keeps generating new orders, customers, inventory changes) and upgraded store of a different version ( with new modules, changes to database, as well as, often, new data, such as products, images etc)on another hand, this 'synchronization tool' becomes a problem.

*which exactly type of data to move (customers? products? categories? orders?anything else?)
*how to define which data are new and require migration?
*what to do with different tables structure if the modifications/modules on dev copy affected the database?
*what to do with IDs if the same ones are present in two databases ( say , new product/user is created in live store and another new product/user with the same id - on dev copy) - overwrite, ignore? even if you personally do not add anything to dev copy, you should keep in mind that some people still tend to.

These are the problems I foresee at a first glance. If we ask upgrade team engineers, they will most probably give a dozen of other potential questions without clear answer.

Probably that's why even the upgrade engineer with more than 10 years experience often prefers this scenario:

#1 database is upgraded to target version on dev copy
#2 modifications and modules and design are applied. All the SQL changes are collected into a separate report.
#3 right before going live, the live store is being closed (and backup is saved), its database is taken as is and upgraded once again.
#4 SQL changes from #2 are applied to this database
#5 this fresh database with latest data is assigned to the upgraded software and the upgraded store replaces the old site.

Under no circumstances do I state that this is the only and best way. If we take each particular store separately, there may probably be much better solutions, and even this 'sync' script will work perfectly. But the more stores we need to cover ( and I guess you expect us to provide a solution which will work for most if not for all the users), the less is the possibility that such a synchronization will not result in new questions.

PS this is my personal opinion. Please do not consider it to be some kind of 'official comments'.

I hope Maxim will shed some light on this question later.