[Elecraft] K3 - Standing up for the Firmware.

[Bill W5WVO]

Don Rasmussen wrote:

> * From a programmers perspective, legitimate
> complaints about any firmware are amplified when the
> coders are working in a common area. Quite often the
> left hand does not know what the right hand is doing,
> quite often there are unintended consequences. With K3
> you have Wayne and Lyle - each one 100% in control of
> their own area. Each one will get it right, and
> understands each issue backward and forward because it
> belongs only to themselves.

Yeah, can you imagine what you would have if Microsoft were doing the firmware 
for the K3? Every new feature subroutine authorized from the initial Alpha 
test reports would be assigned to some individual entry-level coder, then the 
next level up would (try to) integrate the new routines without breaking 
stuff, then the Build team would (try to) build an executable every day and it 
would go to the test lab (if it actually compiled and linked)... And 
eventually, maybe most of the features that have been implemented in the K3 
firmware over the past several months would get into the official release some 
time in 2009. Then the field debugging would start. Six months after that, 
Service Pack 1. Six months later, Service Pack 2. Now it's 2010, and you might 
have a working firmware set that contains most of the features originally 
asked for in 2007. You MIGHT.

This is the norm in the "real world". Some of you guys, I swear, are living in 
Never-Never Land with your expectations!

Bill W5WVO