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beta: /bay´t@/, /be´t@/, /bee´t@/, n. 1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with
“in”: in beta. In the
Real World, hardware or software systems often go
through two stages of release testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta
(out-house?). Beta releases are generally made to a group of lucky (or
unlucky) trusted customers. 2. Anything that is new and experimental. “His girlfriend is
in beta” means that he is still testing for compatibility and
reserving judgment. 3. Flaky; dubious; suspect (since beta software is notoriously
buggy). Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a pre-release
(potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software by making it
available to selected (or self-selected) customers and users. This term
derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first
used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. Alpha Test was the unit, module, or component
test phase; Beta Test was initial
system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for
hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation
done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a
demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The
C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early
samples of the production design, and the D test was the C test repeated
after the model had been in production a while.
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