Beta on beta

There are a few that abhor the term beta being attached to anything. To them it seems that you released a less than perfect product, that it will be full of errors, that it will make your life miserable when you most expect it. However, I found this article that looks at beta at a different angle and recognizes the creative process. (It also make a connection to Jar Jar Binks.) The articel in turn refers to another article that calls beta a 4 letter word. So we go weaving a trail- let's call it the beta-trail.


For the neophytes, beta is a the Greek word for the second letter of their alphabet. (We get the word alphabet from the conglomeration of it with alpha.) Beta has been used by the tech world to denote a software or hardware release that is operational but may have some problems that the developers have not found. It is released into a market so interested folks can toy with it, break it, hack it, and generally attempt to screw it up. And the developers are happy to do this. The feedback helps to develop a better product.


You can apply to this to the creative process. Let's assume Jar Jar Binks was a character George Lucas wanted to put into beta release. He releases The Phantom Menance and gets a horrible response. So what does he do? He scales back the character and puts him into the peripheral in Attack of the Clones. Fans are still annoyed. Then in Revenge of the Sith, Jar Jar makes merely a cameo.


So a book could be written entitled, Life in Beta, because the only constant is change and the only way out is abandonment. However, I believe the sequel to the Alpha course is Beta too.