The most important (detrimental) factor responsible for increased time-to-market for new versions of software is time taken by testing activities. To solve the problem, many software developers use the method of releasing alpha and/or beta versions ahead of a stable release. While users are welcome to use these unstable versions, they are warned upfront that they are at the risk of facing unknown errors and will have to be prepared to bear the consequences. Fans of the product, developers of add-ons and accessories are often ready to accept the risk. Their acceptance and use of the alpha (or beta) version results in most errors being found out quickly, info about which is passed back to the developer. This enables the developer to fix known bugs and release the next stable version much faster than they would have been able to do otherwise. Opera uses the same strategy. Between one 'stable' release and the next, Opera uses Opera Developer and Opera Next (and in that sequence). New features are first introduced in Opera Developer and then, depending on user feedback, they are promoted to the next 'Next' version, which, after testing, is released as the next official 'stable' version. Opera Developer is targeted at developers, extension creators and early adopters. It provides these users with an early preview of the next version, introduces new features, allows them to try/test them out and most importantly, enables them to modify their products to be compatible with the next release in the time available. Being unstable and error-prone, Opera Developer is not intended regular using. You may install Opera Developer (and/or Opera Next) along-with Opera on your PC. These products are designed to co-exist without interfering, one with another and should you encounter difficulties either with Opera Developer or Opera Next, you can simply switch back to your last stable version of Opera (hereafter referred to as plain 'Opera') and resume as before. To differentiate between Opera, Opera Developer and Opera Next, Opera ASA uses differently colored icons. The popular red colored 'O' icon is for Opera,blue color for Opera Developer and silver for Opera Next. The reader may also note that within Opera Developer itself, newer versions are released frequently (usually a few times a week), based on progress made by the Opera Development Team.
The name Opera Developer may be misleading to some, since it seems to imply that it is endowed with special tools for developers. This however, is not true. All the three Opera products are equipped with the same developer tools viz. Web Inspector, View Page Source, Task Manager and Plug-ins (pl see screenshots 2-6). If you are a new developer who wants to get acquainted with software development for Opera, then you must use resources available at Dev.Opera (http://dev.opera.com) where, according to Opera, you will find 'Distilled knowledge for web developers'. Additionally, you can visit Opera Dragonfly (http://www.opera.com/dragonfly) & the Opera Blogs website http://www.operasoftware.com/blog. Opera Source Code is available at http://sourcecode.opera.com.
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