RE: Re: New version of WDSC -- WDSCI-L

Thanks for the comments, Mark.

I think I'm talking about interfaces to applications, whether IDEs or graphics editors, like PaintShopPro, which just went through a (from my point of view) considerable change in the interface - rearrangement of menu items, etc., not just new function.

I think it's important to consider the size of the "audience", as well as the impact on that "audience", when considering a change in the interface to any process. When I make a suggestion to change (using our CD-ROM Studio product) from using tape in the process of generating CD images, to using SAVFs - a different methodology with maybe 1 additional step for the eventual end user - I do it knowing full well that this may not fly. The reason is, don't make the customer's (the customer of the developer using our product) experience too different from what they've come to expect.

And we don't quickly change the look/feel of our products.

I may be a Luddite - getting me into some of the newer things has been like pulling teeth, sometimes, albeit usually because it has been more than a little inconvenient, whether because of installation quandaries, broken sample programs, new methodologies, whatever.

I regret to say that where Windows apps are concerned, I've had more trouble installing an IBM app than those of almost any other company I know. iSeries Express is one of the most trouble-free, but VA for Java was a nightmare.

Anyway, that's another topic. Your comments are helpful.

On the matter of quicker fixes, I'm not sure where I stand. I see your point, yet I believe that having to respond to a new bug generated by a fix is not what we want to do - nor do we (or anyone) want to introduce that kind of disruption. I guess I sit somewhere between the Linux model, where a dedicated team responds quite rapidly to bug reports, vs. the IBM model that usually has an extensive design/review process that takes a while longer yet is usually pretty rock-solid.

Vern

At 10:33 AM 8/7/2003 -0400, you wrote:

Vern,

I am not completely sure I agree with you, but that could just be because
you didn't go into any specifics.

-snip-

I think what you are really talking about are the applications themselves.
 I do not see the changes as a problem, but a necessary evolution as the
tools try to refine themselves and provide better capabilities.  If these
tools were all drop-dead great to begin with I would agree with you, but
right now I want them to evolve and get better and I am personally willing
to bear the brunt of that if I can get a better end result.

-snip-

I am really grasping at straws here, because I am not entirely sure what
you were trying to say, so let me just conclude by addressing the one
comment of mine that you quoted.  What I was saying, was suppose that IBM
tried to deliver us a fix for the Outline view crash.  I am saying that I
would rather have seen them try to deliver a fix, and in the process
create a new problem, as opposed to making us wait 8 months under the
"veil" of QA.  The same QA that didn't catch the problem to begin with I
might add.

Mark