Scott, I 'm inclined to agree with Brock. I've only been a Mac user for a little over two years now. But the one thing that has always been a constant for me was that no matter how a Mac application LOOKED, it was stable and worked to the best of its abilities and cause no mayhem to the overall OS.
Now, I'm not saying that Disco causes mayhem or anything of the nature, but it is clear that it isn't a stable application and it isn't very UI friendly. Praises to the developers for wanting to try something different DESIGN wise, but first the basics need to be nailed. Once that has been done, THEN you can concentrate on giving users something different in the way of look and feel.
Take TextMate for example. Currently it is the app "du jour". A lot of that is because of all of the extra things that one can do with the app beyond its abilities as a text editor. But before Allen started indtroducing all of the great additions to his application, he first made sure that he nailed the basics, that being a text editor. Allen knows that even with all of these great additions, if his app was a horrible text editor no one would be interested in it much less pay for it. These are the things that we as developers (well, I'm a beginning developer) must remember if we want to bring more users to the Macintosh platform and continue the legacy that men like Woz began nearly thirty years ago.
I don't think that some of the criticism would not have come down so hard or swift if not for the fact the developers asked users to pay for the application without even offering a demo period to test the application. This, in my opinion, is a bad street to drive down. Now the argument can be made that even mighty Apple does this. But the truth of the matter is that the majority of Apple's applications go through a very heavy private beta period before they get released to the public. The Pro apps such as Aperture often fit into this group. The ones that do not often started their existence as free applications and then shifted to a pay-for model. All of the iLife apps with the exception of iTunes fits into this group. Clearly, despite what we think, the developers at Apple are trying to make sure that they can stomp out as many of the bugs and deficiencies in the applications before releasing them. Even the developers of Midnight Inbox took their application through an extensive beta period before shifting it into a pay-for model. This allowed them to gain postive feedback and suggestions as well as having a group of people that would help them find any bugs that they may have missed during development. I think that if Disco's developers would have taken a similar stance, we would be using a much better application.
At the end of the day as much as we love the eye candy that OS X provides, a stable and useable application will always be more appreciated.
by Frank 'viperteq' Young — Nov 17
Now, I'm not saying that Disco causes mayhem or anything of the nature, but it is clear that it isn't a stable application and it isn't very UI friendly. Praises to the developers for wanting to try something different DESIGN wise, but first the basics need to be nailed. Once that has been done, THEN you can concentrate on giving users something different in the way of look and feel.
Take TextMate for example. Currently it is the app "du jour". A lot of that is because of all of the extra things that one can do with the app beyond its abilities as a text editor. But before Allen started indtroducing all of the great additions to his application, he first made sure that he nailed the basics, that being a text editor. Allen knows that even with all of these great additions, if his app was a horrible text editor no one would be interested in it much less pay for it. These are the things that we as developers (well, I'm a beginning developer) must remember if we want to bring more users to the Macintosh platform and continue the legacy that men like Woz began nearly thirty years ago.
I don't think that some of the criticism would not have come down so hard or swift if not for the fact the developers asked users to pay for the application without even offering a demo period to test the application. This, in my opinion, is a bad street to drive down. Now the argument can be made that even mighty Apple does this. But the truth of the matter is that the majority of Apple's applications go through a very heavy private beta period before they get released to the public. The Pro apps such as Aperture often fit into this group. The ones that do not often started their existence as free applications and then shifted to a pay-for model. All of the iLife apps with the exception of iTunes fits into this group. Clearly, despite what we think, the developers at Apple are trying to make sure that they can stomp out as many of the bugs and deficiencies in the applications before releasing them. Even the developers of Midnight Inbox took their application through an extensive beta period before shifting it into a pay-for model. This allowed them to gain postive feedback and suggestions as well as having a group of people that would help them find any bugs that they may have missed during development. I think that if Disco's developers would have taken a similar stance, we would be using a much better application.
At the end of the day as much as we love the eye candy that OS X provides, a stable and useable application will always be more appreciated.