"Apple Mac users, something goes wrong they blame themselves. When something goes wrong on a Windows PC it's Microsoft's fault."
 
Quote came from another software company. Quite the truth. But....as Windows 10 as an evolving OS it will be Microsoft's fault.
 
 If you spend time on other DAW forums where it's cross platform as Mac OS is the replacement for M-Audio drivers. Everyone is looking for the guinea pig who says it's OK.
 
 

lingyai

jpetersen
Not sure how many clients I'd still have if I took that as a professional leitmotif.

Exactly. I code for a living -- complex financial models -- with results often used in public filings and / or as a basis for large investment decisions. As soon as I submit my work, recipients will pore over it , actively looking for errors, which, given the stakes, are not an option -- they could get me sued / fined. So I'm a lot less relaxed about stumping up money for something and accepting major bugs as a fact of life.      

But presumably your company has the money to pay for that degree of quality control, as well as personnel with the required expertise not to make mistakes. 
 
What I find more shocking is that a company like Apple with such huge resources continues to release buggy iPhone updates. The latest example of ransomware using a command and control center in the Tor anonymizer network to encrypt data and then demand a ransom from iPhone users is perhaps something Apple couldn't have prevented, but apparently they didn't anticipate it, either.
 
Then again, I presume the standards for disposable smartphone software are quite different from the standards for software on a 747...or a financial institution that lives or dies based on the accuracy of the software and the results it generates.
 
A factor that's often overlooked is how much are people really willing to pay for bug-free software? I'm not just talking about SONAR by any means. When you have a tiny, overcrowded market competing with free downloads from torrents, and users who by and large aren't CEOs of multibillion corporations and don't have a lot of disposable income, something's gotta give. I'm sure SONAR could be very close to bug-free if Platinum cost $15,000.
 
But there wouldn't be enough users willing to pay that, so the point is moot. People already complain that paying $99 - $150 for a years' worth of upgrades is too much. Unless you have a lot of users, that's not enough to keep the lights on and pay what good software engineers cost these days. Those same software engineers will happily take a whole lot more money from Citigroup or whatever.

Come to think of it...I don't know any software engineers at any company in this industry who are in it for the money, because the money just isn't there. They do it because they love working with music software. I think that's one reason I get impatient with people who complain a lot...we're all lucky we have any music software at all.

Anderton
Come to think of it...I don't know any software engineers at any company in this industry who are in it for the money, because the money just isn't there. They do it because they love working with music software. I think that's one reason I get impatient with people who complain a lot...we're all lucky we have any music software at all.

You can look at that the other way around :  the only reason we're using music software is because someone wrote it and put it up for sale.  If they hadn't, we'd all be playing our guitars.

I spent enough years playing guitars into analog tape. I'm glad that software exists 

Anderton
I spent enough years playing guitars into analog tape. I'm glad that software exists 

"I really miss my 4 track cassette recorder" said nobody ever. 

tenfoot

Anderton
I spent enough years playing guitars into analog tape. I'm glad that software exists 

"I really miss my 4 track cassette recorder" said nobody ever. 

I actually really do kind of miss the simpler days. In the 80's, as teenagers, my friends and bandmates and I used to pool our money from working on farms, rent an 8-track Tascam or Fostex machine for a week, cobble together a mixer and a few mics from the rehearsal room, and record whatever craziness we could come up with - more or less non-stop. Hardly eating or sleeping. We spent essentially no time at all deciding what reverb (we only had one) or compressor (I don't think we had one at all) to use. We were intensely, profusely creative. We experimented extravagantly with whatever we had - tape loops running down the hallway, changing tape speeds, broken speakers, stuffing the guitar amp and mic in a big cardboard box, whatever. We always had an album's worth of music in the bag at the end of the week. It probably sounded terrible, by any reasonable standards, but I still look back very fondly on the music we made, and yes, on the process. No staring for hours at computer screens, no auto-tuning, no micro-editing MIDI velocities. A lot more playing, and a lot more fun. 
 
With 10 million options for every decision, I am far less productive and creative now. Mind you, I also have to make a living and support a family, and the product I do put out has to meet higher standards than a cassette to give to all my friends, but still. I'm glad we did it that way, and we learned a hell of a lot along the way!

Well said Tobias -  great memories. 

Anderton
 The latest example of ransomware using a command and control center in the Tor anonymizer network to encrypt data and then demand a ransom from iPhone users is perhaps something Apple couldn't have prevented, but apparently they didn't anticipate it, either.

That has absolutely nothing to do with Apple, as clear explained in the article.
 

Kylotan
 
I said nothing about whining. I'm saying that people who benefit from consumers accepting a lower standard of quality from software than from their other products should be treated with scepticism when they tell us to do exactly that.
 
The 'useful software' you refer to includes a web framework that had security flaws in it bad enough that many servers got taken over and used as botnets by hackers. No wonder, perhaps, that he wants to make excuses for why it is that way.
 
EDIT: Oh, I see someone already spotted and posted about this. Good work.

Fair enough, and point taken.