Doktor Avalanche

John T
They have been. He thinks the approach to updates should be different, and involve periods of feature lock and bug-fixing only. Cakewalk don't seem to agree. That's it. The rest is tedious repetition.

Er nope once again I said it should be 'tweaked', no issue with monthly updates.

Actually Cake has been doing this when major bugs have been found, and the latest update has a lot of bug fixes as well (fixes some old bugs anyway). We shall see how this plays out... I'm suggesting they should be pubically and regularly scheduled,and there is too much of a backlog.
 
 post edited by Doktor Avalanche - November 23, 15 3:06 PM

Freudian negligee?
 
edited to add DA's edit

I read through this well intended thread and will offer that I LIKE the new model. Took me a bit to trust but it wasn't long until I realized I was getting way more bang for my dollar than the previous yearly models. IMO, Sonar is leaving the pack with new tools and workflows for quickly getting to great sounding results! Which is why I like it.
 
As far as bugs go - they are a small part of any software and are being dealt with at satisfactory pace IMO. Never had a bug stop me from recording and mixing. I have a hard time understanding the never satisfied expectations of a few users. By all means report findings, but don't turn it into a bug religion. Way too many whiny words for me to read about something that is not broke. 
 
 

I think maybe I'm missing something here and I'm not getting the counter arguments people are making. It's late here so maybe I'm too tired to understand?
 
In the old model we get an update a few times a year. We're never sure when it'll be. It usually has fixes and some new features. There's a big possibility there's new bugs introduced, as there is in all software. That gets fixed either with a hotfix if it's serious enough, or we waited until the next patch, whenever (if at all) that would be. Sometimes the product cycle would end before anything was fixed.
 
In the new model we get a new version every month, with bug fixes, new features and - yes - the possibility of new bugs. Taking that on face value, sure - that's 4 times the amount of chances of bugs being introduced.
 
However - and this is the bit I'm not getting - you don't need to update every month. If you want, you can do it 3 or 4 times a year, sitting back to see how people are travelling with their updates, and how the new features and potential new bugs are affecting them. The difference between this and the old model is that rather than everything happening behind the scenes and we get everything dumped on us at once in a quarterly update for better or worse, we get to see the incremental monthly updates and pick and choose what we install, if we want to stick to the same rough update timeline.
 
I've had a very positive experience with this so far, as I said in an earlier post, and any show-stopper bugs meant I either rolled back to the previous version (which was painless) and I waited for a month because I knew when the next update was due, or there was a quick patch posted within days which solved the problem.
 
How are we blowing that up into something negative and arguing about semantics? No disrespect to anyone with a different point of view, or people who have had a bad time with the current model, but yeah - I just don't get it...

Lord Tim
 
I've had a very positive experience with this so far, as I said in an earlier post, and any show-stopper bugs meant I either rolled back to the previous version (which was painless) and I waited for a month because I knew when the next update was due, or there was a quick patch posted within days which solved the problem.
 
How are we blowing that up into something negative and arguing about semantics? No disrespect to anyone with a different point of view, or people who have had a bad time with the current model, but yeah - I just don't get it...

+1 for my 2 cents worth.

Doktor Avalanche

John T
They have been. He thinks the approach to updates should be different, and involve periods of feature lock and bug-fixing only. Cakewalk don't seem to agree. That's it. The rest is tedious repetition.

Er nope once again I said it should be 'tweaked', no issue with monthly updates.

Actually Cake has been doing this when major bugs have been found, and the latest update has a lot of bug fixes as well (fixes some old bugs anyway). We shall see how this plays out... I'm suggesting stability releases with feature freeze should be pubically and regularly scheduled,and there is too much of a backlog.

Cake really hasn't tackled this specific point at all head on.

What action would constitute Cake tackling your point head on? I mean, the CTO has stated his opinion here and in numerous other threads in which you've made this case, so what would it take?
 
Edit: You disagreed with John T's summary of your position by stating almost exactly what he said as far as I can tell.

Just read my first post on this thread. So far people have been taking little bits out of it, paraphrasing and making comments that really were not out of my mouth. You would think I'm disagreeing with absolutely everything at this stage...@Lord Tim I notice your comment about not updating frequently (something I agree with) and roll back, I take a slightly different angle here, again tackled on my first post. I've pasted it several times already I will spare people this time. Thx.

Doktor Avalanche
 I will spare people this time.

Awesome news.

I like the new subscription model.
 
It provides a more steady/reliable stream of revenue.  
It allows Cakewalk to be a more sprite/dynamic/responsive company.
Monthly updates have brought significant new features.
 
With more updates... the possibility for new bugs does increase.
FWIW, I've not encountered anything that was a major show-stopper.
As with anything business related, tasks have to be defined/prioritized/executed within the means of the company.
It's a complicated multi-faceted situation.
Without inside information, it may be hard to understand the "triage" or prioritization.  
This is especially true if you're having a particular issue... or want to see a particular feature implemented.
 
The Internet has *never* been good with expressing the finer nuances of communication.
I think it's human nature to extrapolate or try to read-between-the-lines.  
This opens the door to misunderstanding.
Just like the old "telephone" game, the original message/intent can get mangled.
 
I'm not privy to all the details at Cakewalk...
But I do know that there are some great minds/individuals behind Sonar.
I've spoken with Noel numerous times.  He's bright... and absolutely committed to making Sonar the best it can be.
I've learned/absorbed technical things from Craig Anderton for the past ~30 years.
 
Software is a musical tool...
If that tool is a major source of frustration, it's probably not the right fit.
Think about it like an instrument.
ie: I absolutely love the sound of Ric 4003 basses, but I just can't get along with the ergonomics.
I've owned two of them.  Ultimately sold them both...
Other folks love playing the 4003 (witness the numerous avatars on this forum).
 
 
 
 

@ Doktor - OK, you're basically saying in your OP that we're being forced into being beta testers because of the release cycle, right?
 
So expanding on that, in the old model we had a release (say, for simplicity's sake) every 4 months. The software goes through various stages of internal testing and then goes out to the beta testers, and then ultimately to us end users, where we undoubtedly will find stuff that the testers have missed; everyone uses software in their own way, and there's no way to test every possible combination of usage + hardware + conflicting software. Anyone that's worked in development knows this song and dance.
 
In the new model, yes - the updates are more frequent, which could mean less time for beta testers to check stuff out, but then what? Let's say they had even double the amount of time to test as the old model. Great. They might catch more bugs, and then the software is released and once again we start the "oh but I cut tracks using a keyboard shortcut, but only when I have the console view open on my 3rd monitor using a Radeon video card with v28.07 drivers and it's crashing for me" dance. No amount of internal beta testing will pick up that kind of thing - it's got to go out to the userbase at large to expose a lot of these things.
 
More frequent updates = more chances for the userbase to help make the program better, which is ultimately something we all want, Bakers and users inclusive.
 
Sure - one could argue we're all beta testers. You could argue that about ANY software release, really. But getting back to the point of the thread, are we better off with the new model, as compared to the old one? Yeah, I honestly think we are when we look at the big picture.
 
Again, no disrespect intended and apologies if I've missed the point again. Too many hours editing vocal tracks tends to fry your brain a bit! HAHA!

Like some people, I had my doubts in the beginning, but by six months in, all those concerns went away.  Every month is like Christmas, and we're getting a ton more fixes/new features than under the old model.   What's not to like?