I think dreamregent shared a perfectly reasonable point of view on the forum. People clearly don’t see eye-to-eye with that POV, but things do seem to be getting unnecessarily personal and catty towards the OP (IMO). Where would we be if we only ever agreed with each other? Dissent and difference are good: even if they only open up our minds to other possibilities. Can’t we all be friends?
With respect, that’s their choice: they chose to buy Windows PCs in the first place. Whenever visitors see the Macs we have here on the farm, or when I sit in a cafe with my MB, MBP, or iPad, I nearly nearly always get Windows-owning people lust over some feature that Apple offers and that MS doesn’t. In my experience, Windows users are used to feeling that they have to do without. It’s not just a Scrivener issue. (We used to own Dells and run Windows. No one ever lusted after the Dells or Windows.)
Thank you. That blog post actually illustrates my point perfectly. It strongly implies they are not using anything like Visual Paradigm or UML diagrams. You quoted a passage from a paragraph about half-way down. Right below that paragraph is a photo of his design document with the pages splayed out.
Such a document in a thorough, written-out form like that is indeed important to the process. It probably includes all the various use cases planned for the project (that’s what you typically write out like this and sounds like what he’s describing by the phrase “covers how the code will work”). However, that’s only the beginning of a process utilizing best practices and a document like this is probably not what you want to be handing directly to the people writing the code, as the text implies. In a perfect world, coders may never need to see that. They would only be looking at diagrams. The project director would take that written document and create use case diagrams from it. Then high-level diagrams would be created to illustrate the functionality. Then more in-depth diagrams would be created. Only certain portions of the diagrams would need to be duplicated for different systems. When you got to the meat and potatoes of working with objects, strings, arrays and other stuff like that, it wouldn’t make any difference which language one was using to write it. At that level, most of the same diagrams could be used for most any language. Ideally, you would not have totally separate development projects going, which is what it sounds like.
Clearly you can’t read! I said no such thing. What I did say was that it the team working on the Windows versions need both those things simultaneously. It is clear that they possess them.
I can’t read what you didn’t write before this post. I stated there were problems in their development process. You agreed that there were and used the development of the iOS version as another example.
Well, I understand that. However, is there any feature of Scrivener that’s impossible to duplicate on a Windows platform? In this comparison document, I see only one feature (grammar check) listed as an inherent part of OS X. However, even that feature can be implemented on a Windows platform via third-party. Most everything else appears to be missing due to a simple lack of implementation.
Even cursory research on the forums brings back multiple references to features that exist in their current format on the Mac that are provided by underlying OS-level objects, structures, and features – objects that don’t exist in Windows or in the QT framework that Scrivener for Windows uses. Seemingly simple things like how scrivenings in Windows (if I am remembering this correctly) being multiple instances of a text editor object, instead of a single text editor object in the OS X version.
Those differences add up, and they take time for a small company to research, diagnose, and figure out how to work to commonality – especially when you have separate people doing the Windows and Mac programming without any shared code.
There’s also the fact that we KNOW major revisions are coming in the Mac version, revisions that are including some of the lessons learned in the Windows side (compiler UI, IIRC) that are trying to help even the playing field from the design side so that both Mac and Windows are coding to the same goal. It would be profoundly unwise to waste resources on the Windows development to try to chase a Mac target that they KNOW is going to change.
Again, you have no insight into their resource allocation, their internal process, even how much time the developers have to work on this project. You’re making assumptions that are valid for a larger development house, but they probably don’t apply well to L&L. And by insisting that you “know better”, you don’t come off as knowing more than the rest of us – you just appear as more arrogant.
Maybe you could take a step back, take a breath, and share with us your development credentials? What major cross-platform projects have you worked on? What deliverables have you managed for at least one complete release cycle? If we know what your expertise us, that might help us see what you’re getting at.
Yeah, for instance apparently some of the features that are available on the Mac in scrivenings mode aren’t yet possible on Windows due to limitations with the version of the QT framework that WinScriv is built on. That’s due to be updated for 2.0.
I didn’t say there weren’t differences in how the underlying systems worked. I essentially just said there didn’t appear to be features of the hands-on functionality that were impossible to implement. Obviously, having to create multiple instances of anything in one system will work a little differently from creating a single instance in another system. However, that doesn’t mean the program feature on the user’s end can’t be made to work. The user doesn’t care how the code is written or which stratagem is utilized to support the feature. Granted, my experience is with enterprise systems in a large corporation (so, more resources & a bigger team) but that really has nothing to do with my suggestion that a more holistic and integrated approach would be beneficial to development. There’s also no way the creation of extensive diagrams of the systems would fail to yield dividends. They’re inexpensive to create and could only help because they give much clearer direction for coding whereas written use cases don’t necessarily do that.
Maybe. The majority of people on the forum are not developers. That’s like me saying I likely know more about Vic-k’s house than 99% of the people on the forum. Maybe true. How do we validate it? Especially since some folks may not want to disclose their associations with professions or … vic-k.
I think the part that really … offends … in your posts is the pungent oder of arrogance. You come off as the guy who caries his latest IQ test results in his pocket to prove to everyone that his opinion is of more value than anyone else’s opinion. All the while forgetting that opinions are like a$$holes, everyone has one … I’m sure a smart person like you knows the rest of the phrase.
The other thing that really doesn’t make sense is your instance that the only company that makes a software package that does what you need “MUST CHANGE TO DO IT MY WAY”. That is not a direct quote of course. Just the clear message you are beating everyone with until they agree with you. Thing is, we don’t care.
Why the heck do you care how L&L writes code or manages their development. It really isn’t germane to scrivener functionality. Sure, you and I can pontificate about how we would use our enterprise infrastructures to create assets, work groups and implementation teams. But then we aren’t the guys who came up with the idea. Are we?
If you really really really have a problem with the disparity in features, use something else. Go find the perfect development group and use their product. Problem solved. Oh wait. It doesn’t exist. Maybe developing this feature set is a bit harder than it appears at first blush? Hmmm…
But I diregress. I actually wanted to address something else. I figured “heck, I’ll call my MS contact and ask about OSX market.” He was a bit … taken aback. I don’t know anything about you but he really really wanted to call you a few names. MS apparently does not agree with your assessment of their interests.
Sounds like an apt description of yourself and a few others. I’m not sure I’ve met folks with their noses stuck any higher in the air. I merely offer a suggestion for a process improvement and people’s heads start exploding at the audacity of someone offering a critical word about their sacred cow.
Actually, I offered a suggestion to do it their own way more efficiently.
The exaggerations are unnecessary. Nothing I suggested would require enterprise infrastructure, nor would it require any great commitment in terms of cost. It might add a bit more time to the front end planning but it may very well shorten cumulative development times moving forward.
Is this just a straw man or did you not catch my use of the term relatively?
Sounds like your sales rep. I’m not sure why you’d expect him to say anything different. Although, I guess you’re next going to claim your “contact” is Bill Gates. However, the fact of the matter is that MS has nearly limitless resources. If they wanted absolute parity, there would be absolute parity outside of a couple of issues due to the OS. There’s not a huge number of differences but few of the ones that exist are due to an inherent inability to support the features. They aren’t there because Microsoft didn’t care to achieve absolute parity.
But last year when I was in Dublin for a while — altogether other story, that — one evening I ordered Irish coffee at the same place I’d had one the night before, and this one, this night, was a bit different, not quite as sharp, but very good. I asked the barman if he’d used different coffee, or what. He said he remembered I’d been in the night before, and thought I might like to try Tyrconnell instead of Jameson, and he’d make me a new one if I didn’t like it. Anyway, I did like it. Then a month or two back, I came across a passage in a Dennis Lehane novel where the manager of an Irish pub in South Boston impresses a Russian mob boss by serving him Tyrconnell. So I bought a bottle, which now sits in the cupboard, waiting for its turn on the counter. I’ll let you know. But off that one coffee back in November, I’d have to say it may turn out to be very good.
Yes. It does. At least 10 years ago it would have been dead on. Then I grew up.
Listen. Try to understand a message that I had hoped would be clear.
No one is saying “you are an idiot and you are wrong”. What they are all saying is “what L&L does isn’t really broken so please leave it alone”. Believe it or not many people are frustrated with the lack of feature parity. They voice their frustration but don’t turn around and insult everyone that suggests “be a little patient” (and for the record, I do not think everyone said that nicely).
My posts were intended to get you to consider that your approach, not necessarily the message, was wrong. I apologize for failing to help you see the way your posts were received. Communications are tough in the impersonal realm of internet forums. We all should consider this thread a study in communication failure states.
I would suggest that you consider one thing I said. Lose the arrogance. If you really are as smart as you think you are, you will not lack the respect and accolades of everyone around you. If you don’t you may find yourself in a very lonely place. I could be wrong, but … I already admitted that I know the symptoms as a member of the team I described. That place is very very lonely.
I don’t know who you are. And the anonymity of the forum means that we will likely never know anything about each other beyond this exchange. I hope that your approach to situations such as this one use a bit more tact in person. Even more, I hope that my interactions with you are not indicative of your normal approach. I wish you the best.
Young master Jaysen,
A much esteemed English intellectual giant, of my acquaintance, proffered: “Confront not the arrogant, with this shortcoming, for 'tis naught to them, but a buffing of their ego, with beeswax and a soft cloth.
That was one hell of a barman PJS. As far as I know Tyrconnell is quite a few shekels more expensive than Jameson. Not usually put into Irish coffees. Hope you gave him a nice tip!
[size=150]No. What do you know, that I don’t, but should? 
[/size] 
