MOTM

> I like to think the Mac and PC are both equally screwed up in different
> ways. ;-) And yes, I own a G4, too...<<

^_^

> Yes, you're right, I've seen totally idiotic software behavior on the 
> Mac too
> (including some totally stupid problems in Cubase).  But it's usually 
> because
> the applications themselves are buggy and horribly written.  The PC 
> has an

It's been my experience that on the PC it's more of a hardware than 
software problem. Windows used to be crap, but they've done a fair job 
of addressing what they can. Down right amazing when you take into 
account the fact that they run on every Ma & Pa home brew PC from here 
to Taiwan. When it comes to audio, which is highly timing sensitive 
most PCs fall short. Combine this with several million possible 
hardware configurations, each with it's own slight variance and 
"quirks" and you have any software developers worst nightmare. For most 
application developers this is no big deal, they're abstracted high 
enough above the hardware platform that rarely do they need to care 
about variances in BIOS behaviors and bridge controllers. When it comes 
to audio, no such luck.

Two other factors come to mind: the platform of origin, and the company 
culture and attitude towards quality. Most DAWs right now are developed 
on two platforms. The platform where that software was originally 
developed will likely be more stable than a ported platform. And let's 
face it, some companies seem to think that crashing mid record is 
perfectly acceptable so long as it happens "rarely"...


> Computer recording is pretty much a necessity.  Even if you go out and 
> buy a
> stand alone 24 channel digital recording system like a Macky, I 
> believe all
> they do is build a PC computer into the recorder and you're still in 
> Microsoft
> hell.  It's getting impossible to avoid anymore.

But if you use a mackie 24 you notice it's rather stable. Why? Because 
the designers where faced with a much smaller problem space. This 
effect is most noticeable on console games. How often do you crash a 
video game? Not very often. Is this because video game engineers are 
such hot shit that they don't write bugs? No, quite the opposite 
actually, but what they do have is a very limited problem space. They 
know exactly what kind of hardware and limitations they'll be running 
into, and most importantly: they know that the end user will be running 
*exactly* the same hardware they're running. That makes a *huge* 
difference. Some audio companies even go so far as to advertise a 
recommended system on their website, this is advice well taken. 
Ideally, you want the same hardware used by the development team ;)

> Most computer programmers have no business programming computers. 
> That's the
> main problem.

Software programs are no smarter than the idiots who program them.

^_^

--mikes