xara.com getting even further from the Xara DEsigner products?

[hseiken]

I didn't read this whole document but one thing I've noticed that is sort of endemic to all commercial productivity software (and non productivity software) is that there's no 'end game'. In other words, it's now expected that software will somehow always need an update at some point in time. There's no push to do it right the first time. Do you buy a car with option to upgrade later to get the gas pedal installed and simply have a frame with seats and no wheels and no gas pedal, but a really serious engine? No, you buy a complete car that drives you from here to there. You know up front what it's performance is, how it handles, how many it seats, etc.

Unfortunately due to the nature of programs being amorphous then the expectation is that it SHOULD change shape over time but this has been turned into an excuse for many companies to simply not finish a product in order to sell the rest of the program at a later date. It is true, that there's a fear of 'if you do your job as a software design company too well, you're going to basically design yourself out of business' but now that fear has fostered this other line of thinking of 'never give it all away ever'. There's a happy medium, I believe, and it has less to do with software and more to do with support and maintaining the software to deal with bugs (which obviously, no one's perfect and bugs do pop up even in good, well polished software, lots of times due to OS upgrades which are also unnecessary most days).

That said, I would love to see any program at all today Xara or even just a simple time wasting game being sold without expectation of 'upgrades'. I think this mentality is destroying the software as a whole and a lot of it has come about by this cloud updating possibility and always-on internet...when a 'patch' to fix bugs actually used to cost LOTS of money to ship out discs, companies would do everything in their power to make sure they wouldn't have to resort to any patches. These days because it costs very little to just upload a new patch and trigger within the already existing software a redirection to download and install a new patch vs. produce thousands of new discs to fix the problem, it's created complacency that 'just good enough to have something to use' is okay.

I think most people might agree that while Xara's features themselves have needed some fine tuning, in the past before this new paradigm, they shipped working a lot better than previous updates and versions. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but this is definitely true of Adobe products and certainly most other products I used. There was a big joke a few years back about Forza shipping with absolutely nothing on the disc other than a redirect to the publisher's server to download the finished game because the shipping date created a 2 day padding to fix some kind of bug. Rather than push back the ship date, they shipped essentially blank discs with day-1 patch fixes expected to be 'okay'. Yet, this is now the standard operating procedure for nearly all 'professionally produced' software. But it gives me the impression that nothing is professional at all, it's a bunch of people struggling to please investors or struggle to keep finding money where there is none.

To me, where the long term financial sustainability is lies in actual SUPPORT. When Adobe was charging 500$ for a boxed copy of Photoshop that came with a full color printed manual it also came with actual support; you could call someone or send an email and get direct help. This is virtually no longer the case. With Xara, it seems the support is the least of the worries; when it comes to operation they are redirecting people here to let other users help each other (which costs them nothing other than a server fee) and I imagine there's very little in the way of people actually dealing with technical questions about crashes/bugs and the like...

I know I'm a little long winded (I apologize...My school taught me how to type when I was 7 and I've only gotten faster through the years), but in essence, I know Xara is probably staffed these days by people 'following trends' and are being expected to 'turn around a flagging company' and other corporate nonsense that has little to nothing to do with me, or anyone else here using the product and that's precisely the problem. The product is not the concern anymore. When every company is literally putting out half finished garbage, then what's the incentive for Xara to do the same? To me, it's all the incentive in the world, but unfortunately the mass population seems to have been conditioned to expect 'upgrades' where they are simply unnecessary and companies use the term 'upgrades' in place of what's really going on which is 'finishing up a half finished product'.

It's troubling and affects everyone so I hope people at some point wake up to this as I see it as a large consumer issue that is hurting a lot of us. Upgrading is not a necessity for anyone except a company with no long term plans, imo. Again, if car companies practiced 1/5th of what software companies do, it would be deadly.

[maksimon]

Do you buy a car with option to upgrade later to get the gas pedal installed and simply have a frame with seats and no wheels and no gas pedal, but a really serious engine? No, you buy a complete car that drives you from here to there. You know up front what it's performance is, how it handles, how many it seats, etc.

I understand what you're saying but unfortunately there is no possibility to describe in detail the error in your reasoning. These things cannot be compared. If I could speak fluently in English, I have proved you that you are wrong trying to compare these things. Maybe someone else will explain to you ...

[hseiken]

I understand what you're saying but unfortunately there is no possibility to describe in detail the error in your reasoning. These things cannot be compared. If I could speak fluently in English, I have proved you that you are wrong trying to compare these things. Maybe someone else will explain to you ...

I don't understand what you don't understand about this comparison. I go into detail about why I make the comparison and why expecting 'upgrades' enables terrible business practices in which we as consumers are left with buggy software, always being promised a fix that brings with it new problems and in turn new fixes, rinse and repeat. If your car has a problem in it's design, it either gets repaired (patched) or replaced (recall). The end. These things don't introduce new problems to where you're constantly taking your car back in every other week for a 'bug fix'. Wouldn't you be afraid to drive it if this were the case?

Weak analogy aside, my statements beyond this still stand. You can leave the analogy out and tackle/defend my arguments against always updating things that have no business being shipped needing updates at all.

I do mention that people are conditioned to expect constantly updating software for features that aren't useful or asked for or constantly fixing bugs that the last bug fix update fixed. Again, I point to classic software that came with paper manuals you can put on a shelf, no way to connect online to 'update itself' and usually didn't need to because it was programmed right the first time and there was a clear goal and feature list that was adhered to. You might have heard of this thing called a 'design document'. Now we have what is called a 'rolling schedule'...it's a profit plan not a method of creating a finished product.

Cloud-anything is nothing more than a business, in my opinion, saying 'F-- you, we're not going to try anymore to finish anything or have a clear plan. We're just going to update for the sake of updating and interrupt you in unexpected ways along the way, maybe every month, maybe every other month, but we'll do it and you'll pay us for it.' Nope, I'm not paying for it, and I urge people to reconsider this marketing tactic as that is all it is. The user does not benefit in this scheme. The software should be made with 400 bug fixes when it is introduced, not WHILE we are using it, we shouldn't even be aware there were any bugs to begin with.

[handrawn]

Weak analogy aside, my statements beyond this still stand. You can leave the analogy out and tackle/defend my arguments against always updating things that have no business being shipped needing updates at all.....

...... The software should be made with 400 bug fixes when it is introduced, not WHILE we are using it, we shouldn't even be aware there were any bugs to begin with.

the thing about bugs is, by definition, you don't know they are there until they crop up.. how long are you going to wait checking for things that might not be there? you will never ever know if you have caught them all, too many variables

this is a basic flaw in your analogy - the variables involved in car usage are relatively low - the variables involved in computer usage are by comaprision enormous... a car is designed to do a specific job/job_set - even just one computer program may be designed to cope with a multitude of tasks; the computer itself is a vast array of software platforming with all the conflicts, proritisations, security issues, etc that entails... and it all has to hang together... you would be better comparing such to a complete transportation system than to a single car.. still not a good analogy, but better...

and because the variables are enormous it is a given that not everything will work as it should under all possible circumstances - frankly it is pretty amazing that it works as well as it does given the complexity

this is no excuse for rogue companies pushing out half-baked product enhancement, or tying in users with an unfair update regime ... but modern systems are evolving all the time.. you have to understand this and it's implications re getting everything to work properly with everything else...

[iamtheblues]

I do not think we should quibble too much about the analogy, it may or may not be weak, but it is a side-issue. The basic thrust of the argument is sound; the cloud is intrusive, but can be a useful tool to deliver fixes not caught in the initial release, let us accept that programmers are just as human as the rest of us...unforseen errors do crop up and it is a useful method of delivering corrections to the customer. However, (you knew there would be an "however"!) as a means of avoiding costs at the expense of delivering a CD or DVD (or five), the customer loses out when a company introduces a scheme (scam) to keep people in the loop by adopting a subscription format that is legally dubious and probably impossible for those not trained in law to understand. This has caused the hackles to rise against MagiXara and Adobe. It is morally indefensible to treat customers this way and should be outlawed (ie; made illegal by Government).

If one looks at the alternative, which Corel and Serif have adopted then things look rather better for the customer. If one accepts that Corel charge rather more than is acceptable for most folk, at least one can look elsewhere in the free market system and choose Serif's Affinity Designer and/or Photo. No pressure involved. The pricing is fair, the product is of a marvellous quality. They also have a reliable roadmap informing the customer what they can additionally expect during the lifetime of the version number they have purchased. All set out with no fuss, bother or anguish for the customer - no strings attached no threats to update, upgrade or whatever terminology they use to dupe unwitting customers to buy a pig in a poke *

MaxiXara have opened a Pandora's Box of unintended consequences. At least, one assumes that the current débâcle is one that was initially unforseen, but rather than lose face and reverting to the previous method, they are ploughing on regardless, merrily shedding loyal users as they go without a care in the world.

Bob.

*I have no affiliation with Serif, I'm just a satisfied customer, pleased that there is still a company in the graphics world that has integrity.

[handrawn]

Bob - If the basic thrust of hseiken's argument is 'updates are unnecesary' that is total pie in the sky - there will always be program updates in a dynamic system - one reason why I was hoping Kate would confirm that bug fixes issued during a licence period are avaiable on reinstall - but my last posts in this thread, on that topic at beginning of this month, have gone unanswered

As I have said elsewhere, if MagixXara which to go in a particular direction, that is up to them and they will no doubt take the consequences; at most I would call the current update model unfair; and unlikely to give competitive advantage over time.

I like Affinity; it will not do all Xara does, but it does things xara does not, like mesh warp that I need and which Xara was asked for a decade ago or more... I can use xdpx12 for what it does for the forseeable future and lose no sleep over it...

[hseiken]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLwsKtZDwFs

I think this opinion expressed in this video about games is relevant to the discussion.

As for updates are unnecessary, it's not to say new versions cannot come out, it's that updates aren't updates, they're publicly beta testing stuff on the public and then if you happen to buy that version on a disc, and lose access to the bug fix 'updates' which is what I'm arguing should be unnecessary, then you're screwed. You bought buggy software. Xara/Magix goes out of business, you have worthless software.