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At 3:08 PM -0700 8/1/01, Brett Maraldo wrote: > >i suggested they just release the damn thing and fix the software later >and >issue updates. i don't think they understand how software releases work >(ie. you don't have to make the thing perfect) i don't agree. maybe that is acceptable with PC's where everybody has come to expect crappy quality, and it is relatively easy to update. But with hardware products this is not the case. Dealing with updates is a major pain for both users and the manufacturer. And people have the view of hardware that it will be solid and work right. I've found that musicians are very unforgiving of bugs in a hardware product, and I've got the scars to show for it. :-) also, as somebody else noted, real-time software is very difficult to develop and even harder to debug. Loopers are different from other effects devices in this way, because the user constantly interacts with it and the code is very real-time and must be able to respond instantly to do whatever the user wants. There is a huge array of possible states the machine might be in at any time, and the user might hit any button at any moment. Just testing all of the possibilities alone is an enormous job. Even bigger is thinking through all of these possible cases and figuring out what it should do in every one! This is why it takes us years to do Echoplex upgrades. :-) So to me the time Electrix has taken is no surprise at all. When they demoed the repeater for me at NAMM in january, they were still talking about features being added and function details being worked out. And there were clearly bugs. I knew then that they were a loooong way from being done, based on my experience of doing a very similar thing. anyway, I wish them luck. hopefully you guys won't completely filet them before they get it out. (probably you will save that for after it is out and you find the first bug. :-) kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@loopers-delight.com | http://www.loopers-delight.com