TL;DR
Here’s the executive summary: We all need to lower our expectations and be more realistic about what is possible.
For why I think that, read on…
First, thank you Cubase Team for releasing “early and often” (so to speak), rather than waiting for more fixes to be completed.
Hope you keep this trend going, despite the (understandable) backlash.
To me, this update is a real measuring stick. Here’s why I think that:
Software development is really hard and requires essentially unfair personal sacrifice. And not just a “push,” but sustained and ongoing pain that never ends. It’s a way of life.
I’ve been in this business a long time and this remains true.
No amount of company Kool-aid drinking will make it happen faster. Stuff gets done when it’s done.
Deep inside each developer is something they’ll never admit to their boss, when their boss talks about getting stuff done faster because of arbitrary release dates and the financial pressures that drive them (the thing, at the end of the day, only a boss really can care about, truth be told). That thing is: “Understand, but that’s YOUR problem.”
The developer is already making a full sacrifice (and then some), if the company can’t harness and harvest it, it’s its problem, not the developer’s.
So…
When an end-of-year holiday software release has bugs, it’s to be expected. Marketing desire will always outpace personal sacrifice. It’s baked into the raw economic physics of it, itself.
One could argue to do otherwise shows lack of passion / ambition.
So I don’t think Steinberg should be faulted for pushing for a release or even having bugs in it.
All that said, there is one thing that will push a developer even past this high level of personal sacrifice into a sort of inhuman “overdrive mode” (not sustainable even by those without families): Post-major-release bugs and poor craftsmanship. Because that IS the developer’s problem.
It is fair to for a developer to feel this way even after being pressed to do more feature-creep? No, but I guarantee you every developer feels it and responds to it and takes it very personally.
Now to my long-winded point…
This 8.0.5 release demonstrates the true capability of the Cubase development team. We get to witness it in near real-time. 8.0.5 was pushed hard to get to. It certainly had at least one or two senior developers via “email-only” as they tried to enjoy their holiday.
What it tells me is this: Cubase is very complex software; decades mature. We’re glad to see the update, but disappointed almost none of the “things we wanted” were not addressed.
It also tells me we all need to lower our expectations and be more realistic about what is possible.
This is specialized software that only sells so many units. For the Cubase team to scale up, just doesn’t seem likely.
I think if there is one thing that Steinberg could do, to meet us halfway, it would be this:
Create a feature and bugfix voting area for obvious non-NDA stuff. Obviously, Steinberg would not reveal its “surprise” features that highlight a major version release.
I’m talking about the known issues and really low-hanging-fruit features that would complete an obviously incomplete feature already released.
Then, there is no amount a criticism that can be waged except on we the users, ourselves, for voting for the wrong thing.
I just think Steinberg needs to grab the reins and control the “conversation” more. Paradoxically, a bug and feature voting area would give them a platform to do it.
Right now, it’s a one-way conversation.
And it would let we the users, put our voting where our mouth is.
I.e., a person voting for every feature, effectively nullifies his/her vote. Picking and choosing carefully what to vote for, should somewhat quell even the loudest among us.
It should be more, “why aren’t people voting for this more?” not, “why wasn’t this in a given release.”
I think it would also highlight some silliness in our requests. Like, surely there would be more votes for Render In-Place related features than boring old window management stuff, but clearly, the window management fixes needed to be addressed asap. Stuff like that.
Again, thanks for the .0.5 release!
Happy New Year, all.