No More Improvement Possible: When Software Becomes Monstrous and Bloated
-
A decade ago, there used to be a piece of software by the name Nero Burning ROM. It was an excellent piece of software with each version better than the next. Then version 5 came out, and it dragged along its newly born younger siblings like the Wave Editor and Cover Designer. And by version 7, the software got even more popular because by then it was able to do all the things people wanted it to do: rip, edit, create, and author original content; do pretty much anything with CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs; and even backup an entire system. Nero 6 and 7 were must-have software. But it went downhill from there. By version 8, there were little—if any—major improvements that people cared about. I bought a copy of Nero 8 while it was on sale (the day before Nero 9 was released). Among the improvements were: create surround-sound audio tracks, play content with the XBOX 360 and PS3, more format support for the media player, play video with hardware acceleration, and menu editing for Blu-ray authoring. Very few of them were compelling features warranting another $50 payment for an upgrade, although surround-sound authoring, menu authoring for BDs, and hardware acceleration support sounds good for some people who edit or author their own content. Then Nero 9 came out. Let's look at what Nero 9 can do that Nero 8 could not:
- Convert PowerPoint presentations to video
- Automatic backup functions
- Extract music from music TV shows to MP3
- MP3 Pro encoding (without having to buy a plug-in)
- Create play lists
- Automatically retrieve music information from GraceNote
- A separate display window to display music information while playing music
- Shuffle play lists
- Listen to web radio and podcasts
- Play audio and video in Nero StartSmart
- Play FLAC and AIFF files
- Archive movies to flash storage (e.g., USB sticks)
- "Smart" encoding for Blu-ray (vague)
- Apply styles to video projects to automatically make the movie great
- Detect commercials
- Boost quality of standard definition videos to high definition
- Preview screen for authoring projects
I just got a promotional e-mail today from Nero telling me about how great Nero 9 is compared to Nero 8 and that I should pay $49.99 for the new version. You can tell from the list that 85% of the new features aren't even worth mentioning. Can anyone honestly say (with a straight face) that these are compelling reasons for an upgrade?
-
Lee, Gun-Woon wrote:
Does anyone want to share their views on software bloat?
Software is like this deity that people come to, hoping for the god to bestow that quick fix of "ooh, I contributed something, I'm important" in what is otherwise the life of an anonymous thermal signature in an otherwise frigid vault enclosing four, five, maybe six feet tall walls of synthetic fabric and plastic in various shades of rigor mortis, and occurs during all phases of software development, from inception to the exquisitely painful yet blissfully releasing conclusion of a successful death march. As the saying goes "we start dying the minute we are born", so it goes with software--the decaying gases of software bloat start filling the code-corpse the minute the concept is put onto the whiteboard with the accompanying fumes of mind-altering dry erase markers. Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
modified on Monday, September 21, 2009 10:29 PM
Wow. Play D&D much?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
-
A decade ago, there used to be a piece of software by the name Nero Burning ROM. It was an excellent piece of software with each version better than the next. Then version 5 came out, and it dragged along its newly born younger siblings like the Wave Editor and Cover Designer. And by version 7, the software got even more popular because by then it was able to do all the things people wanted it to do: rip, edit, create, and author original content; do pretty much anything with CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs; and even backup an entire system. Nero 6 and 7 were must-have software. But it went downhill from there. By version 8, there were little—if any—major improvements that people cared about. I bought a copy of Nero 8 while it was on sale (the day before Nero 9 was released). Among the improvements were: create surround-sound audio tracks, play content with the XBOX 360 and PS3, more format support for the media player, play video with hardware acceleration, and menu editing for Blu-ray authoring. Very few of them were compelling features warranting another $50 payment for an upgrade, although surround-sound authoring, menu authoring for BDs, and hardware acceleration support sounds good for some people who edit or author their own content. Then Nero 9 came out. Let's look at what Nero 9 can do that Nero 8 could not:
- Convert PowerPoint presentations to video
- Automatic backup functions
- Extract music from music TV shows to MP3
- MP3 Pro encoding (without having to buy a plug-in)
- Create play lists
- Automatically retrieve music information from GraceNote
- A separate display window to display music information while playing music
- Shuffle play lists
- Listen to web radio and podcasts
- Play audio and video in Nero StartSmart
- Play FLAC and AIFF files
- Archive movies to flash storage (e.g., USB sticks)
- "Smart" encoding for Blu-ray (vague)
- Apply styles to video projects to automatically make the movie great
- Detect commercials
- Boost quality of standard definition videos to high definition
- Preview screen for authoring projects
I just got a promotional e-mail today from Nero telling me about how great Nero 9 is compared to Nero 8 and that I should pay $49.99 for the new version. You can tell from the list that 85% of the new features aren't even worth mentioning. Can anyone honestly say (with a straight face) that these are compelling reasons for an upgrade?
Rather than just complain, I suggest that we do something to help them out, i.e. start a list of features that would be genuinely useful. Classification "Fun/must have": I always want a button, right there on the front of the GUI, out in the open, that opens and closes the CD/DVD tray. Apart from the fact that it is actually useful (who wants to reach over and touch the hardware, when an on-screen button can do the job?), it's fun to play with, and can be used very successfully to annoy other people in the room. Classification "Technical/must have": When I clip out bits of video to show people (I do quite a bit of live stuff), I want to be able to start and stop it from points where the soundtrack is as close to silent as possible -- there's nothing more annoying than being stuck with the last split second of a loudly spoken word at the beginning of a clip. I want a a "Find Silence" option, to sort that out for me. Classification "Don't be such geeky dicks/must have": I never want to see audio/video timestamps with thousandths or even hundredths of seconds. They are useless to anyone who has human eyes and ears.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
-
And what would you do if you were their CEO? Or would you do as an ISV, once your product does almost everything that almost everyone asks for? Should they "scale-down" their staff and just release compatibility upgrades and new versions for new OS? It's like an old theory I read once about what limits the life of trees. You know, trees do not have genetic cycle of aging, like animals, but still they reach some age and die. So the theory went that they die... of starvation, due to their own growth. The body mass grows like their size to the power of 3, and feeding capacity (cross-section of the trunk, leaves area. those things) - like the size to the power of 2. So the bigger they grow, the more they starve. Not that it should apply to software companies :)
dmitri_sps wrote:
And what would you do if you were their CEO?
I'd try to create a whole new high quality product like that we used to have a few years ago, and leverage the brand we built to convince people to buy our new product. If the new product line is an expansion or something related to the original one, that would be a plus. For instance, instead of bloating a software with features no one needs neither wants, I'd look into things that are connected to the original business: who are our customers? People at home? Professionals? How can we make things easier for people who uses our CD/DVD/BD burning software? Maybe create other software that let people author content for their disks? Maybe even the whole "disk" concept is dying and we should look into ways for people to share their content on the Internet, e.g., tools for making youtube content producing easier.
-
A decade ago, there used to be a piece of software by the name Nero Burning ROM. It was an excellent piece of software with each version better than the next. Then version 5 came out, and it dragged along its newly born younger siblings like the Wave Editor and Cover Designer. And by version 7, the software got even more popular because by then it was able to do all the things people wanted it to do: rip, edit, create, and author original content; do pretty much anything with CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs; and even backup an entire system. Nero 6 and 7 were must-have software. But it went downhill from there. By version 8, there were little—if any—major improvements that people cared about. I bought a copy of Nero 8 while it was on sale (the day before Nero 9 was released). Among the improvements were: create surround-sound audio tracks, play content with the XBOX 360 and PS3, more format support for the media player, play video with hardware acceleration, and menu editing for Blu-ray authoring. Very few of them were compelling features warranting another $50 payment for an upgrade, although surround-sound authoring, menu authoring for BDs, and hardware acceleration support sounds good for some people who edit or author their own content. Then Nero 9 came out. Let's look at what Nero 9 can do that Nero 8 could not:
- Convert PowerPoint presentations to video
- Automatic backup functions
- Extract music from music TV shows to MP3
- MP3 Pro encoding (without having to buy a plug-in)
- Create play lists
- Automatically retrieve music information from GraceNote
- A separate display window to display music information while playing music
- Shuffle play lists
- Listen to web radio and podcasts
- Play audio and video in Nero StartSmart
- Play FLAC and AIFF files
- Archive movies to flash storage (e.g., USB sticks)
- "Smart" encoding for Blu-ray (vague)
- Apply styles to video projects to automatically make the movie great
- Detect commercials
- Boost quality of standard definition videos to high definition
- Preview screen for authoring projects
I just got a promotional e-mail today from Nero telling me about how great Nero 9 is compared to Nero 8 and that I should pay $49.99 for the new version. You can tell from the list that 85% of the new features aren't even worth mentioning. Can anyone honestly say (with a straight face) that these are compelling reasons for an upgrade?
Glad you mentioned WinZip. Not only are the new versions just not worth it, but they are unresponsive to customer requests. I've switched to 7-Zip and really don't miss WinZip at all.
-
Wow. Play D&D much?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
Play D&D much?
Yeah, I'm a level 80 Paladin. ;) Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
-
A decade ago, there used to be a piece of software by the name Nero Burning ROM. It was an excellent piece of software with each version better than the next. Then version 5 came out, and it dragged along its newly born younger siblings like the Wave Editor and Cover Designer. And by version 7, the software got even more popular because by then it was able to do all the things people wanted it to do: rip, edit, create, and author original content; do pretty much anything with CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs; and even backup an entire system. Nero 6 and 7 were must-have software. But it went downhill from there. By version 8, there were little—if any—major improvements that people cared about. I bought a copy of Nero 8 while it was on sale (the day before Nero 9 was released). Among the improvements were: create surround-sound audio tracks, play content with the XBOX 360 and PS3, more format support for the media player, play video with hardware acceleration, and menu editing for Blu-ray authoring. Very few of them were compelling features warranting another $50 payment for an upgrade, although surround-sound authoring, menu authoring for BDs, and hardware acceleration support sounds good for some people who edit or author their own content. Then Nero 9 came out. Let's look at what Nero 9 can do that Nero 8 could not:
- Convert PowerPoint presentations to video
- Automatic backup functions
- Extract music from music TV shows to MP3
- MP3 Pro encoding (without having to buy a plug-in)
- Create play lists
- Automatically retrieve music information from GraceNote
- A separate display window to display music information while playing music
- Shuffle play lists
- Listen to web radio and podcasts
- Play audio and video in Nero StartSmart
- Play FLAC and AIFF files
- Archive movies to flash storage (e.g., USB sticks)
- "Smart" encoding for Blu-ray (vague)
- Apply styles to video projects to automatically make the movie great
- Detect commercials
- Boost quality of standard definition videos to high definition
- Preview screen for authoring projects
I just got a promotional e-mail today from Nero telling me about how great Nero 9 is compared to Nero 8 and that I should pay $49.99 for the new version. You can tell from the list that 85% of the new features aren't even worth mentioning. Can anyone honestly say (with a straight face) that these are compelling reasons for an upgrade?
It would seem to me that the ideal solution from the customer/user POV would be if the software company created the added features as plug-ins that could be purchased separately. The users that do not want or need that functionality would not have to pay for them of give up disk space/resources to install them. The company would benefit by getting feedback based on the plug-in sales.
-
When software becomes Monstrous and Bloated, you switch to a free alternative that's 50x smaller! http://www.deepburner.com/?r=download[^] DeepBurner Free - Tiny (3MB), and works :)
-= Reelix =-
It reminds me of an early version of Nero Burning ROM (combined with a label maker). :) The interface could be more polished though.
Reelix wrote:
switch to a free alternative that's 50x smaller!
You understated the size savings. 382.14 MB is about 130 times bigger than 2.93 MB. Then again, who would want this[^]? ;P
My GUID: ca2262a7-0026-4830-a0b3-fe5d66c4eb1d :) Now I can Google this value and find all my Code Project posts!
-
Glad you mentioned WinZip. Not only are the new versions just not worth it, but they are unresponsive to customer requests. I've switched to 7-Zip and really don't miss WinZip at all.
I bought myself a copy of WinRAR instead since they seem to be offering a lifetime of free upgrades; it does everything better than WinZip (that WinZip should have had). I keep 7-zip by my side as well for the compression efficiency.
My GUID: ca2262a7-0026-4830-a0b3-fe5d66c4eb1d :) Now I can Google this value and find all my Code Project posts!
-
It would seem to me that the ideal solution from the customer/user POV would be if the software company created the added features as plug-ins that could be purchased separately. The users that do not want or need that functionality would not have to pay for them of give up disk space/resources to install them. The company would benefit by getting feedback based on the plug-in sales.
Yes, they already do that but some features are just so useless, if they followed your pattern:
- Nero Burning ROM would have to be free and have basic burning capabilities. They already have such a free version (and it sucks a lot): http://download.cnet.com/Nero-9-Free-Version/3000-2646_4-10964576.html[^].
- They would release only point updates to Nero Burning ROM for years at a time.
- Every significant package of advanced capabilities (e.g., an entire set of DVD Video authoring functions, a media player or theater program, or the virtual image drive) would come in a plug-in format.
- Nero would give away minor updates every few months and sell new plug-ins with new functionality every year or so.
Then again, wouldn't it hurt their pockets? ;P
My GUID: ca2262a7-0026-4830-a0b3-fe5d66c4eb1d :) Now I can Google this value and find all my Code Project posts!
-
Mark Wallace wrote:
Play D&D much?
Yeah, I'm a level 80 Paladin. ;) Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
That Munroe guy's got a lot to answer for!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!