Originally posted by Dearmad
[B]Well I’m disappointed with your response Victor.
The idea of being able to bring up technical problems and bugs on a mailing list is simple and twofold:
(snip) [/B]
I’m not saying that I agree with the rules of the list, I just choose to follow them and advocate that others do as well. I think perhaps that Hash describing the list as a medium for “technical support” may be incorrect.
With all the discussion going on here it makes me think that maybe there should be a second A:M list devoted solely to the discussion of bugs, etc. That would maintain the spirit of the original list and give people an officially sanctioned and monitored place to vent. I also think that they should hire someone else to moderate the list and handle tech support so that Steve can devote all of his time to coding and fixing.
I’ve generally have great, prompt tech support when I provide a project file and explicite instructions of how to reproduce a crash or bug. The crashes that aren’t project or operation specific are, of course, much harder to track down, both for the user and for Hash. I’ve pulled out my hair plenty of times with pesky crashes, but in the long run things have worked out one way or another. Admittedly, I’ve never used a lot of the fancier features of the software such as dynamics.
I’ll agree that version 9 was not as stable as a release version should be; I stayed with 8.5 until 9.5 was released at which time I migrated hesitantly. Granted, version 9 was a complete rewrite of the software, so in essence they were starting over from scratch. I can understand why users would have been disappointed with it. A:M 9/10 is so much more flexible and robust now, though; I think it has been worth the pain.
One final note: there are obviously a lot of people who share the same feelings about Hash and A:M on this thread, and I’d like to think that there’s a positive way to resolve all of this. Let’s all try to remember that there are emotions and egos on both sides, and try to find constructive ways to solve the problems mentioned here. The anonymity and tonal ambiguity of email often leads to misunderstanding and impropriety; it may be better to call them on the phone or approach them at trade shows with an open attitude.
I am not an A:M evangelist (well, not officially) but I like the software and the people who make it. There have been some valid points raised and I believe the guys at Hash are cool enough to be open to constructive suggestions and pleas for help. Ultimately it’s up to them to decide what direction to take their business in, but I’m sure they don’t want to see resentment in their user base.
