What's taking so long with updates?

MPC-Tutor wrote:JJ-style linear development works well in a small, one man project. JJ wakes up, sees a bug report, sets about fixing it and uploads it immediately when done.

The MPC Software is a much bigger, more complex project, so the JJ apraoch does not scale very well at all. It has many developers working on it and each developer is assigned a specific part of the project to deal with, be it bugs or new features.

When bugs are fixed or new features added, there is a very real potential for it causing issues elsewhere in the software, so this has to be throughly tested and if required, remedied (again, without causing any further problems). Plus other issues are being reported all the time.

It's far more complicated than most of you think. This idea of the entire team working on a single bug is simply not practical.

Precisely why incremental updates or "hotfixes" would be beneficial to holding the attention of the users, at the very least.

MaZe wrote:Precisely why incremental updates or "hotfixes" would be beneficial to holding the attention of the users, at the very least.

MPC-Tutor wrote:

MaZe wrote:Precisely why incremental updates or "hotfixes" would be beneficial to holding the attention of the users, at the very least.

You disagree?

MPC-Tutor wrote:JJ-style linear development works well in a small, one man project. JJ wakes up, sees a bug report, sets about fixing it and uploads it immediately when done.

The MPC Software is a much bigger, more complex project, so the JJ apraoch does not scale very well at all. It has many developers working on it and each developer is assigned a specific part of the project to deal with, be it bugs or new features.

When bugs are fixed or new features added, there is a very real potential for it causing issues elsewhere in the software, so this has to be throughly tested and if required, remedied (again, without causing any further problems). Plus other issues are being reported all the time.

It's far more complicated than most of you think. This idea of the entire team working on a single bug is simply not practical.

That makes perfect sense. Do you think that if the entire team focused in one thing at a time it would change things at all?

Once again I wanna just say I'm only brainstorming and thinking out loud here

MaZe wrote:

MPC-Tutor wrote:

MaZe wrote:Precisely why incremental updates or "hotfixes" would be beneficial to holding the attention of the users, at the very least.

You disagree?

No I don't disagree that incremental updates are a good thing for end users.

I am saying that the concept of very regular 'one bug at a time' incremental updates doesn't scale very well in larger, multi-developer projects like this. I explained the reasons why in the post you quoted.

MPC-Tutor wrote:
No I don't disagree that incremental updates are a good thing for end users.

I am saying that the concept of very regular 'one bug at a time' incremental updates doesn't scale very well in larger, multi-developer projects like this. I explained the reasons why in the post you quoted.

Oh I completely agree with you. One bug at a time doesn't make sense at this scale, at all. BUT, there are ways to package a few fixes/updates into a minor update.

From a marketing/consumer perspective, you have to look at it this way, Akai has taken a very long time to release their newest update having announced it and a tentative release date months ago. Now, when the new update drops, there are undoubtedly going to be more issues with it and it will not feature all of the requests. That's no shot towards Akai, that's reality. Now, as a consumer or Ren owner, once you get the long awaited and at this point, late, update, and you see that it is not everything you hoped for (by its very nature, it won't be, it's impossible to please everyone, at least in one update) you are going to say to yourself, "great, now I have to wait a very long time for the next update". Had Akai implemented some sort of incremental update system that had continually addressed pertinent issues, consumers/owners would not feel that way as they'd trust that Akai would knock out the smaller issues with incremental or "." updates.

the longer they take the more customers they loose, and the less updates we get
until one day ............


so much potential down the drain.

Well It's Just simply is getting quite painfully about now....everyday I check this forum to see if the update is there...about 2 months now....and time after time the same defensive responses....but okay....ill be waiting, the only thing the longer it takes, the better it has to be.... Time will tell....
but customer support wise this is a abomination.....no mather what point all the defenders are trying to make...
pz

MPC-Tutor wrote:When bugs are fixed or new features added, there is a very real potential for it causing issues elsewhere in the software, so this has to be throughly tested and if required, remedied (again, without causing any further problems). Plus other issues are being reported all the time.

It's far more complicated than most of you think. This idea of the entire team working on a single bug is simply not practical.

public betas. best of both worlds.
watching different companies flounder using antiquated development models is like reading Oedipus...you know what's going to happen at the end and it isn't pretty

Did not expect a Jocasta reference here...

Public Betas and more frequent 1.x.x releases, along with detailed release notes are never a bad thing.

Yea... When / why would that have a negative impact on development?

be patient.

it may be the last update.

fobedafied wrote:be patient.

it may be the last update.

Even if in fact they are bleeding money off this, they simply can't play the old shrug it off moves like happened on hardware OS's. They do that all they have is some MIDI controllers/Alesis and the Ion trash they sell at Target.

They bet the farm they gotta ride it out.

^ and Ableton Push which is why i will not look into Push as an option in my work.
i've also sadly had to stop recommending Novation products, as well.

Metatron72 wrote:

fobedafied wrote:be patient.

it may be the last update.

Even if in fact they are bleeding money off this, they simply can't play the old shrug it off moves like happened on hardware OS's. They do that all they have is some MIDI controllers/Alesis and the Ion trash they sell at Target.

They bet the farm they gotta ride it out.

I completely agree that Akai should ride this out. If they don't, they might as well drop the MPC line completely and focus on MPDs, MPKs, the Push, etc. And honestly, that really wouldn't be a bad thing. I think their controllers are fantastic.