CompuServe Messages

As a programmer for one of the older cdrom publishers, jan, i understand your frustration with some of the cdrom titles. I am the guy who does the C programming that makes things work (most of the time). I have personally experienced frustration with the products i work on. Sometimes there are errors in the text, sometimes articles are too thin, sometimes i see & point out opportunities to make things more appealing. These are sometimes corrected, sometimes implemented, but often put off till future releases. My client (i'm freelance) is pure business. He adds features to the products when there is a perceived market demand. For example, Motion Video is a hot topic this year, so our new versions will support it (whether or not it really does add to the products). Users complained that certain titles were unusably slow, so we updated a whole lot of code and made faster titles (available to those who called to complain). Also, users have been calling & writing asking for the ability to print and save articles. This feature will also be added. A number of other features, such as an SVGA display will not be added, mostly due to time pressures to get the new versions out this summer. Shovelware is a significant problem with CDROM titles. It is a fairly easy thing to locate out of copyright material (like the 1852 references), get them into an electronic form and onto cdrom. There are quite a few of these titles available, few that actually add value to the texts. The only thing that will control these and other bad title designs is market pressure. If people buy the crap, others will make it. If the bad title producers do not sell product, they will go out of business. > Perhaps we should organize a vigilante to police errors, bring them to [the] > publishers' attention, and if the publishers' don't correct them, > make the information public. Precisely. Well, a vigilante posse may be the first wave, be careful it doesnt get out of control. Remember that publishers can only produce so much and fix only so much in a year. Some errors wont be fixed immeadiately with new disks sent out, some might be. You might, personally, start a listing of abhorent shovelware titles and others with severe problems. The list could be posted here to this forum as a conusmer's guide. However, you should be sure to include GOOD titles too. Jerry