D.P. 9.02 dispo on MOTU Site

[mhschmieder]

Yep, I can always reliably see my waveforms in the sequence editor again, thank goodness!

Very happy with 9.02 so far. It also seems "snappier"

[dewdman42]

Regarding user manual errata I think it would be a great service to motu if motunation did keep a thread for objective manual errata discussion. As someone said, not a place to bitch about the product but a place to simply point out problems in the documentation, which are very easy to happen with a complex and evolving product even when the product is working very well.

I have worked in the software business as a programmer for about 20 years. Let me make a few observations about the industry as a whole. First, there are separate departments with separate teams, separate managers, separate priority lists, etc. tech support is a different group then the group handling tech writing, which are different groups from the programmers writing the code. The testing and QA group is often its own thing also and due to the fact they are always bringing up bugs and potential bugs there can be a tendency for the programming group to think of the testing group like cops would think of internal affairs. A touch of rivalry exists. Those darned testing folks are always blocking or holding up the introduction of new code after all. Meanwhile these different groups have different types of talent with different types of personalities and many programmers do have the attitude that they are smarter then the testers that keep complaining about their code without understanding their code. Meanwhile tech support has to interact with the customer and bring the controversial news back to some other groups that a certain feature is not working right. Do you want to be the person to be that messenger? Meanwhile the manual is written by writers, who are by their very nature just barely technical enough for the job. They are experts at using manual production tools, and how to structure the manual and how to word things, they are not always absolute gurus about the product, especially one as complex and evolving like DP is.

To deal with these different groups and the communication that needs to happen, software systems are used to facilitate the tracking of "issues". issues are logged into the system and each team tries to prioritize the issues that relate to them and address the most important issues, including many bugs during the development process that we never see in the release to the street. Thousands of them.

Back to the subject of the user manual, the writers have a lot of work to do to write the material it's simply not possible for them to each be product gurus. They interact with other technical people, attempt to do a translation from engineer nerd language ( and believe me most programmers have no business writing a manual) to something the writer can understand and write which they think an end user will understand. That in itself is not easy and in my experience it often turns out wrong, sometimes blatantly but usually in some subtle way due to the translation between technical and non technical people. Some technical person or perhaps an end user has to spot the foggy language and point it out and then someone has to review it and again meet with technical people to confirm a new understanding of some point, clarify the writing and move on. This is a very laborious process. The more complex the software, the more this becomes an impractical approach. But the thing about the manual, there is no way to write what's called a "unit test" that can repetitively and automatically test the manual to make sure it is still accurate. Some human has to sit there and read it over and over again as the product evolves and make sure every sentence makes accurate sense. This is simply not practical for something as complex as DP.

One alternative approach taken by some products is to have the manual be a bit more vague. That way it's less likely to be incorrect in some situation and less likely to be made incorrect by changes in the software. It's also less useful to the end user and serves as only a high level guide, leaving the details to the end user to figure out while using it. I feel that motu has a very detailed manual, much more detailed then much of the competition. It is extremely deep and my hats off to motu for the amount of work that I know has gone into developing and maintaining that manual. The unfortunate truth is that with a product this complex, a manual of that depth is going to have bugs in it, and they are going to be difficult to catch. That is where we can help. If the errata are logged in a systematic, objective way; realizing that each errata will end up having to go through a complicated inter-departmental process to see a correction, as explained above.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Regarding user manual errata I think it would be a great service to motu if motunation did keep a thread for objective manual errata discussion.

Isn't that simply a matter of someone starting the thread? If it's that important to the members they should flock to it.

[dewdman42]

i agree. well it sounds like bayswater has tried that. I don't think a scattered bunch of complaints are going to get any attention.

Also, I think people should ask themselves the question about whether they really want to burden MOTU with this. At the end of the day, its we the consumer that pays for it.

It takes a lot of work to track down and correct documentation problems.

[musicman691]

i agree. well it sounds like bayswater has tried that. I don't think a scattered bunch of complaints are going to get any attention.

Also, I think people should ask themselves the question about whether they really want to burden MOTU with this. At the end of the day, its we the consumer that pays for it.

It takes a lot of work to track down and correct documentation problems.

True but still it's really up to the developer to provide proper documentation. Otherwise one is at the mercy of forums like this and let's face it - there's not that much support out there for DP and not all DP owners are members here. I'm willing to bet there's a whole bunch of DP users out there scratching their heads on things. At least MOTU should have provided a manual with correct info for at least the initial release and not carry over old stuff from DP8 that no longer applies. I am far from willing to cut MOTU any slack on this.

[dewdman42]

Well slack on what? Do you have some examples of how the manual is incorrect?

[bayswater]

Regarding user manual errata I think it would be a great service to motu if motunation did keep a thread for objective manual errata discussion. As someone said, not a place to bitch about the product but a place to simply point out problems in the documentation, which are very easy to happen with a complex and evolving product even when the product is working very well.

I have worked in the software business as a programmer for about 20 years.

I have to agree with your observations on the IT bus, having spent some time in it myself. But I'm not seeing a lack of technical understanding in the manuals on the part of the authors. Rather oversights and a lack of final edits. Missing words, copy and pastes not properly edited, before and after images that are identical, stuff not updated, references to buttons in figures that aren't there, images missing, insertions of negatives where they shouldn't be. And so on. All stuff a good editor would pick up.

As for just starting a new thread ... crickets. I don't think there are very many people who are that concerned, here or at MOTU. Marketing does the manual, and they, with some justification, probably think they have bigger priorities, like covering NAMM.

Most of it is usable. You can figure out the errors. Compare to the Logic manual which is a work or art, in the sense that no one understands it: it blathers on about all then stuff you can do but often forgets to tell you how to do it.

[dewdman42]

I think the Logic manual is a joke. DP's manual has always impressed me with the level of nitty gritty detail it covers. You actually need to use the index in the DP manual in order to find what you need, but when you find it, the details are there, every bit of detail. I personally think the DP manual is really something. There are few user manuals that go that deep. But...the problems you are mentioning are definitely pretty basic editing issues...no doubt about it. But its a lot of pages to review as an editor..

[bayswater]

Well slack on what? Do you have some examples of how the manual is incorrect?

I did a cover to cover read of the V7 manual a while back, and kept note of the errors I found. About 60 of them, and another 120 which are technically not errors, but make no sense. I might do a review of the V9 manual if and when it gets updated after the next update, and see how many of them are still there.

[bayswater]

I think the Logic manual is a joke.

Well, that can be art, can't it? Dylan Thomas would have called it poetry.

[dewdman42]

My thoughts are:

1. I'm super impressed that you read the whole manual cover to cover
2. I'm even more impressed that you kept such good notes
3. I'm equally impressed that there were only 100 errors you found in all those pages. Given the amount of information and level of complexity.
4. If you do it again, publish your notes (shrug), maybe MOTU will listen, maybe not, but someone will find it useful.

[dewdman42]

I think the Logic manual is a joke.

Well, that can be art, can't it? Dylan Thomas would have called it poetry.

The Logic manual is definitely more like what Marketing would write. The DP manual is what happens when tech writers interact with engineers and get all the nitty gritty documented. Its a complex and difficult process.

With DP I don't feel like I need to buy any third party educational products to learn how to use it. its all right there in in the manual. Not so with Logic, you actually NEED 3rd party educational materials.

I'm digging logic lately though...so..eh... I'm just happy these products exist and that they continue to improve them. I'd rather see MOTU put lots of time on fixing bugs and improving things we've been asking about rather then trying to hunt down every errata in the manual.

[bayswater]

[*]If you do it again, publish your notes (shrug), maybe MOTU will listen, maybe not, but someone will find it useful.[/list]

Now and then, I'm forced to spend 10 days on a cruise ship. There's nothing to do but drink and gamble. So I read manuals by the pool. I might be forced to read the DP 9 manual this summer.

[bayswater]

Not so with Logic, you actually NEED 3rd party educational materials.
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I'd rather see MOTU put lots of time on fixing bugs and improving things we've been asking about rather then trying to hunt down every errata in the manual.

I agree on both points. Aside from Eli Krantzbergs tutorials, which get better and better, you can get Edgar Rothermich's iBooks on Logic which are agonizingly detailed organized, and thorough.

[mikehalloran]

Compare to the Logic manual which is a work or art, in the sense that no one understands it: it blathers on about all then stuff you can do but often forgets to tell you how to do it.

I nearly split a gut when read that. It still has clueless instructions on how to use my CS-32, an interface that hasn't worked since OS 10.4 and can't be kluged since 10.6.