RTFM

[Aural Reject]

1, Classically trained (includes Brass Band musos). Can read fluently but can't busk for toffee/lost without dots.

Are you inside my head?

[Hugh Robjohns]

...but our country is the only country that is proud of ignorance, knowledge is for wussy geeks - I just don't get it.

That's even more depressing... I had assumed it was a global trend!

When I grew up in the 60s we had Lego and Meccano, and lots of electronics magazines, and DIY magazines, so everyone made things and understood the engineering involved at some level. We also had Concorde and Apollo and the Harrier jump-jet, and TV programmes like Tomorrow's World and Horizon and more -- so science and engineering were, if not mainstream, at least fairly high profile and a positive influence.

It seems to me that people generally don't do DIY any more: it's far easier and cheaper to discard broken things and buy new. And modern technology is so complicated and intricate that no one can mend it (beyond the board-swapping level). So no-one can make their own mobile phone, or TV set, or even service their own cars these days.

I'm all for technological progress, but when did we lose all interest in how things work?

[ef37a]

[Sweeping generalisation alert]

I think there are three kinds of musician :-

1, Classically trained (includes Brass Band musos). Can read fluently but can't busk for toffee/lost without dots.

2, Self taught (rock/folk etc). Couldn't read to save a life but can work stuff out by ear and busk almost anything with up to a maximum of 4 chords

3, Jazz musicians. Can read, busk, improvise, spout theory 'till the cows come home, have chops to die for and can make a decent fist of anything they are asked to play.

[/SGA]

Please note the poster's lingual/buccal interface.......

I am rather proud to say my son fits quite well into the Jazz slot! A few years ago he was associated with a group of musicians in Paris and did the arrangements and parts for them. The "boss", a lady singer/songwriter roughed out the tunes but it was Steve that got them ready for performance. He told me she used to bother him because he would never write or rehearse his guitar solo (if there was one) "Don't worry" he would tell her "better fresh on the night". Seems he always nailed it.

My BIG question is...Why ain't we rich?!!

Dave.

[OneWorld]

...but our country is the only country that is proud of ignorance, knowledge is for wussy geeks - I just don't get it.

That's even more depressing... I had assumed it was a global trend!

When I grew up in the 60s we had Lego and Meccano, and lots of electronics magazines, and DIY magazines, so everyone made things and understood the engineering involved at some level. We also had Concorde and Apollo and the Harrier jump-jet, and TV programmes like Tomorrow's World and Horizon and more -- so science and engineering were, if not mainstream, at least fairly high profile and a positive influence.

It seems to me that people generally don't do DIY any more: it's far easier and cheaper to discard broken things and buy new. And modern technology is so complicated and intricate that no one can mend it (beyond the board-swapping level). So no-one can make their own mobile phone, or TV set, or even service their own cars these days.

I'm all for technological progress, but when did we lose all interest in how things work?

Lego and Meccano, now you're talking, warms the very cockles. Back in the day we seemed to have this obsessive compulsion to find out what made things work, and to make things ourselves, and women would make things too, they knitted and the men hammered and sawed and screwed things together.

A friend of mine has a craft shop and being elderly she is very resourceful, she comes from a generation where you had to make do and mend - she can weave, knit, make little wooden stools etched with a graphic of the customers choice, make doll's houses but says the younger end come into her shop and sadly are clueless, they can do none of these things. To their credit they man (well woman) the barricades protesting about climate change, the wastefulness of the consumer society yet can't even darn a sock lol And my elderly friend is not a prisoner of her generation, she keeps up with things, for example proudly showing off her new spanking new Galaxy phone last week.

[OneWorld]

[Sweeping generalisation alert]

I think there are three kinds of musician :-

1, Classically trained (includes Brass Band musos). Can read fluently but can't busk for toffee/lost without dots.

2, Self taught (rock/folk etc). Couldn't read to save a life but can work stuff out by ear and busk almost anything with up to a maximum of 4 chords

3, Jazz musicians. Can read, busk, improvise, spout theory 'till the cows come home, have chops to die for and can make a decent fist of anything they are asked to play.

[/SGA]

Please note the poster's lingual/buccal interface.......

I am rather proud to say my son fits quite well into the Jazz slot! A few years ago he was associated with a group of musicians in Paris and did the arrangements and parts for them. The "boss", a lady singer/songwriter roughed out the tunes but it was Steve that got them ready for performance. He told me she used to bother him because he would never write or rehearse his guitar solo (if there was one) "Don't worry" he would tell her "better fresh on the night". Seems he always nailed it.

My BIG question is...Why ain't we rich?!!

Dave.

Why aren't you rich?

MIles Davis was once asked "How do you make a $million out of jazz?" and Miles replied "Easy - you start with $2million"

[The Elf]

However, I do find it deeply upsetting that seemingly so many young people are (a) profoundly technically illiterate and (b) proud of their ignorance!

+1

...and you don't need to include the word 'technically'.

Try organizing a quiz night involving a significant number of under 30s and it's an incredibly sobering experience.

[Mike Stranks]

Men of a certain age unite! You have nothing to lose but your memories...!

... Nostalgia's not what it once was, is it?

[Hugh Robjohns]

Do I know you? ... you look familiar... Nurse, what's for supper tonight?

[OneWorld]

However, I do find it deeply upsetting that seemingly so many young people are (a) profoundly technically illiterate and (b) proud of their ignorance!

+1

...and you don't need to include the word 'technically'.

Try organizing a quiz night involving a significant number of under 30s and it's an incredibly sobering experience.

I sometimes try and adopt a more defensive stance regarding knowledge of the under 30's so if I go to a pub quiz and the questions about which hair dresser do Little Mix use or who was first to get bedded in Love Island then I am at a complete loss, an ignoramus, so different generations different knowledge.

However....I was in the pub when a football match was on - England v Germany and of course the anti-German banter was rife - "they don't like it up 'em" - "Don't mention the war" at which point one young lady said "We were doing the war in history at college last week - wasn't Hitler something to do with the war?" LOL

ON the other hand, I do watch some quiz programmes on TV and one is a quiz programme where families are the contestants, including the children, and some are very well informed, so there's hope for us yet I suppose.

[James Perrett]

When I grew up in the 60s we had Lego and Meccano, and lots of electronics magazines, and DIY magazines, so everyone made things and understood the engineering involved at some level. We also had Concorde and Apollo and the Harrier jump-jet, and TV programmes like Tomorrow's World and Horizon and more -- so science and engineering were, if not mainstream, at least fairly high profile and a positive influence.

It seems to me that people generally don't do DIY any more: it's far easier and cheaper to discard broken things and buy new. And modern technology is so complicated and intricate that no one can mend it (beyond the board-swapping level). So no-one can make their own mobile phone, or TV set, or even service their own cars these days.

I'm all for technological progress, but when did we lose all interest in how things work?

Lego and Meccano, now you're talking, warms the very cockles. Back in the day we seemed to have this obsessive compulsion to find out what made things work, and to make things ourselves, and women would make things too, they knitted and the men hammered and sawed and screwed things together.

Well our lad certainly hasn't lost interest in how things work. Only yesterday I caught him taking the transmitter from his radio control car apart to see if he could fix the aerial. He also knows a few other people around his age who are interested in technology. The only thing is that most of them are labelled as having special educational needs.

[Arpangel]

OK.
People, on the whole, don't make stuff, DIY shops where you could get 17 2 inch No 10's in a paper bag, and a cut length of 2X1 are gone forever.
So are tool shops, they are a rarity these days, I still have and use my Lindstrom side cutters (Cutters-Cutting) and "81's" (Pliers-Plieing) that I bought secondhand in a toolshop in 1969, when I started my first job with Plessey.
I used to dissapear down the shed at every opurtunity, taking stuff apart, mending things, and repairing my bike.
A friend told me that a neighbour wanted to repair his bike, the boy asked him......
"Which way do you turn the nut to get the wheel off?" that says it all IMO.

[baward]

One thing I do regret is the disappearance of the printed manual.

Too true, but it can go too far. For me, the highest peak (or lowest trough) of Manual was the trees-worth they included with (IIRC) Logic 9, which was the 1 inch thick main manual, plus about 3 other thinner ones, all wrapped up in a thick black box that you could probably have happily driven over with a tank (mind you, that was nothing compared to the manuals for the Synclavier II, but I somewhat digress.)

Technical support is a first port of call for me, followed by The Internet. In my case, Focusrite have been superb I have to say.

[ConcertinaChap]

For me, the highest peak (or lowest trough) of Manual was the trees-worth they included with (IIRC) Logic 9, which was the 1 inch thick main manual, plus about 3 other thinner ones, all wrapped up in a thick black box that you could probably have happily driven over with a tank

I've ditched the box but I still have the key manuals from that set and I still use them from time to time. A surprising amount of material there remains relevant and browsing through a book is still nicer than paging through a PDF.

CC

[muzines]

Too true, but it can go too far. For me, the highest peak (or lowest trough) of Manual was the trees-worth they included with (IIRC) Logic 9, which was the 1 inch thick main manual, plus about 3 other thinner ones, all wrapped up in a thick black box that you could probably have happily driven over with a tank

That was the first Logic Studio, Logic 8, I believe. Yes, I still have that mammoth box set.
When I went the the Apple Store on Regent Street to get Logic 9, I was much relieved to find it was a small DVD carry size box with only a getting started manual.

Actually, they had literally received their shipment of the new Logic 9 an hour or so earlier, and hadn’t yet put it out on display... they had to go and dig it out for me so I think I was probably one of the first people to get the retail package in London. It wasn’t yet an online AppStore purchase at that time.

[ConcertinaChap]

At least with all those books you felt as if you were getting value for money for your several hundred pounds (my wife was a mature music student at the time so we got it at academic discount which was pretty sizeable back then).

CC

[John Willett]

One thing I do regret is the disappearance of the printed manual.

I do agree - but nowadays most equipment is software controlled and has updades.

Every update means a completely new manual - so, in this instance, it's much better to update the manual electronically and have it as a PDF.

[Arpangel]

One thing I do regret is the disappearance of the printed manual.

I do agree - but nowadays most equipment is software controlled and has updades.

Every update means a completely new manual - so, in this instance, it's much better to update the manual electronically and have it as a PDF.

I never update software, just can't be bothered, if it needs constant updates then it must have been wrong or incomplete in the first place, a bit like buying a hardware compressor and getting a letter saying "here are some capacitors and a transistor, you need to solder them in at some point to get the maximum signal to noise ratio, we have a new meter coming out in a couple of weeks, is it alright if we send that to you as well?
If programming code was so easy I'm sure they'd leave programs open ended, so they didn't even have to bother with updates.

[ef37a]

One thing I do regret is the disappearance of the printed manual.

I do agree - but nowadays most equipment is software controlled and has updades.

Every update means a completely new manual - so, in this instance, it's much better to update the manual electronically and have it as a PDF.

I never update software, just can't be bothered, if it needs constant updates then it must have been wrong or incomplete in the first place, a bit like buying a hardware compressor and getting a letter saying "here are some capacitors and a transistor, you need to solder them in at some point to get the maximum signal to noise ratio, we have a new meter coming out in a couple of weeks, is it alright if we send that to you as well?
If programming code was so easy I'm sure they'd leave programs open ended, so they didn't even have to bother with updates.

Now I have professed my total PC numptyness at SoS forum many times but I do SO agree with the above!

In the purely hardware area of analogue electronics new products sometimes needed "mods" to improve a certain part of the performance but it was VERY rare that such mods affected the basic operation or safety of the equipment, they could thus be left until the gear came in for servicing.

Why then does Java, and Fire fox for just two systems seem to have updates every couple of weeks?
I also use IE11 on W7 (BT Yahoo) because it does some things better (FF has messed up Google Search) but in the last day or so an update has stopped auto-complete of email addresses and I am jiggered if I can sort it!

I understand (in a VERY limited way!) that things like Ms Security Essentials need to update but that never causes any changes to the basic software or my settings.

Dave.

[Mike Stranks]

I never update software, just can't be bothered, if it needs constant updates then it must have been wrong or incomplete in the first place, a bit like buying a hardware compressor and getting a letter saying "here are some capacitors and a transistor, you need to solder them in at some point to get the maximum signal to noise ratio, we have a new meter coming out in a couple of weeks, is it alright if we send that to you as well?
If programming code was so easy I'm sure they'd leave programs open ended, so they didn't even have to bother with updates.

For the benefit of any relative newbies who've persevered thus far in this increasingly bizarre saga, please don't treat this statement as anything approaching normal. Manufacturers of both hardware which is software driven and software itself regularly issue updates. These are often in response to user requests or suggestions and give you more facilities or make the product easier to use - or both. I always instal updates when I become aware of them. Costs me nothing apart from 10 mins max of my time. So, I always instal software updates.

[ef37a]

Well said Mike but it is very annoying when they SEEM to take away a function you found useful!

Dave.

[Drew Stephenson]

Since we're on a thread about whys and wherefores, it's worth taking a moment to understand the concept of Agile development (note the capital letter, this has nothing to do with gymnastics).
In the old days (pre-2001), if you were building a new and complex thing, you'd put together a project plan that followed a linear sequence. Requirements would be defined, both functional and non-functional (what it does and what it is), then the solution would be designed, then built, then tested, then launched.
At least that was the theory.
Unfortunately projects are susceptible to many different spanners in their works. Requirements are added to get the product into certain distributors (not because the end user needs them) or they're missed because underlying assumptions are wrong. Designs are built to the spec of the requirements not necessarily what the customer actually wanted, or compromises are built in because of inherent contradictions in requirements. Similar challenges occur in the build stage, requirements and design features being specified that can't be built or call for components that can't be sourced within budget. The test cycle then gets squeezed because delays earlier in the chain have eaten into the time and it can't be replanned because the CEO has promised that it will be available by a certain trade show...
Finally the product gets launched and in the meantime the market has moved on and customers are no longer buying minidiscs...
This is called the waterfall cycle and, despite being a brilliant example of how the Pareto principle works at each stage of the project, it's still the best way of delivering certain kinds of projects.

Long post, part 2 follows...

[Edit]
Late P.S. - of course everything that got dropped along the way got bundled into 'Phase 2' of the project. But the marketing department claimed all the benefits for phase 1, so there was never a business case for phase 2, so it never got delivered and the poor buggers in customer service had to keep going with manual workarounds and customer complaints...

[ConcertinaChap]

Why then does Java, and Firefox for just two systems seem to have updates every couple of weeks?

I bet your hardware had faults but didn't have people actively seeking to find those faults so that they could exploit them to, as it might be, raid your bank account. So I would always update Firefox as soon as possible after a release and I would also for Java for the same reason if it were present on my computer.

Can I mention that a significant zero-day exploit on Firefox was patched just a couple of weeks ago? If you use Firefox and haven't updated it recently please do so because the exploit is actively being, um, exploited.

Other software less critical to my security, plug-ins for example, then yes, I sympathise with your argument.

CC

PS looking forward to your discussion of Agile. In my experience Agile's primary use is to cut development budgets. It's a wonderful approach for managers who believe that running around looking busy and shouting a lot is good management.

[OneWorld]

Well said Mike but it is very annoying when they SEEM to take away a function you found useful!

Dave.

As I know to my cost, I updated to the May update of Win10 and I have had nothing but grief, one piece of hardware ICON QCON has stopped working, as may be seen in my other post

I updated to the May2019 release because I found Cubase 10 needed it. I got things working again with compromises but as I look at Cubase 10 now, it idles at 25% and I have to use 128 samples and more latency. If I load a Groove Agent into C10 with the real-time peak at 32 samples it goes right up to 100%

I have gone back to Cubase 8.5 - latency at 32 samples with several VSTs - no problem

[OneWorld]

Why then does Java, and Firefox for just two systems seem to have updates every couple of weeks?

I abandoned Firefox in favour of Opera, FF was updating every few days, hardly worth the bother

[Drew Stephenson]

Part 2, Agile development:
Initially software development followed the same kind of lifecycle, but gradually people started to realise that, because software didn't have all the same restrictions as hardware, projects could be managed in a different way, and products could be designed and built in a different way. The widespread availability of the internet suddenly allowed for an upgrade cycle that didn't require returning products to the manufacturer.
In 2001 the Agile Manifesto was published, defining a set of principles that allowed projects to run in a different way, and hence products to be designed and built in a different way.
There are different types of Agile development, but most of them work on the principle of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Cutting through the jargon, this is basically asking, "what is the simplest product we can build that a customer will buy and use?"
Build that. Test it. Release it. Gather feedback from your user group and release an update with fixes and the next most important set of features grouped as an MVP. Repeat.
To do this effectively requires significant changes to how an organisation works. Co-located, cross-disciplinary teams, simultaneously working on all stages of the lifecycle, running to two-to-four week delivery cycles, working continuously from user feedback...
It's a very different environment to the old sequential and siloed approach.
But if done correctly it can yield massive benefits: time to market can be hugely reduced; effort is not wasted producing features that are never used; having your business analyst, designer, programmer and tester in the same room throughout the development cycle means you don't go chasing down rabbit holes of undeliverable features; the customer gets a constantly improving product that is focused on exactly what they need; etc. etc.

Caveat 1 - Agile is not always the best solution, don't believe anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.
Caveat 2 - it is just as easy to run a bad Agile project as it is to run a bad waterfall one, and the wrong management behaviours can screw it up in exactly the same way.
Caveat 3 - setting up an organisation to work this way is much easier than trying to remake an existing organisation into this form. Hence it's a very common scenario in start-ups and it's why you'll frequently see large organisations hive off their 'innovation teams' into a separate structure, probably called a 'digital garage' or something equally wank. It doesn't generally work but it's easier to get past the Board...

Anyway, the point behind all this is to address the idea that because a modern bit of software might need a constant development cycle because it's not been properly designed and built.
Hopefully I've explained that actually that constant development cycle is a feature and is, in fact, a sign that the product is being designed and built exactly as planned.
It's just a different kind of plan.