Last night I went searching for s small, fairly simple utility that would pull info from a CDDB database (or similar such as Amazon) and use it as the base for ID3 tags on MP3’s. I had resigned myself to the fact that most likely such an application was going to require Windows as almost all apps like this target the non-technical market. The advantage of this of course was that any application i found, or so i thought, would be simple to use.
After about 30 minutes searching (This was FAR too long to begin with) I’d located two Windows apps. And yes, before anyone asks, I had trawled through sourceforge and freshmeat looking for an appropriate OSS app to do the same. Both of the apps I found reminded me strongly of the Crazy Frog, not a good sign.
Anyway, getting to the point of this rant, every single application i found (I went searching again after the first two) sucked! They were either buggy, had terrible interfaces (like REALLY REALLY terrible, despite the fact that there was more eyecandy than OSX), or just didn’t work. A combination of these was also favoured. They were all overburdoned with features and were slow, clunky and not at all the solution to the rather simple problem I had.
After 2 hours i gave up and did the whole lot manually in 20 minutes. IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD!
Now admittedly I may not be the elite internet surfer who can pinpoint exactly what he wants in under 20 seconds, but I think I’m pretty good and I searched all the normal locations for a prog such as this. The only conclusion I can come to, and i’ve been coming to this for quite some time, is that Windows programmers don’t know what they’re doing. They rely heavily upon other peoples libraries and hack them together with a bling’d up (read garish) UI and charge $30 for it.
I’ve placed this particular task on my list of apps to write at the end of this year and, after a little preliminary reading on the area, i think I’d have something whipped up in about a week of off and on coding. I don’t consider myself a great programmer but even for me thats a quick little development life. How can a company made up of at least 1 full time programmer get it so badly wrong?
tim says:
Craftsmanship in software is very rare to find these days.