How would you rate the maturity of the following types of software? By maturity I mean how far along the in development the category of software is in it's evolution. Of course software will always continue to develop but I think that for a vast percentage of users software evolves to a point where it satisfies their needs. For example office applications like word processor I would consider highly matured. For the most part they comprehensively cover the task of creating, editing, and outputting text documents. So out of a 5 point scale I would give that category a 5. Let's say we're talking about "normal" consumer software that semi-pros would use not the ultra expensive multithousand dollar software.
I am curious as to how some of the members opinions on this differ. It can be viewed as a how happy are you with the current state of affairs?
So for the sake of argument:
5 = Fully developed with only small non-significant features needed
4 = Nearly fully developed but there is still room for useful features, GUI improvements. The best of the category is very stable but there is still room for improvement.
3 = Good but still in a phase of significant development. Features, GUI improvements and improvement in stability need to be addressed.
2 = Average and needing significant work.
1 = Poor and barely worth the effort to use it.
My rankings
Operating Systems - I can only speak to Windows and I give XP a 4
Non-linear editors - 4
DVD Authoring -3 (mainly based on stability and format compatibility issues)
Office Applications (Word processing, spreadsheets, database) - 5
Photo editing - 5
Vector drawing - 5
3-D Animation - 3
Audio Editing - 5
I am curious as to how some of the members opinions on this differ. It can be viewed as a how happy are you with the current state of affairs?
So for the sake of argument:
5 = Fully developed with only small non-significant features needed
4 = Nearly fully developed but there is still room for useful features, GUI improvements. The best of the category is very stable but there is still room for improvement.
3 = Good but still in a phase of significant development. Features, GUI improvements and improvement in stability need to be addressed.
2 = Average and needing significant work.
1 = Poor and barely worth the effort to use it.
My rankings
Operating Systems - I can only speak to Windows and I give XP a 4
Non-linear editors - 4
DVD Authoring -3 (mainly based on stability and format compatibility issues)
Office Applications (Word processing, spreadsheets, database) - 5
Photo editing - 5
Vector drawing - 5
3-D Animation - 3
Audio Editing - 5