Diving into the Android platform has been an interesting experience.  As usual new platforms bring a lot of "gold rush" seekers hoping to make their millions with some hit application.  That usually means if you've subscribed to the email group of that platform it can be quite noisy and alive with all kinds of messages to sort through.  Most however are from lazy new developers who haven't bothered to search for a solution to their problem even though its been posted  and  has been asked 500 times already.  Others seem to be wanting to do things way outside the parameter of the device and usually something it will never be capable of doing.   So of the 500 or more daily messages on android-developers@googlegroups.com only an occasional message is worth looking at.

I hate to seem so cynical about the software industry but I recall I once wondered what would happen when all the applications people wanted were developed and available?   Of course we all know the answer to that.  You yearly add some probably worthless features and hype them because everyone wants the "latest version" and are willing to part with their hard earned money to get it.  Such is the software industry circus.

I've got a few programs that are several years old that do just what I want.  And I currently have no need of new features and even if I did want the update then there is the chance it won't work well on my aging system.  Yup, there is that other catch.   If you are doing things like video editing and want to use the AVCHD format even if you have software that supports that platform it often renders SLOWLY.  Time for a new dual core machine or maybe a multi core but some of the software I have doesn't yet support multi core even in their latest versions.   And of course if you upgrade the machine you might wind up with a new operating system that doesn't support your old software and guess what the software's upgrade doesn't support the new operating system.

That reminds me of the release last week of Snow Leopard and Leo LaPorte on his show saying that now that it has been released the developers need to support it.  Let's see, Leo, you've been in this business how long?  At least 15 years?  And you still don't know how the software industry works?  You'll only get that kind of support when there is nothing else left to sell new versions of the program or if not the marketing department demands it (same thing).  Most likely the programs in question weren't even specifically developed for dual core either but under some systems they wind up run on one core while the operating system runs on the other.  And of course the big secret is that a lot of programs are filled with messy code and differing coding styles as to be a nightmare to rework for such things.  So much for our attempts back in the early 1990s to standardize coding and systematize development.  We all know that releasing on time even with bugs trumps that.