In message , harry newton
writes:
He who is Char Jackson said on Wed, 11 Oct 2017 23:48:33 -0500:

I must agree with both JP Gilliver and nospam that there are many people
who make emotional decisions where they no longer can look objectively at
the problem set.
I wonder if Gvim text editor would be an example of that. ;-)
Naw, probably not.

I smiled with pleasure when I saw your note because you understood that I
am extremely efficient at typing with gvim (which I'm using at this very
moment to type my Usenet posts).

I'm glad you didn't mind my little dig (-:. [My name's John by the way.]

I consider myself "decent" in finding the canonical freeware to perform any
particular task, and, as you may note, there rarely (if ever) is a task
where freeware doesn't suffice.

I don't consider you "indecent" at all, though perhaps a little
over-evangelical in your choice(s) once you've made it/them!
[]
The thing is that I've now invested a lot of time (compared to the
two-minute length of the video anyway) in learning Shotcut, right?
Once I've invested that time, it's almost like it's a barrier to investing
*more* time in testing out other video freeware editors such as avidemux,
ffmpeg, imagemagick, virtualdub, etc.

Yes. (And we're all guilty of that to some extent too.) Applies at all
levels - I'd say, probably, above all to the OS itself (whether between
various versions of Windows, or of Linux - or even of others).

I think of freeware selection similar to how an employee is selected out of
a stack of resumes.

I wasn't going to respond to this comparison, but since you've brought
it up again, I will. I take it you are or have been involved in
recruitment decisions. (It is a good analogy though.)

The first phase is to weed out the crap in the resumes.

That phase also eliminates those who might be excellent at the job but
are crap at presenting themselves in resumes - unless it is a broad
stage which only eliminates a small proportion. I suppose the software
equivalent is looking at the webpages about the (potential) product, and
the equivalent of my objection is that the author may not be that great
at (or have expended much time on) the webpages. Actually, I can think
of several softwares I use ... certain utility authors have a rather
plain website (I like those, but they're a lot less flashy than many)
but produce excellent utilities, and the home site of IrfanView hasn't
_changed_ much for ages, but that's a prog. I'd certainly not be without

The second phase is to run a quick phone call to weed out more crap.
The third phase is to run the first interview and make quick decisions.

Again, risks eliminating the candidates who are not good at interviews,
unless the job is one in which people interaction is important. (I know
it is, in theory, for all jobs, but some are more customer-facing than
others: technician/machinist versus salesman, for example.)

The fourth phase is to run the second (perhaps day long) interview.
Then the fifth phase is to pick the best out of the short list to hire.
Once hired, the sixth (longest) phase is working with that person.

Here's the analogy to the point you're making which is that once you've
worked with that person for a decade or two, you don't just drop them for
the next pretty face that comes along.
You work with the person to fix the flaws (if possible).
Of course, if that person/software turns out to be a dinosaur where the new
person/software does the job better/faster/cheaper, then, of course, you
fire the person/software and hire the new person/software.

Or, if your company has the resources, you keep both employees but have
them do different tasks. In the case of software, the resources required
are less: as I've mentioned in the other thread, I have one text editor
I use just for one file, and it doesn't take a lot of my mind to do so.

But you give the existing employee/software the chance to do the job first.

The trick (and the whole expense, really) in freeware, is in choosing the
canonical freeware for the job. All the work is mostly in figuring out
which is the best software to invest your energy into making it work.

And keeping an open mind even after you've made the decision. (Unlike
with employees, nobody - other than you who has to invest time again! -
gets hurt when you "fire" the old software. Which as I've just said you
don't have to do anyway.)

This is no different, conceptually, than investing training and other
efforts in your most adaptable employees, to help them work better.

In the case of video editors, I thank whomever it was that suggested
Shotcut, because it seems to have the right attitude, which is that it's a
cross-platform open-source freeware intended to do what it takes to get the
job done.

Can't comment. The only video editing I do is in VirtualDub, but I very
much doubt that's anywhere near the optimum (it doesn't AFAIK allow
chopping into segments and working on them individually): I _think_ I
originally installed it as a format converter, and (at least the version
I have) it isn't even very versatile at that. I can remove segments and
trim, which are about all I do.

The only failing, so far, of shotcut is that it's a bit hard to use (but I
don't know if all video editing software has similar quirks), and that it

I suspect they mostly do; it's a complex thing to do.
[]
At the moment, I've hired Shotcut who is in the probationary period of
about a year before I can declare that "employee" tenured in my software
repository.

You might at some point allow VideoPad (or something else) to "join" as
probationer while not "firing" Shotcut.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

31.69 nHz = once a year. (Julian Thomas)