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02-06-2015, 12:42 PM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Norway
Posts: 140
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What's the deal with keeping the download so small?
Seen some discussion here and there where download-size pops up, and the need to keep it small.
My question is, why?
In this day and age of broadband, does it matter if the download/install is 20MB or 200MB (with Python bundled for example).
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02-06-2015, 01:08 PM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Somewhere PRO
Posts: 1,049
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I dont use Python, so its pretty safe to say that i, for one, wouldn't be too keen on downloading an extra 190Mb of stuff i won't use.
Plugins, Themes, Extensions, Runtimes/Libaries, etc etc are what would be considered "user optional".
__________________
"REAPER... You're simply the best" - Tina Turner
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02-06-2015, 01:16 PM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Oulu, Finland
Posts: 8,062
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lannister
Seen some discussion here and there where download-size pops up, and the need to keep it small.
My question is, why?
In this day and age of broadband, does it matter if the download/install is 20MB or 200MB (with Python bundled for example).
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It certainly matters for Cockos themselves, as they offer the full product for download for anyone without paying. It's not free to offer downloads at the scale Cockos must be experiencing...(That said, I personally find the issue of download size a bit annoying since I could very well download much more without too much issues, if it meant I'd get the best possible product. At the moment, I often wonder if Cockos's mission to keep the download size small means the product remains suboptimal.)
__________________
I am no longer part of the REAPER community. Please don't contact me with any REAPER-related issues.
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02-06-2015, 01:32 PM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Stockholm
Posts: 206
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The actual program (compiled code) generally takes up very little space. It's actually somewhat mysterious how other DAW manage to make the downloads so big. (Graphics and sound files of various descriptions make up the bulk of it I imagine. Loop libs and what not. The so called value added stuff that reaper doesn't have much.)
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02-06-2015, 01:43 PM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: New York
Posts: 387
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lannister
Seen some discussion here and there where download-size pops up, and the need to keep it small.
My question is, why?
In this day and age of broadband, does it matter if the download/install is 20MB or 200MB (with Python bundled for example).
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Because it lets users install ONLY that which matters to them. It's one of my favorite Reaper 'features'!
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02-06-2015, 02:19 PM
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#6
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 2,301
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Why encourage software 'bloat'?
There are enough programs out there (ahem, Microsoft) that have grown to unreasonable size without any real added value to the users.
__________________
iMac i5quad/12gbRAM/1Tb Glyph drive/1Tb samples drive > Motu828mkII ---- Still run my GatewayM520 2.8ghz XP laptop. Video editing, 3D work and audio with zero problems.
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02-06-2015, 02:19 PM
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#7
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Super Moderator (no feelings)
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: On or near a dike
Posts: 9,834
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FWIW, the download size has almost tripled since v3.
Anyway, since REAPER is only available as a download, size does matter to some degree. That's not so much about bandwidth-to-pay by Cockos, it's more about the rather frequent updates, the non-incremental update scheme and keeping that a feasible thing outside of Scandinavia, metropolitan areas and other places that have a better-than-average bandwidth supply. Many people in rural areas, in particular in developing countries (like Germany ) still don't have appropriate broadband coverage, or only at excessive costs via mobile networks, with plans between 300 and 30000 MB, or they are stuck with old phone lines giving them hardly more than dial-up speed. If I interpreted the numbers on WP right, this is still the majority of the world population.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenakios
(That said, I personally find the issue of download size a bit annoying since I could very well download much more without too much issues, if it meant I'd get the best possible product. At the moment, I often wonder if Cockos's mission to keep the download size small means the product remains suboptimal.)
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I think there are countless examples proving that size and quality of a software are completely unrelated to each other, and other examples that imply their relation is just the other way around. REAPER is as big as it needs to be, functionality is not proportional to size, you should know that.
I don't know if you can call that a "mission", but there is both some necessity and some...how can I put that...engineering pride to make the code efficient. This in turn does not imply that there's an impact on whatever you mean by "suboptimal" at all - if anything this helps having the option to "up-optimize" the software because its core is small and therefore there's room to fit in whatever you mean by that.
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02-06-2015, 02:23 PM
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#8
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Unwired (probably in the proximity of Amsterdam)
Posts: 4,868
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lannister
In this day and age of broadband [...].
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That may be true for you and me, but it certainly isn't true for everyone. And even where broadband is available, it isn't necessarily affordable to everyone.
Also, many REAPER users simply hate bloatware, and I guess Cockos does so as well.
__________________
˙lɐd 'ʎɐʍ ƃuoɹʍ ǝɥʇ ǝɔıʌǝp ʇɐɥʇ ƃuıploɥ ǝɹ,noʎ
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02-06-2015, 02:52 PM
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#9
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 9,090
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Also remember that many software's come with extra copy protection schemes, which can be double the code of the program itself.
__________________
The Sounds of the Hear and Now.
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02-06-2015, 02:54 PM
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#10
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: near Memphis, TN
Posts: 531
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I use a dish data plan for my internet. I greatly appreciate the small size.
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02-06-2015, 04:40 PM
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#11
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 1,595
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658) in The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Good things, when short, are twice as good.
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I like this idea applied to software.
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02-06-2015, 05:28 PM
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#12
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Scribe
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Van Diemen's Land
Posts: 12,166
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lannister
In this day and age of broadband ...
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Not everyone had access to fast broadband. Try living in regional Australia, for example (or, in many cases, suburban Australia for that matter).
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02-06-2015, 05:53 PM
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#13
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Adelaide, South Australia (originally from Geelong)
Posts: 5,598
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nicholas
Not everyone had access to fast broadband. Try living in regional Australia, for example (or, in many cases, suburban Australia for that matter).
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Exactly. I live in the Adelaide Hills and rely on my phone for Internet access. I have 2.5 GB per month. That is one of the reasons I don't jump in and review everyone's songs and watch the youtubes people post. I simply don't have the data allowance.
I greatly appreciate the small download size of REAPER.
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02-06-2015, 07:56 PM
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#14
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Online
Posts: 4,896
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ReaDave
Exactly. I live in the Adelaide Hills and rely on my phone for Internet access. I have 2.5 GB per month. That is one of the reasons I don't jump in and review everyone's songs and watch the youtubes people post. I simply don't have the data allowance.
I greatly appreciate the small download size of REAPER.
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Japers thats rough!
I have fiber optic cable and I'm in the middle(ish) of nowhere.They're gonna be rolling out 1gb/s broadband in Dublin soon.
MIne is a paltry 100mb/s
On topic..I can totally see why it would be a matter of great pride to the lads that the download is so small.
Thats some slick coding..when you think of what reaper does.
No wonder I have 1ms latency..its a programming work of art.Ultra efficiant
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it aint worth a bop,if it dont got that pop
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02-07-2015, 04:20 AM
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#15
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Scribe
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Van Diemen's Land
Posts: 12,166
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ReaDave
Exactly. I live in the Adelaide Hills and rely on my phone for Internet access. I have 2.5 GB per month. That is one of the reasons I don't jump in and review everyone's songs and watch the youtubes people post. I simply don't have the data allowance.
I greatly appreciate the small download size of REAPER.
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Sad but true. NBN alas is an acronym for "No Broadband Network." If you want decent broadband, hop across to New Zealand ... or Indonesia, or Cambodia, or ... well anywhere really.
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02-07-2015, 06:03 PM
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#16
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Perth, W.A.
Posts: 1,708
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nicholas
Sad but true. NBN alas is an acronym for "No Broadband Network." If you want decent broadband, hop across to New Zealand ... or Indonesia, or Cambodia, or ... well anywhere really.
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Yup. Don't even need to be rural in Australia to be 'out of reach' I'm 10 minutes drive from Perth city with no adsl or fibre of any variety.
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02-07-2015, 06:46 PM
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#17
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Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: NYC
Posts: 15,721
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BTW: as a matter of policy, on performance sensitive code, we always choose speed over size. Usually smaller code is faster code, though.
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02-09-2015, 01:10 AM
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#18
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 417
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lannister
In this day and age of broadband, does it matter if the download/install is 20MB or 200MB
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In this day and age with so many men out there with 10+ inch penises why would a woman want a guy with an average 6 or 7 incher?
Remember it's not the size of the code that matters.., it's what you can do with it.
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02-09-2015, 01:01 PM
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#19
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Oud West, NL
Posts: 2,335
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I love this thread! Someone complaining that the Reaper package is TOO SMALL! Thought I'd never hear this one in a million years. It's usually just the opposite in most forums -- all about bloat and huge unneeded extras, all that ...
Reaper: a zillion teeny weeny text files!
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02-09-2015, 01:11 PM
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#20
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 10,478
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I know very little if anything about coding in any practical way but I am always impressed, if not dumbstruck, by how small the download is and how fast I can install a new version; not to mention that I can blindly upgrade without having to worry about bugs that may interrupt workflow.
Good gracious, what a world of difference with, for example, Pro Tools. PT users know what I'm talking about.
For me personally size doesn't really matter (downloading and installing Sibelius Sounds now, a whopping 23 GB; download took an hour, unzipping another hour) but not everyone has super high speed internet.
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02-09-2015, 01:34 PM
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#21
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Oud West, NL
Posts: 2,335
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Quote:
Originally Posted by peter5992
I know very little if anything about coding in any practical way but I am always impressed, if not dumbstruck, by how small the download is and how fast I can install a new version; not to mention that I can blindly upgrade without having to worry about bugs that may interrupt workflow.
Good gracious, what a world of difference with, for example, Pro Tools. PT users know what I'm talking about.
For me personally size doesn't really matter (downloading and installing Sibelius Sounds now, a whopping 23 GB; download took an hour, unzipping another hour) but not everyone has super high speed internet.
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Good point. Yes, I actually think my jaw dropped when I saw my very first Reaper Install download. ([edit] I had just come from having Cubase 5.)
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02-09-2015, 08:54 PM
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#22
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,019
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Quote:
Originally Posted by peter5992
I know very little if anything about coding in any practical way but I am always impressed, if not dumbstruck, by how small the download is and how fast I can install a new version; not to mention that I can blindly upgrade without having to worry about bugs that may interrupt workflow.
Good gracious, what a world of difference with, for example, Pro Tools. PT users know what I'm talking about.
For me personally size doesn't really matter (downloading and installing Sibelius Sounds now, a whopping 23 GB; download took an hour, unzipping another hour) but not everyone has super high speed internet.
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Yes, all you need to do is to try and update some other major DAW, and you'll instantly realize why they only do version updates once a year! It's like an all-day (or all-weekend) project to update PT etc.
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02-09-2015, 09:27 PM
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#23
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 126
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yep
Yes, all you need to do is to try and update some other major DAW, and you'll instantly realize why they only do version updates once a year! It's like an all-day (or all-weekend) project to update PT etc.
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I assume you have a fairly slow connection... It only takes me around ~30 minutes to update PT usually.
__________________
OS X 10.12.3/Win 8.1 - Late 2011 17" macbook pro.
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02-09-2015, 09:59 PM
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#24
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Banned
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 59
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+1 for keeping the downloads small.
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