Can we stop the ROM madness?

[indagroove]

Originally Posted by Sporkman

im shocked this is still open

As am I. What happened to the forum rules. There were hardcore a few weeks ago, and now it's just chaos here.

I think that one major point that some folks may be missing here is that "competition" among chefs is one of the main factors that progress the quality of the roms. Every chef wants to have what's "best" and fastest. If chef "A" implements something, you better bet that chef "B" won't be far behind, and may have something to push the envelope a bit further.

Case in point, just a few months ago, no chefs were building 6.5 roms, for fear of MS pulling their roms. Myself and one other chef started building 6.5 roms regularly. Next thing you know, everyone is getting in on the action. I think that's great! We need the competition to push the envelope and get the best possible experience from our devices.

Aslo, most chefs do discuss ideas and issues regularly. Personally I talk regularly with a half a dozen or so known chefs and we talk in detail about ideas and whatnot, via IM or PM. Mighty and I talk usually at least a few times a week, but our roms will never be even close to similar becauls we simply have a different methodology. Neither of our roms are "better" or "best", except for what suits any individual user.

Just be happy that you are getting a wide assortment of rom flavors to choose from (and for free). I like Rocky Road, and don't want to be stuck with just Vanilla.

[x10guy]

This is probably one of the best posts of the ENTIRE thread. Can Indagroove's comments be the final word on this?

Originally Posted by indagroove

As am I. What happened to the forum rules. There were hardcore a few weeks ago, and now it's just chaos here.

I think that one major point that some folks may be missing here is that "competition" among chefs is one of the main factors that progress the quality of the roms. Every chef wants to have what's "best" and fastest. If chef "A" implements something, you better bet that chef "B" won't be far behind, and may have something to push the envelope a bit further.

Case in point, just a few months ago, no chefs were building 6.5 roms, for fear of MS pulling their roms. Myself and one other chef started building 6.5 roms regularly. Next thing you know, everyone is getting in on the action. I think that's great! We need the competition to push the envelope and get the best possible experience from our devices.

Aslo, most chefs do discuss ideas and issues regularly. Personally I talk regularly with a half a dozen or so known chefs and we talk in detail about ideas and whatnot, via IM or PM. Mighty and I talk usually at least a few times a week, but our roms will never be even close to similar becauls we simply have a different methodology. Neither of our roms are "better" or "best", except for what suits any individual user.

Just be happy that you are getting a wide assortment of rom flavors to choose from (and for free). I like Rocky Road, and don't want to be stuck with just Vanilla.

[cooltech59]

Originally Posted by indagroove

The beauty of many different ROMs is that there is a flavor for everyone. One "unified" rom would be boring, bland, and very much a compromise in many different aspects. If you want a stock rom, just go with the -- well, with the stock rom.

For me, my rom is best, but for others the worst. Mine doesn't have Manila (which I hate and others can't do without), and is a black based rom (some can't see as well and need white -- I hate white keyboards and dialers).

See where I'm going with this..

I agree with you indy, I am currently using my Hellfire v1.2 rom that I cooked in you kitchen (23001 build). And it is snappy at 24 for the pagepool. Everyone has different needs, wwwants and tastes in roms. One rom even "Unified" would end up tasteless.

[mlin]

Originally Posted by x10guy

This is probably one of the best posts of the ENTIRE thread. Can Indagroove's comments be the final word on this?

I agree.

[spectheintro]

Originally Posted by indagroove

Aslo, most chefs do discuss ideas and issues regularly. Personally I talk regularly with a half a dozen or so known chefs and we talk in detail about ideas and whatnot, via IM or PM. Mighty and I talk usually at least a few times a week, but our roms will never be even close to similar becauls we simply have a different methodology. Neither of our roms are "better" or "best", except for what suits any individual user.

That's actually a very interesting point. I'd be curious to know how much flexibility a chef has in modifying the ways in which the OS components work together to make a ROM "faster" or "more stable." If there are actually fundamentally different ways of achieving that same goal within the same OS, then it could be that what I am proposing may not only be impractical (something I already conceded), but actually infeasible.

In any case, yes, the thread should be more or less closed.

[Big D5]

Moved to main TP Forum

[har226]

Prob. not going to happen I think if you get more than two chefs working together there will be too much conflict in what they want done and how they want it to look and whats included..... Everyone like different flavors and I guess everyone decides which rom they like and go with it ....

[chuck norris]

One thing I noticed just in reading this thread is that many chefs and "vets" are getting defensive. The first step of progress is to realize nothing is perfect and there is always room for improvement, regardless of if that source of improvement lies in community feedback or your own doing. This guy wants to improve the ROMs out there, and I think everyone else does too for the greater good. Of course, making a community ROM is not feasible (everyone has different tastes!), but there seem to be some things that could be improved upon.

That being said, here are a few of the problems I've noticed in my extensive lurking, some of which may not be detailed in the OP (but felt by many):

1. Organization of ROMs. Everyone has their own spin on how to display a ROM's details in a thread, show screenshots/features/etc., and the threads are generally big cluster****s. Like many have mentioned, there is competition present, so some chefs organize their thread posts better than others, but some of the spatially-challenged chefs make it difficult to evaluate. Perhaps a post standard / structure can aid this process for users to evaluate which features are present in the ROM, resource details, screenshots, etc. No information should go in a ROM topic other than ROM-specific details; i.e., CABs should stay in a separate thread/forum because they can really make a thread chaotic.

2. Performance statistics. Obviously there are reference points like pagepool, RAM consumption, etc., but these ROMs don't have benchmarks or tools to really TEST speed. I don't know enough about the technology to know what is feasible here, but I think this is an important datapoint missing from the decision-making process for new users. Saying your ROM is fast but still having different sections of the OS bog down does not mean it is fast... In fact, I'm currently using a supposedly complete ROM right now that takes SECONDS to navigate between certain menu items in the contacts manager (all the while the chef claims everything on it is super fast). Know that I'm providing constructive criticism when I say this, but that claim seems unacceptable and is misleading.

3. Community feedback. There's currently no way to know how highly rated a ROM is by the community. You can attempt to gauge by number of posts in a ROM's thread, but this is by no means an accurate or easy-to-use reference point for ratings/reviews of a ROM. I'm not sure how to rectify this aspect of the ROM scene, but perhaps this can only be solved by a third-party ROM collaboration site or a survey monkey review link in each ROM's OP or something (sorry, I have a market research background ).

The bottom line is, not everyone has time to go in and test all these ROMs out. Everyone GREATLY appreciates the time these chefs put into building custom ROMs (and most reasonable people should show support through donations), but there is always room to improve the ROM distro/eval process for newcomers.

One last note--obviously, some chefs are better at some of these than others are, but the focus should be a standardization of the presentation of ROMs (not the ROMs themselves)...