Re: To cook or not to cook?
 

Like what was said in post#2, what really be nice if if the chef's would release kitchen compatible config packs...then people can have the best of both worlds.

Re: To cook or not to cook?
 

This poll is more of a question of time. If you're on this site, chances are good that you would cook your own rom if you had the time for all that it takes to accomplish this. The learning curve is much much less than it was just 12 months ago. However you still have the troubleshooting issues to work out, which is far more time consuming when you're doing it alone, rather than having a rom provided to you along with others feedback here.

In reality, we're all in the same boat...just some may wish to say they "cooked up their own rom", but that's still just a matter of pulling together a collective knowledge.

Some time ago I tried to initiate a snowball effect in leading towards the kitchen team as it's known today. All it takes is one good idea and it can stand on it's own merit and create it's own momentum. Whether it would have happened regardless or was already underway somewhere incognito is yet unknown.

I'll say this though...I've learned as much from feeding on the roms as I have from cooking them. Tasted more flavors than I could have reasonably had time to cook myself. And with that, I've had forced on me some setups which otherwise I wouldn't have ever used again, yet that were better than what I had used before. For instance -
I had given up on OperaMini, but then seen it in a new rom and tried again - this time it was working flawlessly - apparently using the latest version coupled with the es-Java made it absolutely perfect for what I was needing.
Without using someone else's rom I might never had tried it again, nor a number of other apps such as htc-home or Ultimate Launcher, etc, because it takes too long for me to repeatedly test every possible scenario/setup with each new app update.

Other than the Kitchen Team (and a few others) -I think that the stage that it's at now most people just consider "cook your own rom" to just mean changing theme stuff and adding some programs...

It's mostly been just time-management for me though.

Re: To cook or not to cook?
 

I wouldn't go overboard with the ROM cooking, it's pretty pointless just to cook one rom to the next just to try out configuration, that's what Add/Remove programs are for. Rom cooking meaning it's something you want to add/remove permanently.

Re: To cook or not to cook?
 

So true. That's why I wish the ROM makers out there would do kitchen packs instead of roms...would make building on each others knowledge so much faster/easier, not to mention standardizing the process.
I can answer that - it was already going on incognito.

Re: To cook or not to cook?
 

Very true. It is nice to have everything loaded just so, however. Cooking got started back when permanent storage was rather scarce, and wasted ROM space was exactly that - wasted. These days, unused ROM space get's added to the storage pool, making add/remove more attractive for a lot of things. Throw in a tool like tautoinstall, and the need to cook constantly goes way down. It is fun though :).

Re: To cook or not to cook?
 

You are either a true chef or a grateful cheerleader. I second the time constraint issue...
So with that in mind... "Rah Rah" and thanks!!

I say keep moving forward and clean out your hard drive.
Like most excellent software, you usually want the latest version! (Windows Vista excluded... Ha!)

DJ