Congrats to the Breve Team!

Hi -

 I downloaded Breve today, and was amazed at the quality of your work:
 -The software installed seamlessly under Mac OS X.
- It ran the demos with no problems (although it crashed on me once)
- I downloaded the CLI version, and by following the instructions was
able to run it.
- I was able to create a HelloWorld example myself and run it in both
the integrated versino and the CLI .

In a previous life I was a software reviewer for various journals,
including the then french edition of MacUser. I learnt that most users
abandon software that crashes at install or first use. Indeed the
ability of software to survive the first flight by a new user is an
important review criterion, which Breve meets. Much of the other
software I have seen, in particular open source, comes with
complicated installation procedures and crashes and burns at the first
launch attempt.

If there is one suggestion I might offer at this point, it would be to
make "jumbo packs" that contain the executables, AND the Breve white
paper AND documentation AND the source code for the first time user.
This makes the download longer, but as a user you are then sure that
the source code, and docs and examples you have on disk all play
together. Finding the right pieces, once your installation has gone a
bit out of date can be a pain. My experience as a scientist is that I
have often kept using an out of date version, because once you start
doing an experiment you don't want to tamper with the frameworks. At
which point you can need source to that old version etc etc.

Thank you for making such a powerful and well maintained piece of
software generally available!


Edmund
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