Advertisement: We should include the "libdivecomputer" aspect

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Feb 6, 2013, at 12:13 AM, Amit Chaudhuri <amit.k.chaudhuri at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I was first alerted to the existence of subsurface through a magazine article.

Which magazine? Which article???

> I was then drawn to it by support for the Suunto Gekko.  There is this nutty situation where Suunto don't support their own model in terms of PC connectivity but do provide it for more expensive models.  I had one computer in each category here and they were exceptionally unhelpful when I contacted them to explore options.
> 
> Functionality and polish pre 2.1 were arguably a bit weak compared to commercial offerings, but I've been amazed at how fast that has been changing.

I still think there's a ways to go when it comes to polish. It still feels very rough in many areas. It has this open source feel to it. It works well for hackers, it is just a bit out of reach for "normal" people.
The unintuitive editing (why don't you just edit in the regular Notebook page?), the odd menus, the small and not so small usability issues. The learning curve is too steep and the out of the box experience is still not good enough for my liking.

> So I think the story is pretty good these days AND there is a decent chance of attracting people with older machines - assuming they are present in the target readership.

That is certainly true. I think we look very good compared to many of the divecomputer vendor programs. I think some of the dedicated divelog programs are still quite a bit ahead of us. 

/D