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Are software reviews important and effective? If not, why not?

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jgpaiva:
I think that the most important question on a review is not "which application is the best?" but "which application fits me the most?". Often, reviews give the highest ranking to the application that can fit more people better.
I personally usually first look at the winning app to see if it fits my needs. If it does, i usually don't look at others. If later i find that it doesn't fit me (or it didn't fit me in the beggining), i look at the features list. I love those big tables with each program and several features, and crosses on each of them. I think it's all about comparison, if one app has all the features i really need, that's the one i use.

An interesting fact: from that review, i started using pspad. I loved it. But then, i didn't like the way it indented code, so, i found myself a new editor, which although doesn't have some good stuff that pspad has (like its simplicity), features a way more powerful syntax highliting and indentation: VIM ;)

JavaJones:
I loooove PSPad. :D I agree with your other comments about reviews in general though jgpaiva. Particularly about comparison charts. Which is why I loooove http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ http://www.wikimatrix.org/ and http://www.forummatrix.org/ They all run off a great common matrix engine too, which allows for filtering, dynamically adding and removing compared systems, notes, etc. Great stuff.

- Oshyan

tinjaw:
Great comments. In a related manner, I used to do reviews for The Wargamer. Their policy is to not use any kind of rating system so the reader can decide for themselves if it is a game they are interested in. For many of the same reasons mentioned here. They also have yearly reader choice awards - which I think are good to have also.

mitzevo:
The reviews are just great.. all though they are not "this is what we like, this is what you will like more than that" type of things.. ofcourse they are just general info for people who are looking for good software. Ofcourse every one is different and likes their own things. The reviews just pick some good choices or narrow the choices down so you don't have to start a big project for your self on finding the best of the best.

They run thru the most popular (and some least known/popular) software in each category so it saves yourself time having to test all programs yourself. I find this very useful as this saves a lot of time and you don't have to learn how to use each new program.
 :)

JavaJones:
I think that's an important point too - a review doesn't necessarily show you what exactly to use, but it can definitely show you what *not* to use. Without a good roundup you may have to consider every app in the field which is often hundreds. With a review you can at least narrow down your search right off to a few candidates and then investigate further.

- Oshyan

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