Do you run a blog? If so, how do you update it? We find that going through the Web interface of most blogs makes us antsy as all of the blog UIs we’ve tried are just way too slow. To get around this aggravation we have been using the Zempt 4.0 client (see our review) but recently decided to give Ecto a try.
It wasn’t that we were unhappy with Zempt but after we read a glowing review of Ecto in the first issue of Make: magazine (see our review) we felt that Ecto needed to be checked out. We downloaded the current release, version Ecto 1.0.8.4 for Windows (Mac is also available), ran it up, and, well, we were disappointed.
Our disappointment came from the fact that the software is being charged for despite being unfinished. We know it is unfinished because it has really crappy error handling. For example, should you omit the http:// part of the the URL when you specify where Ecto can access the API of the blog you’re using, the program doesn’t tell you that the method name is missing, try to fix it up, or do anything sensible.
Oh no, it first says “There was an error generating the XML document” then generates an unhandled exception that complains “Invalid URI: The format of the URI could not be determined.” At other times Ecto proclaims “Object reference not set to an instance of an object.” Gad.
While we appreciate that this is an early version of the software to try to charge $17.95 for code that has such poor error reporting seems optimistic. When the competition is as good as Zempt but also free we expect rather more polish for our money.
Now, you might say that $18 isn’t much to pay for an application and that the authors will fix it. Really? Can you assure us that the software will a) be fixed as we think it should be, and b) ever be fixed.
We are all for supporting the small development shops but if they don’t offer real value with a professionally finished product they are leading paying customers down a dead end.
