Disorganised and duplicate work at xda - Android General

After spending nearly six months on xda forum, wading through different forums and threads in search for roms, apps ,games and tips&tricks i came to notice that there is a lot of redundant work going on into creating new roms. There are literally thousands of roms available in xda forum, most of which are just a clone of popular roms (cyanogen,aokp,pac-man,pa) and nothing else. Every rom claims to be smoother that the other and provide better stability and battery life but in the end its nothing but the same with a different name and wallpaper.
The same can be said about kernels each offering a different set of features but based on the same parent kernel.
I was wondering ,wouldn't it be great if the hardworking developers combine their effort into creating a rom which has all the features and functionality we see in these clone roms and provide the highest degree of stability ,smoothness and battery life.
afterall all these roms are based on android and hence there is no philosophical difference between them .

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[CHECKLIST] Custom ROMS

It has been a while since i joined xda and as have learned a lot and am still learning from all those wonderful peepz out here.COMING TO THE POINT
while dwelling at xda i have felt an urge to get things organized alot. I wanna put up my views on custom rom development here. As we all know stock roms normally are far stable than custom roms. "why?" I believe cause they go rigorous testing before a release. Well when we have so many people at xda(with all those skills you got) why can't we create a CHECKLIST of the bare minimum testing to be done by a dev/modder/themer before he uploads his roms and put them up for the members to test. If such a CHECKLIST were in EXISTANCE and every dev/modder/themer was to follow it sincerely then we could avoid lot of hazards and blunders that happen commonly.
Lots of Regards
Sam

[RECOMENDATION] Improve versioning

First of all I would like to say hello to everyone visiting this social space.
I created this thread having in mind that on developing software you will always have more than one version. As it can be seen on the developer's version history and storage space, no matter what developer is involved it is pretty hard to pick a good version or to realize which is working more or less better than a previous one you had before.
Maybe I'm not too specific. I am mainly referring to the custom rom developer's sites. It was very hard for me for instance to choose a proper CM9 build for my smartphone for the simple fact that there are many builds from many developers and each build has many versions.
My suggestion is for the developers to help us people that use they're software to better choose one of these builds by posting either a recommended build on they're thread or even in the directory since he is the one who knows best which build is the most stable and bug free and if he has some more time, maybe even post a bug to that specific file.
Why I am posting this is because It took me like 2 days for instance to get to a proper build of CM9 after switching through 5 CM9s and 4 CM10s and CM10.1 . I think this kind of information might make the life of us users a little more easy in picking what is best.
I hope you take into consideration this recomendation, it is my good intention into helping you helping us more efficiently.
PS: My recommendation is using a version history tool to do this more easily (I work in a research and development center and this is how all of our projects go since there are tons of version for each software.)

[Q] is there a way to filter [ROM]s from XDA?

Hello all,
I've been visiting XDA since the first android phones. And I love seeing all the development made for phones. [MOD]s, [KERNEL]s and fixes/tweaks interest me. The trouble is, they get completely buried under threads about re-skinned stock/ CM / AOKP roms with a different kernel strapped underneath, and given a name containing "jelly", a biblical term, or a word describing speed. Most of these roms don't contribute actual development, and although they are nice for beginners or people who cant spend a day without flashing their phone. I don't care about them, and they obscure the actual development that is happening at XDA.
Is there a proper way of removing threads containing the [ROM] tag from XDA?
The_Double said:
Hello all,
I've been visiting XDA since the first android phones. And I love seeing all the development made for phones. [MOD]s, [KERNEL]s and fixes/tweaks interest me. The trouble is, they get completely buried under threads about re-skinned stock/ CM / AOKP roms with a different kernel strapped underneath, and given a name containing "jelly", a biblical term, or a word describing speed. Most of these roms don't contribute actual development, and although they are nice for beginners or people who cant spend a day without flashing their phone. I don't care about them, and they obscure the actual development that is happening at XDA.
Is there a proper way of removing threads containing the [ROM] tag from XDA?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the [ROM] tag is to differentiate it from a kernel, mod, recovery etc. and doesn't imply that it's any more than a compiled CM base with just a theme add-on.
I understand your frustration completely, but people have to get started somewhere don't they? And the ones that have the most replies, i.e. most popular, tend to stay near the top of the forum anyways.
It would be rather arbitrary I think to take off that tag or tell someone their ROM was not "real" because they just compiled CM and added someone else's kernel and themed it a bit, because technically it IS a custom ROM. What you might do to help that specific chef is post suggestions in his ROM for how to better improve it, and browsing through the various ROMs doesn't take all that long does it? I mean I use Nexus devices, so you know how many ROMs I have to choose from.
I can appreciate where you're coming from, but a custom ROM is a custom ROM, no matter how heavily or lightly modified it is, and to now infer something isn't modified enough from Source to be labeled [ROM] is too much a gray area I think to adequately and fairly decide.
That was my observation too, the more popular the item, the better chance it'll be near the top of the list.
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app

[Q] [Need Advice] Best Daily Driver Rom for GS3?

Okay, deferring to the wisdom of the elders on this question. I've been all over the place with ROMs, TW and AOSP, but I'm heading to college in a few weeks and I'm looking to "settle down" with a ROM and ride it out until my upgrade in November. Is there a clear winner out there right now in terms of stability/battery life that still has some cool features? I'm very minimalistic and I don't need to be able to customize every single facet of the UI, but rooted stock is a bit too dull for me! I'm on CleanRom 8.2 atm and it's good but not great, I'm really looking for the ultimate daily driver ROM and kernel, please advise a lowly serf such as myself.
I don't believe the rules of XDA allow a "what is the best ROM" thread, so you may not get a simple answer (and to be honest, people have different priorities in what they want or need from a ROM, so what may be best for them may not be best for you).
That said, perhaps the best approach would be to look through the Android Development and Original Android Development topics and look at both the early posts (the OP, plus a page or two after), and the last page or two to get an sense of the install, the features, and the level of support you might get with each ROM. You will also be able to eliminate ROM's that are no longer supported (eg, I believe Scott is no longer supporting CR, so even though it was/is a great ROM, perhaps not the best to consider).
Also google the ROMs to see if there are any YouTubes showing the install and use of the ROM. There are many good reviews of ROMs and seeing them in action is a big help.
Last, a number of ROMs are being discussed on Google+ so you may want to check out that resource too.
And, it may also be a good idea to actually try the ROMs on your phone. ROMs can act differently on your phone than they might on mine.
Hope this helps!!
My recommendation is read all the rom threads as much a you can and experiment by trying them out. "Best of" rom threads are frowned upon because it generally discourages people to read and learn. I am going to close this and trust you will be able to find what you are looking for with some diligence and have fun trying. Thats what makes this site great!:good:

S7 Pure vs S8 Port vs AOSP, now even Xposed and Note 8 apps

I understand that this is a development forum but since it's strictly about Exynos I posted here.
There has been great work regarding development for this awesome device. I've now tried many options from many different developers ... and to be honest its become a little confusing as to what is best and why. Realizing there is a lot of personal preference:
Can we have some users chime in (even if this thread is moved) especially for newer users what they prefer and more importantly why ... options, speed, battery, ease of use, etc
Should be posted in General Discussion.
Rekan_ said:
Should be posted in General Discussion.
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Click to collapse
Thank you and I understand your opinion but since the majority of Exynos users cone to this forum I can promise it won't have any value of posted there.
It may get moved but I can assure you nobody will even look at it there
It's all good, so try it all. If you don't want to try it, you shouldn't be on xda(mostly the wrong section),just stick to what Samsung gave you originally.
Sent from my SM-G935F using XDA-Developers Legacy app
jcrompton said:
There has been great work regarding development for this awesome device. I've now tried many options from many different developers ... and to be honest its become a little confusing as to what is best and why. Realizing there is a lot of personal preference
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I completely understand why people would ask the question. I simply don't have the time to try all the ROMs. Setting one up to have it the way I like takes ~2 hours. This also doesn't take into account research into the ROM and troubleshooting issues (both user and ROM related) that come up - I need my phone to be useful.
Generally, S7/S7 Edge based ROMs are most stable, S8 and Note 8 ports have newest Samsung features, AOSP is Nexus and Pixel like and can have newest Android features (but lose Samsung features). All of them can have many great features and good performance depending on how they are made.
I personally never understood the hype about ports (generally heavier, less stable and new features kinda gimicky) and AOSP ROMs (less stable, why did I get a Samsung to have it run AOSP?). But that's just my opinion.
The above paragraph is however just a generalisation and it is obviously much more complicated than that. One would need to test and compare individual ROMs on different areas to get a good comparison on what is currently offered by the XDA developers. If anyone has tested multiple, then please post up comparison reviews. I think It would be a very useful guide. As readers can probably tell, I'm probably not the best person for the job.

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