[T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide] karri0n:
Many of you are going to know all this, and many know far better than I. Please, those that do, please step in and correct my information if I make any mistakes.

I see the word stable thrown around a lot - "Is this ROM stable", "stable release", etc.

I want to attempt to pin down a definition when in use for regular conversation, and I also want to address that there is one use of the word that is clearly defined and cannot be used lightly.

First, in the development/open source world, the vast majority of projects you will see are in beta or sometimes even alpha. This means that it's still in some sort of testing phase, and there are usually some bugs that need to be ironed out before it's termed a "finished product". By the very nature of software and developers' desire to be honest, it's quite common that there are some pieces of software that will never leave beta(and some even used in a corporate production environment. "beta" is not a death sentence and doesn't mean there's something fatally flawed). There is always more work to be done, a bug here, something to smooth out there, something that needs to be optimized, etc. A developer can not be satisfied to release a final version. That being said, it does happen. Once it reaches past beta, it often gets promoted to a "release candidate".

A release candidate, or RC, means that they are fairly satisfied that bugs are taken care of, and that they are PRETTY sure there's no major flaw lurking in the depths waiting for the perfect moment to rise and bring down death and destruction upon any innocent fool who crosses its path. This is the final step leading up to that coveted and rare specimen - the :victory:Stable Release.:victory:

Once the release candidate has gone through rigorous testing by developers, users, testers, etc, it can finally become a stable release. It's a big risk to label something as a stable release. This is the developer giving you their word and staking their reputation to say "there are no bugs in this piece of software. It is being released as a final version and will not cause you any trouble".

I beg you to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there are stable releases for any any ROM for the MT4GS. Once again, this is very common in the development world, and not just for phones. Just take a look at the number of projects on slashdot that are widely used by thousands of people with no trouble - much of them sitting in beta or even alpha.

Now is where we run into some ambiguity using the term. At a passing glance, and certainly to the uninformed, seeing that software isn't "stable" will naturally and intuitively lead one to believe it must be somehow unstable. Given the nature of open source and development, we know that this isn't necessarily the case. There may be something very minor that only comes up in certain situations, the developer may still feel that there hasn't been enough testing to rule out any bugs, or there may be no bugs at all but the developer is not yet satisfied with the completeness, speed, or number of features.

Now, I would like to address how the word is used in conversation or when asking questions about a ROM. Stability itself, is absolutely very important, with good reason, to a vast majority of people who own a mobile phone. This is often their only source of communication and is required for work, for emergencies, and for generally keeping in contact. If the phone fails to function in a manner that keeps the user reliably connected to their web resources as well as phone, email and messaging communication, there could very well be disastrous results. Therefore, asking if the rom is stable is very valid and relevant, but due to the fact that the word stable can have such an ambiguous definition, and is also a term for a particular stage in development, communication can break down pretty quickly between parties when the term starts getting tossed around.

The device I had previously was a Motorola Droid 1(OG Droid, Sholes, etc.). This phone had a huge and extremely active development community on many different websites. Many devs still hold the moto droid in a special place in their hearts for how hackable it was, the power it had for a device at the time of its release, and the massive userbase ranging from those with no technical ability at all to some of the best hackers ever to work on Android. This device truly represented the renaissance, if not the birth, of custom development for android devices.One thing that was extremely common across almost any ROM or kernel you could put on that phone, however, was a risk of "instability". In this case, this usually meant that the phone would randomly reboot, especially when doing something particularly tasking on the cpu(navigation was a particularly common culprit). In extreme cases, it would reboot and then go into soft bootloops once, twice, even five times. This happened more often with overclocked kernels, and most people had to look for multiple kernels and setcpu settings that would give them a balance between speed and stability. It took some trying and some tweaking. Most people would eventually get a setup that was solid. Even with a "rock solid" kernel and ROM setup, there were very few who NEVER experienced a random reboot when running a custom ROM/kernel. It was just something that happened. The other major issue people saw were force closes of apps. These were extremely common as well, but usually addressed more easily. Your setup was considered stable if you were confident that you could do all of your phone's functions without getting FC's and you weren't going to get a reboot 99% of the time. You could rely on it not to do anything unexpected.

I have, admittedly, not tested every ROM that exists for the MT4GS. I probably haven't tested half of them. I have however, tested most of the later releases with the exception of XMC's Jellybean. What I have found, however, is that out of all the ROMs I have tested for this device, each and every one one of them has met my personal definition of stable. I've never seen a random reboot on the MT4GS. If I see a FC, it's because I failed to clear data and cache before flashing something, forgot to flash or flashed the wrong version of gapps, or I'm trying to get something working that wasn't included in the ROM. It's for this reason that I really don't know how to respond accurately when someone asks something like "what's the most stable ROM for this phone?" or "I saw this particular ROM, can anyone tell me how stable it is?"

So I have two requests. The first is for anyone who cares to read all of this and answer. I'd like to ask you, if you are asking about how "stable" a rom is, what do you mean? Are you asking about whether it has bugs? They all have a bug list of what's working and what's not. Are you asking about whether it has a certain feature fully working? Once again, that's in the works/ doesn't work info usually including in the first post about the ROM.

Request 1:

Answer me this - What does "stable" mean to you?

Request 2:

When considering or just looking for info on a ROM and you have a question about this or that, be specific. If I've checked into a ROM, I very well might have an answer for you. If you just ask whether or not it's "stable", I don't know what you're asking