Why do people use Audacity when there are DAW programs? I mean, if you are recording in today's world, aren't we all using some sort of dedicated DAW program that already has audio editing options? or, is this an open source sample editing software? If so, I then get it. but.

I understand the open source interest but not why someone would use open source software with a proven and stable DAW in the first place? This seems quite risky and backwards. If you are serious about recording, personally I wouldn't think about even installing any open source software into my tuned recording system and if I was was interested in sample editing software, I would take sound design to a more serious level and actually get something like the Emulator X3.
30 years ago when there wasn't sample libraries, I was big on this and building libraries. I actually has 30 thousand invested in samplers and workstations (but not as over the top as with Frank Zappa and the Synclavier II that cost something like $100,000). Terrible investment. but damn fun at the time!

I find there are so many quality samples out there that don't need to be reinvented, over and over. My experience has led me to identify precise sounds already in the marketplace that are proven and ready for inserting into your music via loops or samples. I don't even waste my time doing this anymore. So much can be accomplished in the DAW environment now. Anything more begins to become plugin clutter and more is less.

Using a DAW to truncate, reverse, bend etc etc etc is so easy within the DAW platform now, just don't get it why we need this?

I'm not putting this down by any-means at this point, I'm just confused and at the same time very curious to discover more on this program and if I am actually missing something. I just love sound design and using samples. I actually have les and less interest in much else. High end samples are just to cool to ignore. Its hard to get much better control. (em, a deep and fascinating topic that I live in).

I admit to never looking into this software as I have so much to learn already but the current topic on 32-bit floating point, Audacity was brought up so I'm interested in it more and thought a new topic on this would be appropriate.

I'll stop now. Here's this link that I am going to read

http://Audacity.sourceforge.net/about/