rc2 and 1.0

wilshire · 2005-01-18 06:12:23

I’m not disagreeing that knowing what’s going on would be nice. And you don’t have to tell me about all the people that have contributed plugins and documentation. Its just that the impression that I’ve gotten from some of these posts is that Textpattern is a life and death matter. NEWSFLASH! Its not.

I’m looking forward to 2005: the year of the text, just like the rest of you. I guess I and others like reid are in the minority because we’re thankful for the progress that’s been made thusfar and willing to wait for annoucements to be posted instead of begging for them.

And for some more perspective, head on over to sourceforge and see how many projects were posted and then never updated again.

rickg · 2005-01-18 06:26:38

reid,

Please don’t get me wrong, I like txp. But your example is of released software, not time between pre-release builds. Using your context, I don’t care if, after 1.0 it takes 6-12 months until we see 1.x or 2.0.

But, as I stated above, RC1 is an indication that you’re a few builds from the 1.0 GM milestone – not 25+ builds and over 4 months away.

Look, what I’m asking for is

1) a real date for 1.0. Sure, I’d like this tomorrow, but I really don’t care if it’s a month from now. But presumably Dean’s got a list of what he feels needs to be done before 1.0. Is that a month worth of tasks? A week? A day?

2) a roadmap for what’s going to happen over the next, say 12 months. Put it on a wiki and make sure everyone understands that this is an evolving process. When Dean makes a decision to change something, he edits the wiki.

3) after the release enters beta, a post every week or 2 updating the community on what’s happening (for example, “ we should be seeing Beta4 in a couple of weeks…”

4) weekly or monthly builds (archives, like RC1 on the front page) as appropriate. Don’t post weekly builds if nothing’s really changed, but let’s not go more than a month without a new build once we’re in beta.

rickg · 2005-01-18 06:35:17

Wilshire,

Of course txp is not a life and death matter. Never said, or implied that it was. But if Dean wants it to catch on he’s gotta talk to us. BTW, I’m not begging for anything… and I have been waiting, just like you and reid – for weeks and weeks. But at some point I’ve gotta decide if this is going to be an ongoing effort that I should use on client sites or if it’s going to be like B2… a cool product that was mysteriously abandoned by the sole developer.

Last edited by rickg (2005-01-18 06:36:05)

Damelon · 2005-01-18 07:37:52

I believe Dean has said that development would be opened up to additional developers after the release of 1.0 (I’ll take back this statement if I am misremembering). Until that point question, complain, bitch, whatever, but Dean isn’t really misrepresenting anything.

As for his release date: I hate that developers do this. They say a date, they believe it’s accurate, it virtually never is. Dean is far from the only guilty party in this area.

As for making lists of things you want (expect) Dean to do…

rickg · 2005-01-18 07:50:48

Damelon,

What, a list like mine is rude? Is that what you’re saying?? Look, don’t put up a community site so that people can talk to you, then complain that not everything we post is laudatory.

And, what, precisely, is unreasonable about the list I put up? It’s simply my opinion, what I think Dean should do based on a decade and a half of managing software projects. He can ignore it, laugh at it, print it out and shred it, whatever. Sorry, but given the almost total lack of outbound communication, I’m not sure anyone should get too uppity about someone proposing a few ideas.

Damelon · 2005-01-18 08:07:49

The beautiful thing about the ellipsis is everyone will make of it as they are disposed. But since you have shown yourself to have a short fuse I’ll elaborate.

Dean knows all about work-flow, scheduling, project management, communication, and all the rest. You may not feel he handles it in a manner consistent with your views. Fine. But the manner in which Dean works there is a consistency. We go through cycles around here and until Dean adds people to the mix that cycle is his.

Don’t bother arguing the point with me, I may have a certain sympathy for your viewpoint, but I think you expect too much.

rickg · 2005-01-18 08:14:55

But then how can we know what’s going on? Look, I really don’t have that short of a fuse, and I really DO like TXP, but I simply don’t understand why having a periodic update is that hard.

Anyway, back to waiting…. ;)

koopd · 2005-01-18 10:54:46

Any chance of a little update from the man himself on the matter?

duffe · 2005-01-18 12:21:51

Jeremie wrote:

> That don’t give us a “right to demand”.

Well it does to a degree because there are some levels of service that need to be adhered to in order to keep customers on board. Look what happened to Moveable Type when they kept customers in the dark about license changes last year. A fair chunk of their user base moved on to WordPress as a result. With that in mind, there are some “demands” that Dean needs to satisfy his customers with in order to prevent losing them.

> But, beside the money aspect, I think the most important contribution is code. There are several real good developpers around TXP, but yet they don’t seems to be able to inject code, propose solutions, and so on. They have to freeze existing or future plugins dvlp because they don’t know what is going to be fixed, change, and so on.

Absolutely, that’s the source of my frustration. I’d like to improve the search engine for a client of mine and release the changes back to the community, but I’m reluctant to do so if Dean has made any improvements himself. If he hasn’t then I still have to port the changes across to the new version, and I’d rather not have to that given that a new version could be released at any moment .

>> It reflects badly that ETAs are continuosly not met.

> Well not per se, shit happens to all of us, but there are so little relase and ETA … :-)

Dean has got our hopes up quite a bit about an eminent 1.0 release and has thus far failed to deliver (whatever happened to the nightly tarballs?) Sure, shit happens — but a track record of shit happening is not good for business.

>> Furthermore, is 1.0 actually going to be beta-tested by the community?

> That is the purpose of a Release Candidate in theory…

I know, that is my point. Supposing that new features have been added since RC2, will a RC3 be released to accomodate testing of new features, and will we have to wait another x months before the bug necassary fixes are implemented? If thats the way Dean wants to run things then great! But please document such schedules so I can make good decisions about using this software.

>> I’m worried that 1.0 may not be the stable release I’ve been long-waiting for…

> I’ve found TXP pretty stable so far. I’m not worried about stability, I’m worried about conceptual problems, and some bugs. And some lack of features.

Sorry, I used the wrong term. I meant to say rock-solid: as in barely any bugs. TXP has been superb so far as pre-release software — but I worry about a 1.0 release tested only by the developer..

> I know there is no warranty on GPL’d software, but things here really aren’t good enough if Textpattern is to be considered “serious” software.

> I’m not sure that’s motivation for Dean. He pays his rent with Textdrive, not Textpattern (and by the way I would not mind pay some reasonnable fees for it, yes “free” open source software allows it, and I’m not the only one.. Zem’s ransoms have proved that), and if Textdrive is not very succesfull I’m sure paying the rent has priority over TXP (and I’m guessing that’s what happen in 2004).

I think you are spot on here, unfortunatly. I’m hoping TXP is indeed opened-up to more developers post 1.0.

Manfre · 2005-01-18 14:06:28

I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is more Textpattern!

Daragh · 2005-01-18 14:07:51

Things I have learned from following this forum:

Dean doesn’t post on the forum much – if at all – when he’s trying to get a release out the door
TXP development will open up after 1.0 is released
1.0 won’t contain new features
Dean is working on improving clean URLs. See “The Daily Oliver” on textism

And for what it’s worth, Reid is spot on. TXP – the work of one man to this point – has seen much more development than MT during certain periods, and it’s a corporation with many employees.

TXP 1.0 is an opportunity for many people outside the TXP community to check out how the thing works. If the release is on time but not perfect, they will say “not ready for prime time” and the opportunity will be squandered. If it’s late but good, the lateness makes no difference to them – but the goodness will. Ultimately, it will mean more developers will be interested in it, which will (hopefully) translate into an even better system a few months down the road. That’s something we impatient users should keep in mind.

RC1 and 2 are stable. There are a few bugs, but there were many bugs in MT 3.0 as well. If you’re waiting to develop sites with the new release, I’d really recommend you move ahead with one of those versions and upgrade when 1.0 comes out – I’ve found TXP upgrading to be relatively painless.

qrayg · 2005-01-18 14:14:23

I’ll gladly wait 6 more months since TXP is such a wonderful piece of software as is.

Take your time, Dean. It’ll be ready when it’s ready.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#97 2005-01-18 06:12:23

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#98 2005-01-18 06:26:38

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#99 2005-01-18 06:35:17

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#100 2005-01-18 07:37:52

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#101 2005-01-18 07:50:48

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#102 2005-01-18 08:07:49

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#103 2005-01-18 08:14:55

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#104 2005-01-18 10:54:46

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#105 2005-01-18 12:21:51

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#106 2005-01-18 14:06:28

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#107 2005-01-18 14:07:51

Re: rc2 and 1.0

#108 2005-01-18 14:14:23

Re: rc2 and 1.0

Board footer