On Monday 19 January 2009, Chris Fryer wrote: > Is there significant new functionality coming from this port? > As a (quite possibly ignorant) user, I might be somewhat disappointed in a > fanfare release only to find the application did exactly what the previous > version did.
It's a good point. Actually, any fanfare we deserve will probably be for managing to release something that does almost exactly what the previous version did, without losing anything or introducing any horrible new bugs. I don't think we'll be able to achieve a lot in the way of newer/better/faster and less buggy out of this release, but we should go to some effort to create a different look before it's over. Customize our colors out of the box, something, anything to create a distinct appearance and help underscore the fact that this is not just the next link in a chain, but an entirely separate chain. It really is not a 1.8 at all for that reason alone. The reasons are mostly of little interest to users, but this is definitely a new chain from here, and there's no going back, and no crossing back and forth between the old and the new either. I don't think file interoperability across this divide will be impacted much, but user configuration and customization sure will be. Then there's the psychology of working for this long at a project that has done too many releases that should have been 2.0 already, but just became yet another lackluster sequential release, because it "wasn't 2.0 material" or whatever. We seem to have been holding that prize as some kind of golden standard for reaching a state of completion and refinement it isn't likely this project will ever achieve for as long as it carries on in the way it has been unfolding to date. We just never have and probably never will hit that certain critical level of momentum to get everything done all at once and blow the world away with a monumental showpiece release that fixes everyone's complaints, solves all the bugs, and leaves nothing further to do in its wake, so we can all retire to Barbados and smoke fat cigars after finally achieving the mythic TWO point OH. That's part of why I really want to shatter the psychology of 2.0 too. Developer me is very tired of always coming up short when the Rosegarden Version Policy Committee rules on whether or not the latest round of cool stuff passes the 2.0 test. Chris is the committee in one, his word is final as far as I'm concerned, and he has been saving 2.0 for a very long time for reasons I think have mostly been due to optimism about how much what we're releasing now is going to suck in comparison that that wonderful thing he's going to find time to do one of these days. "It would be silly to call this 2.0 when I'm going to fluff the bliffles and plat the glimbrons ten times over just as soon as my current project at work is finished and I get back from the beach in Sri Lanka." Two years pass, the bliffles have barely been fluffed, and the glimbrons haven't been platted at all, and so it goes. Why didn't we just call the last one 2.0 and get it over with then? I'm quite tired of this whole cycle, and abolishing it would be great. More thoughts, but I'll put them in a different reply in case this one is too long for most people to digest. -- D. Michael McIntyre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-devel mailing list [email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-devel
