The future of the SimpleDesk project

Started by cσσкιє мσηѕтєя, August 06, 2010, 02:30:43 PM

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cσσкιє мσηѕтєя

Dear users of SimpleDesk,

As you may or may not have noticed, there has been a recent lack of public updates about SimpleDesk 1.1.
This is in large part due to the departure of our lead developer, as well as a lack of time and motivation among the members of our team.

Since the beginning of this project we've laid out a path for SimpleDesk's future, but during the development of 1.1, we started to take several different side tracks, adding new features and improvements that we didn't originally intend.
This leads to 1.1 being a much change version than we originally intended, and there are of course both good and bad sides to that fact.

Due to lack of motivation (related to real life), which I already mentioned, I partially left the project during the course of the latest version, leaving Arantor basically alone for that whole time.
I am now trying to get back on track, so that SimpleDesk may once again flourish. Bᵃ from the marketing team has kindly offered to help me out with development which means that I am not fully alone.
And I'd like to thank all of our beta testers and of course you users who have patiently held on to us during these tough times.

What I'm trying to say is though SimpleDesk is behind schedule (Our original release date for 1.1 was the 1st of July, I won't keep that a secret), and though we lost our biggest contributor, all is not lost.
We're looking forward to a public release within the coming couple of months. And oh, new promotional graphics, of course! ;D

~DS~

"I was given the wardrobe of a nobleman, and so I played the part, a puppet ever dancing for the amusement of patrons unseen. This wretched world does not reward endeavour. It is the patron and his troupe who are receipt, maggots grown fat on endeavour's corpse. Most men but play the part they're given. Most live and die not knowing they play a part at all. But I am past all that now. I am their unwitting puppet no longer! No more! I will extract from them the price of their gluttonous feast! ~ Delita Heiral

tfs

In the immortal words of Alan Shepard, let's light this candle!  :)
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.

[FailSafe]

Quote from: Dismal Shadow on August 06, 2010, 03:31:07 PM
Right behind you Nas, and the SD team. :)

Seconded.

Anyway I can help? SimpleDesk is still one of the best projects out there for SMF, IMO, and if there is anyway I can contribute to help keep the ball rolling please let me know.

chilly

Quote from: [FailSafe] on August 09, 2010, 01:32:50 AM
Anyway I can help? SimpleDesk is still one of the best projects out there for SMF, IMO, and if there is anyway I can contribute to help keep the ball rolling please let me know.

* chilly agrees
got a cookie for me?

Acans


live627

so now there is one person labeled as a dev actually working on the project, like other SMF projects

[FailSafe]

I can understand why development here would come to crawl then. Arantor has left the team, and has been gone from SMF for a while. JBlaze resigned as Customizer on SMF. And Nas is busy with development of SMF (which obviously comes first). I kind of feel bad for him, balancing so many projects at once.

As for some of the other teamies here....Trekkie101 is On Haitus. SleePy is...well, yeah, SleePy is still active on SMF. B hasn't bee active on SMF as far as I can see in the public boards. (He might be posting on the private boards, and his last active date is still pretty recent, but he still doesn't post a lot on the private boards). It seems that hades has left the team. Though the QA people still seem kind of active from what their profiles say, but I haven't checked the Tracker in a while so I can't tell if they have been active there.

Please note, that i'm just sharing my observation on what the status of the team is. This may not accurately reflect what is going on in private on here, or on the actual SMF community site.

I mean, there are people here who'd love to help support this project, but not many have the ability to code. At least, code well enough to contribute as a developer to the project. Some do, but i'm not sure if they'd be willing to take on the project.

I been thinking lately that it might be helpful to make module development for SD public for other people to work on it, but in actuality i'm not sure that would help much. What is needed is core development kick start of the project. Since there people in the community who would love to help with the project and since 1.1 is a feature-heavy release, maybe getting together "Community Developer Helpers" (or a better name than that) who are assigned a feature to work on as a group. And then send it to Nas or someone else to review, polish, and then commit. This way all Nas has to do is just polish up existing code for features instead of working on his own, which will allow him to spend more time doing other things.

Bah, i'm just tossing ideas out right now. At least it's something.

hadesflames

I don't think it wise to give random people commit access =/
*will add something eventually*

chilly

what if that people only read and do not commit to the same place but a trunk or something? haven't used svn much yet so i can't tell if it's possible to manage rights like that. else they just should not be able to commit but submit their code elsewhere so it can be reviewed.
got a cookie for me?

hadesflames

Even so, what are they going to commit? If they can't see the latest rev, they're of no use...
*will add something eventually*

chilly

I'm sure you can give rights to see the latest rev but not to commit new stuff.
got a cookie for me?

[FailSafe]

Quote from: hadesflames on August 16, 2010, 05:07:18 AM
I don't think it wise to give random people commit access =/

No, in my idea they do not have the ability to commit. They start building for a feature, and once they are done they send it to a dev to review. Then the dev cleans it up, and the dev himself commits it.

Spoogs

I'm sure Nas would be open to a few ideas. I have wondered myself if something similar to what [FailSafe] suggest would work.

I know Nas will do his best to keep the project alive and I'm almost certain no one wants to see it die. Fact is Nas is very busy and has a lot on his plate so I'm sure he needs the help but it would have to be stable help. The guy is pretty young and bless him for taking on so much but it just isnt right that he should spend his every waking moment in front of his PC. I personally wish i could help with the coding side things to give him a hand but I'm a moron to coding.

As much as i would love to see this project pick up steam once again, I just dont see it fair for the guy to burn himself out. Maybe he can pull some strings, call in a few favors and get the 'A' back on the project as well as a few more capable hands.

Its really a shame to see such an awesome project on life support.

Bᵃ

Unfortunately, immediately following my offer to help, I moved to a new apartment. :) The move itself is not unfortunate, merely the fact that it has hindered me from working on SD as much as I would have liked. Give me another week or so, and I should be good to go.

B

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