The Current Plan
If you're watching REBOL from outside the "private halls" of various AltME worlds, you would likely be a bit disenchanted with what appears to be very little happening.
In fact, it's quite the opposite, but how would you know?
This communication problem has plagued us every time we get deeply involved in developing the next big thing. Internally, we are crazy with activity; externally, it looks like we've all gone to Tahiti to sit on the beach (although, I must admit, that sounds really good right now.) Yes, our focus is on loading the cannons, not on making speeches from the balcony. Sorry about that.
So, what is happening? Here's a recap of recent activities...
| | REBOL 3.0 | R3 continues to be our main focus. The priority of getting this release out is still the same. We wanted it yesterday. However, the way we accomplish that has changed. (I'll clarify what I mean below.) But, R3 is running well enough that someone contacted me recently wanting an "ok" to ship a product that uses R3. That's a good sign. So, when does it get released? See DevBase below.
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| | R3 Alpha Users | There are quite a few people involved now in the alpha testing for R3. Everyone has their favorite areas to contribute. That is good to see, and I'm thankful for the help. Where things have slowed down is in the area of leadership. RT has been "sharing" some of the primary team leaders with another huge software development effort going on at a "sister" company. It's a problem, but maybe this will help...
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| | DevBase | Development of R3 has really pushed the issue of how to manage collaboration and contributions. Or, stated another way, we don't want to stand on the train tracks to direct the locomotive. We'll either get flattened, or the train must hit the brakes and lose momentum. You've heard me talk before about DevBase (also called Coop). The time has finally arrived, and I firmly believe that without DevBase, it's not likely that we could ever complete R3. I will be saying a lot more about DevBase very soon. Once it's running, we'll open R3 alpha for all developers.
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| | Websites | There's been a lot of discussion about how to reshape the public image of REBOL - from not only the developer view, but also from the end user and business user views. Some of you talked about it in my blog comment section. I'm really interested in making this happen. After the release of DevBase, and along with the completion of R3, we'll be looking for good ways to make such changes. It will start with building a small team and agreeing on a plan of action.
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So, that's where we are right now.
The next major milestone is the release of DevBase. I must say it has been an interesting project. It's got me thinking again about how to make substantial improvements to the REBOL application environment... and all the nice things to come in R3...
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