…anyway, but especially today:

http://daringfireball.net/2006/11/beta_excuse

I got a similar article jotted down in my Moleskine, and am very happy that I don’t have to publish it myself (hate rewrites), but that a site like Daring Fireball touches the subject.

I especially like that Shakespeare quote…

I have just added a new category labeled “Intl.”, which will feature all future english posts on the travelog. As promised in one of my comments on the last post, I will continue to make announcements and such in english, though most of the new articles will be in german.

The RSS-feed for the Intl. category is http://travelog.blue-tec.com/wp-rss2.php?cat=8; so you don’t have to deal with all of the german blabber in your favorite news reader. ;)

BTW: Forum, e-mail correspondence, our official web site and all that (even the bug tracker) will of course stay english. There are no plans to change that at all.

I’m thinking about switching the travelog to german. There’s so much I’d like to write about, so much I’d like to ask, tell, question… and I don’t because I just don’t feel comfortable writing in english anymore. It really stops me from even starting new entries, let alone reworking existing drafts. Over the course of the last year or so, I have felt more and more like “not coming across” and then blaming that on the language.

Switching to german would not allow me to blame anything on the language. But I would also be able to be more “me” — I could critizise, rant, philosophize the way I do IRL, without the constant feeling of getting it all wrong.

It would mean less readers, of course, but I wouldn’t care, because it would also mean better integration into the german Mac community. Some people might not believe this, but we’re having lots of trouble getting decent exposure in the german media because of our english sites. This is a rather big problem, because that way we don’t have ANY sort of impact. We’re too weak to participate with the english speaking devs, and we’re too weak to participate with the german speaking devs. We can’t argue with others on english mailing lists, and we don’t get feedback from german users, developers, media.

I even feel as if this entry should not be published, because I don’t think it captures my sentiments on the issue. Whatever, this is supposed to be a weblog. I am supposed to speak my mind. I can’t if I don’t do so in my own language. Simple as that. All I could possibly do is play nice, smile and nod to everything and narrate about sales figures or wonderful user suggestions. But that’s not me.

So from now on, everything in german, sag’ ich mal. Wozu gibt’s eigentlich babelfish. ;)

I’m currently writing a lengthy article about the reception of Ulysses 1.5b and some users’ reaction; I guess I’ll need to rework it a couple of times just to ensure it’s coming across the way I plan, though then again I really shouldn’t care. It will mostly focus on a comparison of treatments: How some folks accuse us of doing what we’re doing while at the same time they’re praising other developers for incorporating their “suggestions”, which more often than not simply read like copy instructions.

I find this to be awfully strange, and I would like to chatter about it, but I also know that such a post will read like I would write about other developers copying, which is not my intention at all. It’s about users expectations and reaction and such. Like how every other VersionTracker comment on system extensions reads “why isn’t this part of the system” and then how Apple got treated for Dashboard. Or how people call some devs “way off” yet ask their competition for inclusion of every feature of the other product (not Ulysses, mind you; read VT, MU, app forums, etc.)

Then again, folks don’t like it much, when others talk about them, so I will get the usual reation of “how dare you talk like that about your customers”… no way to win here, best to keep my mouth shut, he?

I guess it all boils down to receptions. Stuff people WANT to read into my writings, or generally into writings on problematic subjects. It’s like that Pope vs. Mohammed BS — folks expect some, believe they get some, react as if it was given. Dunno how to deal with that. Guess I’ll just have to try.

We’ll see. I got some responsibility here; can’t just “wear my freak flag high”, though boy how I wish…

Until then, just a few words: I really appreciate all the feedback we’ve been getting on b3. Max is currently struggling with his phone company, so he won’t appear that much on the forum or be able to answer mail. Yet b4 is coming along nicely, thanks to all these great reports. Keep ‘em coming.

My my, here we go: Ulysses 1.5 Public Beta. If you want to join the test, just visit the forum and follow the described procedure.

This is a first for us, and I’m feeling a bit strange, tbh. I truly believe that we got a great product and all, but to me releasing a clearly unfinished product to the masses is… I’m feeling uncomfortable, that’s what it is.

I know it’s a beta and folks have been warned and all, but this is an application with which people create TEXT. This is not a layout/design app, where you can always try and start from scratch and pretty much get the same (if not better) results. This is text, and if you have ever lost 10 paragraphs of your work, you know that it’s pretty much impossible to recreate it — just too much unconcious stuff involved…

It’s like releasing a Nikon DSLR Public Beta. I mean… motif gone, picture corrupt, card reader kills your hard drive. Oh, but “you’ve been warned”, he? I don’t like betas, easy as that. I also think that we can lose quite a lot of reputation. Ulysses has always been released as a very stable version, not least due to heavy testing and VERY heavy nagging and pushing and insisting on the tiniest changes. Max knows well, hehe…

However, beta4 (which is what we just released) is already pretty good at preserving your data, just make sure to keep the auto-save checked. ;)

We’ll see how this works out.
More as it breaks, hehe. No pun…