How are things with the developers?

[wrathchild]

Saw a note the other day and went to check. Our Trevor hasn't been by for two months. What's the significance of this? How are things in the development team? 1.4 debating seems to be ongoing ...

[dorpond]

I'm not a developer but I am on the team.

Where do I start?

Ok, everything is fine - no need to worry.

Ok, as far as Trevor, I can sum it up as follows:
- He and Audra had a baby this year.
- He has an all new job learning the ins and outs of an in-progress application.

I keep in touch with Trevor almost daily. We talk Maptool amongst other things. I know he has a lot on his plate atm but we still discuss maptool and the exciting future of maptool.

To put it simply, Maptool is not forgotten - it has just taken the back seat for a bit until his schedule is more forgiving. The back seat wasn't a conscious effort but more of an end result of daily responsibilities.

But don't fear my friends, there is reason why I created that one thread about the UI. While Trevor is sparse, he is still designing in mind.

[Azhrei]

But don't fear my friends, there is reason why I created that one thread about the UI. While Trevor is sparse, he is still designing in mind.

Heh. If he's at all like me, I do some of my best "designing" away from the keyboard, while I'm distracted by something else. Not always, but often.

[dorpond]

Exactly azhrei!

Another thing I failed to note previously. Trevor is also spending time looking at different technologies and playing around with them to see if they have a future with maptool.

Previously when a version of maptool was released, Trevor immediately started smashing into the new build. This time is going to he a bit different; there will be much more research first to see what new technology is out there first. There is a lot Trevor dislikes about maptool.

[Darinth]

Like the excessive amount of time it takes to draw sight once we get lots of light and vbl involved? :)

As long as his mind is still working on things, all is cool and it sounds like such is the case. If there's anything we can do to help, I'm certain he knows he's got the communities backing. :)

[wrathchild]

Great to hear. i can certasinly appreciate the chunks that a new job AND a new baby can take out of things . Looking forward to seeing the fruit of the labours

[Azhrei]

Looking forward to seeing the fruit of the labours

Um, dude... That's what a baby IS!

[trevor]

Heh, hey guys, sorry for the delay

New baby (that makes 4 kids now) reduced my free time further, and my new job was sucking the life out of me (not in a good way).

Fortunately I think I'm getting back to stability.

Dorpond is correct, I've been designing and researching the technology for the next development effort.

As a side note, I've been doing a lot of javascript, extjs, and the html canvas tag for the past month, and it's getting me some great context for the future.

Case in point: the next server will start off as stand alone, and allow accept http (web) requests, which makes creating a super thin client in your browser possible.

I'll also be implementing a lot of the general code in javascript so that it's natively available to the macros.

[Darinth]

Sounds like some cool concepts. Good to hear from ya, and don't worry about the delay to much. Family comes first dude, if anybody here disagrees I'll stab them with a spork.

Wouldn't implementing the code in javascript result in a lower efficiency and the need for the java code to call javascript code (making it not available natively to the java code)?

[Notsonoble]

Just a bump to see if anyone's talked to Trevor again lately...

[Azhrei]

Yep, heard from him... Wednesday? I had sent him some news of some patches I had ready to send but I didn't want him building b64 without giving me a chance to package them up first!

[Shpena]

Congrats on the new bundle of joy, mate! As other say family first, all other things are secondary. I'm over the moon with the spiffiness of 63. Many thanks for making a splendid program that allows my inner geek to thrive =)

Good luck with your job!

[dorpond]

Just a bump to see if anyone's talked to Trevor again lately...

Yeah, just about every day. Last discussion we had was how Starcraft 2 beta is cracked already and users can play against bots all they want.

Today he said that a recent patch was released to increase Terran and nerf Zealots. That made him happy, since he usually plays as the Terran.

Both of us agreed that even if the game was released today, we probably wouldn't even be able to get it due to hectic schedules.

No, neither of us are on the beta program nor have we downloaded any hacked version of it - jsut keeping up with the news really.

[Darinth]

I look forward to playing it, have heard that the beta testers are however incredibly impressed with how bug-free it is for a beta. I'm admittedly much more looking forward to Diablo III, but I in general am Blizzard's corporate slave and will do as they tell me. ^_^