ART! wrote:
>
>
> Just keep up the good work. I'd rather have a robust data set later than
> a weak one now. All I can ask is that you let us know when you've hit
> some turning point and have something new to tell us. Maybe a
> development blog?
A development blog is something we've considered before, but there are a
few issues with it. One is that it invites user disappointment by
promising features that we might not be able to deliver; another is the
amount of time it would take to create it, time that's not spent on
adding features to our products.
For example, we could potentially do weekly, or monthly, updates on what
we're planning to do for HL's next release. Unfortunately, often when we
try to implement the features we have planned, some of them have to be
postponed, changed, or dropped due to unforseen problems. Coming out and
saying "we're planning X for the next release", and then having it not
appearing, leaves users feeling annoyed with us. I've seen this happen
with many other companies, and (regardless of how it might appear to
others) I really try to avoid annoying our users.
We try to release program updates on a monthly (ish) basis - the current
release being exceptional - so that means we'd be doing development
blogs on about the same schedule as we do releases. By the time we had
enough data to make a reasonable blog post, the release is effectively
only a week or so away. Is it really worth doing at that point? Why not
spend the few hours it would take to write putting in a couple of extra
features that people will enjoy using in the product?
Finally, writing up something like this takes time. First we'd need to
work out the content of the report (in advance), then write it, then
edit it, before you guys get to see it. All of that is stuff that really
needs to be done collaboratively and on a schedule, so that means that 2
or 3 of us spend time working on it at various points.
So that's why we don't have something like a development blog. Hopefully
you can see our side of the issue - writing something good takes time,
and it's time we all too frequently don't have. We don't have a
full-time marketing guy who can write these things, unfortunately - it's
just us core people, doing everything.
Thanks!