XYplorer Beta Club

From my observation of various great software, there're 2 ways to develop features:
1) Keep adding new features, which are core and essential to the main purpose of a program. =>
- Development is close-source, consistent
- Risk of being bloat-ware
- Good example: Adobe CS, EditPad, WinRar, IDMan...
- Bad example: Windows, Tune-Up Utilities, Norton,...
2) Fix a simple, stable base then offer a great SDK to community
- New features are totally depend on plugins
- Change to the core will affect too many plugins,
- Good example: Sublime Text; Winamp
- Bad example: not aware of any

It seems XY is on the 1st way, but Don, is the 2nd way any promising?

I think XY is a third way, and it is unique in that way. Rapidly developing think tank driven innovative integrated non-bloat light-weight superfast easy to use portable ultra-robust high-performance. Sorry, I don't have the time to elaborate.

Good to know that

admin wrote:Rapidly developing think tank driven innovative integrated non-bloat light-weight superfast easy to use portable ultra-robust high-performance.

binocular222 wrote:Good to know that

I agree with Don. And I believe Don's way is the right way to develop customer-oriented applicatoins.
Many software products such as EditPad Pro, Ultra Recall, MindManager, and Java on the market take too long to release their patches/enhancements. Their releases often deepen user dissatisfaction.

armsys wrote:And I believe Don's way is the right way ....

In terms of customer satisfaction it is THE way, I am sure.

The "problem" is this, that this commitment-centered approach is based on some mission-critical requirements which happen to occur synchronized is a rather rare event: passion for the product, passion for the doing and passion for the customer (vulgo: dream job).


Cheers,
Filehero

Filehero wrote:

armsys wrote:And I believe Don's way is the right way ....

In terms of customer satisfaction it is THE way, I am sure.

The "problem" is this, that this commitment-centered approach is based on some mission-critical requirements which happen to occur synchronized is a rather rare event: passion for the product, passion for the doing and passion for the customer (vulgo: dream job).


Cheers,
Filehero

Exactly. It's obviously a passion for Don and he's really into this. However, this type of method you only see in industrial applications or mission-critical scenarios and for a good reason. It's great that Don is doing this way but at the same time, just know that it's great for us, but not neccessarily great for the developer. The way Don is working, makes me really nervous if he feels completely burned out. As a result, whenever Don takes a vacation for a month or two, it somehow feels good. if that makes any sense.

Enternal wrote:Exactly. It's obviously a passion for Don and he's really into this. However, this type of method you only see in industrial applications or mission-critical scenarios and for a good reason. It's great that Don is doing this way but at the same time, just know that it's great for us, but not neccessarily great for the developer. The way Don is working, makes me really nervous if he feels completely burned out. As a result, whenever Don takes a vacation for a month or two, it somehow feels good. if that makes any sense.

Every morning and every evening, another "beta" upgrade (v13.40.0001) du jour pops up, rain or shine. Being a software distributor, I deal directly with software developers globally such as Computer Associates, Mindjet, Kinook, MJT, and Wolfram. Honestly, no one, not even Steve Jobs, can match Don's passion committed to his users and his XY. Don never wastes time in rhetoric. "Fix comes" is his usual signature conversation. Unlike other developers, Don never resists users' dream feature requests. I'm impressed by his German virtue. I'm contemplating my comeback of software business, which will replicate Don's model or something like that.
Don, you're my inspiration.

With due respect, for those unlicensed users , please treat Don fairly. XY is the only product in the world you have no excuse not to compensate Don's genuine effort. The enormous time you save with XY (catalogs, tabsets, scripting, duplicate find,...) outweights the money you pay for XY.

Just my 0.002 cents.

armsys's word should go to the testimonial

Thanks for the kind works, and please don't worry too much about me. There is much much more in my life than XY (otherwise I surely would burn out), but I don't care to share this in the public. Just so much: I can code VERY fast, so don't think that whenever I'm not posting I'm coding. On the contrary: I'm getting my best (revolutionary! ) ideas usually when I'm far from the computer.

But I have to admit: the last months were a little extreme with two or more releases per day. This will get back to normal in 2014, and, yes, there will be vacations!

Don, I always wonder how you could keep track of multiple changes, bug fixes, patches, ....etc.
Do you use Visual Build or the like to manage the frenetic software modifications?
That's only and final secret I beg you to share with us.

Pencil and paper! Plus everything that has to stay secret...

admin wrote:Pencil and paper!

That's a lot harder to backup in a off-site location, like to the cloud!

admin wrote:Pencil and paper! Plus everything that has to stay secret...

That simple? At least NSA/CIA/Mossad cannot extract it thru optical fiber and/or microwave.
Understandable. After all, it's your trade secret.

Yeah, but it never crashes.