Hi. I would like to third that, but then there is no facility for
thirding in a voting quorum (forgive the pun), but I am glad that
nothing is rushed and Stefik and his team have chosen to smooth out all
potential problems before the fnal product is finally released. Now if
more established companies would follow his and his team's example, we
would have a smoother software experience. Cheers!
On 18/11/2018 12:28 AM, Rodney Haynie wrote:
I second that, and thank you for the detailed update.
Rodney
*From:* program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *On Behalf Of *jacob kruger
*Sent:* Saturday, November 17, 2018 2:06 AM
*To:* Program-l <program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [program-l] Re: [quorum-language] Quorum Studio Update
Sounds like good progress is being made, and, yes, I would love to be able to try it out sooner, but, quality is better than quantity/immediacy?
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"...resistance is futile...but, acceptance is versatile..."
On 2018-11-17 4:18 AM, Andreas Stefik wrote:
Folks,
We've been making steady progress toward our release of Quorum
Studio and I wanted to provide an update. First, let me say
clearly that Quorum Studio is easily one of the most complicated,
and difficult, technologies we've invented in the lab. It is
large, feature rich, and essentially everything about it is
customized with accessibility in mind. To say the least, it has
become not just the sodbeans replacement, but a fundamental
re-thinking of what is possible for accessibility in programming.
First, here is a short list of where we are at:
1. The primary compilation pipeline is finished. This includes
compiling, debugging, and other basic functions you need to write
software. They aren't pretty and need plenty of work, but the bare
bones is functional. Quorum Studio is powerful enough today to
compile Quorum Studio in Quorum Studio.
2. Quorum Studio has a custom project system, different from
NetBeans. This cleans up a whole bunch of issues we've heard over
the years about projects in NetBeans. It will also allow us in the
future to use the same project system online and offline.
3. We have redesigned the user interface system for Quorum 7,
because we realized we had to for projects as complex as Quorum
Studio. William took the lead on this and it's lightyears ahead of
where we were at last year. To say the least, it is much simpler
to write user interfaces in Quorum 7.
4. Most of the major user interface windows are functioning in
Quorum Studio. This includes trees, the editor, and stuff like
that. Most of them are still pretty bare bones, but they are working.
5. Smart zooming: Magnification is never necessary in Quorum
Studio. If you "zoom in," the system is smart enough to re-render
every aspect of the user interface larger and without pixelation.
This is fundamentally different than what was even possible in
NetBeans.
While all of that is awesome, there are a number of features we
are not done with that are really important. I'll list a few, but
the short and skinny is that it is increasingly looking like we
should wait until next summer to release Quorum Studio. Notably,
we are still finishing the accessibility pipeline for screen
readers, some of the interface components need more spit and
polish, and there are a number of critical features that aren't
hard, but we haven't started on yet (e.g., copy/paste, find/replace).
We want to do this right and that means we are going to push
things back so we can get it how we want it. Here is our tentative
new plan:
1. Sometime in the next few months, we are going to put out a
closed alpha. We won't hit December as planned, but our thinking
internally is that "it's done when it is ready." This will be
invitation only for users testing certain things we know we will
want people to look at (e.g., screen reader support, smart zoom
testing).
2. After the alpha, we will put out a closed beta a few months
after that.
3. We will release Quorum Studio 1.0 formally at EPIQ 2019, which
feels somewhat fitting given it is the 10th anniversary of the venue.
We know that to a degree this is probably disappointing. I know
some of you are waiting and really want this and the sooner the
better. We're sorry about that. Looking at the technology,
however, our original goal to finish the technology in one year
was too ambitious. In practice, to make it what we want it to be
is taking us two years.
Delays notwithstanding, I can say that I am really, really excited
to get this technology out there to the community. We have been
wanting to invent this for years and are thankful to the National
Science Foundation that we finally have our shot. We're close and
I'm super excited for everyone to get their hands on it. It's
taking us more time, but we're making great progress. Hopefully it
will just be a few short months before the alpha!
Stefik
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