Thanks, Jaffar, that's super appreciated. Decisions like this are dang hard
and I really appreciate how kind the community has been in giving us some
leeway in the dev process.
On Sat, Nov 17, 2018 at 3:57 PM Jaffar Sidek <jaffar.sidek10@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
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>
<program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *On Behalf Of *jacob kruger
*Sent:* Saturday, November 17, 2018 2:06 AM
*To:* Program-l <program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> <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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