Are releases shelved on purpose just to spread the new releases over a longer time period?
From one point of view I can appreciate it, as it means more regular releases. But if releases are delayed on purpose it's also annoying having to update PAM every few days or so with one new release.
I don't know how many time it takes to prepare a release or how many apps are ready to be released and just waiting to get it released, but I don't think it would be nessesary to delay releases on purpose just for the sake of keeping visitor numbers up. At first people will visit every day to get new releases, then it cools off because or there are none or only one.
Also in the time I visit I seen many many many apps in the beta test forum. I'm wondering if those ever get to the point of being released, as many of the apps already 'faded' away and new ones constantly pop up.
One concern is these apps will never get out of beta... Or are already outdated by this time.
I think there could be much more developers working on releases and the releases getting officially out. One of the mayor problem seems the limited amount of developers able to release (other than countless beta's).
Would it not be a good idea to get a page up with completed apps, that maybe not are 'ready' for the official PAM page but are ready for general release anyway? A place where people can put up their (sourceforge) hosted apps neatly organized and so on like the 'More apps...' page of PortableApps.com? At this moment it seems many apps stay (and fade away) in the beta test area of the site.
Don't see this as pressure for the existing crew to work harder or anything, but the limited amount of core people makes it impossible (and frustrating) for the existing crew to get all the apps through the pipeline.
Maybe it's a good idea to have an open (and not official) place for resources (like installer images) and downloads. A kinda like public place with a much larger crew to manage all these apps that would otherwise be forgotten.
Still I'm impressed so keep up the good work!
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but the way I understood it is that John delayed quite some Apps because he thought the new Platform was only a couple weeks away and he didn't want to re-release Apps just to make them compliant with the Platform's specs.
So there was a deliberate delay.
But then he realised that the weeks became months and so he released the Apps anyway (approx. 9 releases in January). In addition to that he pointed out a procedure how to make official Betas (so called Development Test). Some of them are listed here.
Right now he has to sit in a jury which was an unforeseeable event that cost him about 2 weeks.
More detailed info can be found in his *weekly updates".
Back in December I had the same feeling you described but now I think we're moving along quite well & fast. Someplace here in the forums he mentioned that Pidgin and Gimp will get an update next week.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
any luck there should also be a Toucan release shortly as I have sent all of the relevent stuff to John. But I agree, I think that things are really starting to move forwards again.
I prefer to error on the side of caution.
Let's not forget that we just had 3 "releases" of "Sumatra PDF Portable 0.8" in 10 ten days as it needed more vetting to find problems.
At this point I'm still gonna give it a few more days before installing.
Getting out apps that are stable is much more important than speed of release.
I myself would like to see a max of one app in a given week before releasing the next so we can concentrate on it before downloading another, but that's just me, and I'm sure few here would agree with me
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
I totally agree. But if an App is at 2.4.4 and the potable one ar 2.2.17, I think an update is desirable. Once again its a question of balance. Thoroughly tested vs. more or less up-to-date. John stopped doing Prereleases a while ago for some reason. Sumatra should have had one.
just my 2 cents.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Your are correct, as usual
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?