4 ms·

Allan was saying "the end is in sight" 6 months ago. http://blog.macromates.com/2009/working-on-it/ http://blog.macromates.com/2009/working-on-it/ This really

by compay 17y ago

Allan was saying "the end is in sight" 6 months ago. http://blog.macromates.com/2009/working-on-it/ http://blog.macromates.com/2009/working-on-it/ This really reminds me of a series of blog posts by Chad Fowler, warning against the "big rewrite." http://chadfowler.com/2006/12/27/the-big-rewrite http://chadfowler.com/2006/12/27/the-big-rewrite Now he says the next version will be out "maybe in 6 more months if everything goes right." In other words: "I have absolutely no idea when or if I'm ever going to finish it." Which, of course, is fine. It's his project and he has every right to develop/mismanage it as he sees fit. But I got tired of waiting for basic things like split-window to be implemented and went back to vim a while ago. If 2.0 ever comes out I'll definitely check it out but for now I'm happily using vim.

eli 17y ago
Joel also wrote a pretty popular piece about big rewrites a decade ago: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html The title is "Things You Should Never Do, Part I"
- blasdel 17y ago
  ...and his example is the Mozilla rewrite, which was wildly successful!
  - mechanical_fish 17y ago
    I'm not sure Netscape's investors would agree with you.
- apinstein 17y ago
  We had to re-write an application once quickly due to expiration of a licensing contract. We took the opportunity to refactor it heavily based on "big rewrite" ideas we had for years. We finished the re-write in 6 weeks and the app was better architected and with new features. Maybe it worked because it was a relatively small app, but it can be done. Alan
simonw 17y ago
I was actually reminded of a couple of aspects of the Duke Nukem Forever story - http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/ Duke Nukem Forever was self funded, so there was no commercial pressure to finish it. Since Allan is essentially a one-man shop I imagine the revenue from TextMate 1.0 has him set for life. TextMate 1.0 was also a runaway hit, so the pressure for TextMate 2.0 to be an equally impressive release must be pretty intense.
deleted 17y ago
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walkandre 17y ago
I'll tell you why it's taking so long. Allan was hired by MacRabbit to create Espresso. ( http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ ) now after you download it and play for a while you will see that it's just an improved version of textmate or even it's textmate 2.0!!!!

by compay 17y ago

eli 17y ago

Joel also wrote a pretty popular piece about big rewrites a decade ago: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html The title is "Things You Should Never Do, Part I"

blasdel 17y ago
...and his example is the Mozilla rewrite, which was wildly successful!
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  I'm not sure Netscape's investors would agree with you.
apinstein 17y ago
We had to re-write an application once quickly due to expiration of a licensing contract. We took the opportunity to refactor it heavily based on "big rewrite" ideas we had for years. We finished the re-write in 6 weeks and the app was better architected and with new features. Maybe it worked because it was a relatively small app, but it can be done. Alan

simonw 17y ago

I was actually reminded of a couple of aspects of the Duke Nukem Forever story - http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/ Duke Nukem Forever was self funded, so there was no commercial pressure to finish it. Since Allan is essentially a one-man shop I imagine the revenue from TextMate 1.0 has him set for life. TextMate 1.0 was also a runaway hit, so the pressure for TextMate 2.0 to be an equally impressive release must be pretty intense.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

walkandre 17y ago

I'll tell you why it's taking so long. Allan was hired by MacRabbit to create Espresso. ( http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ ) now after you download it and play for a while you will see that it's just an improved version of textmate or even it's textmate 2.0!!!!