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I will, however, plan to write a blog post about why the process is taking longer than even we had expected, what the specific challenges are, etc.

I’m excited to read the post-mortem!  I have to say that since you announced you were rewriting using CI I’ve thought to myself so many times how I’m glad I’m not doing it! Rewriting the entire system from the ground-up taking advantage of the new tech of CI, making a solid foundation for the next x or xx (?!?) years with regards to how the system interoperates, bringing in new parts to the system to make it sound for that long (overhaul how some things work like membership templates, groups, etc), AND make it backward compatible/an upgrade with ALL the tags working, templates working, etc.  Like I said I’m glad I’m not doing it 😉 That’s freaking massive. I am glad you are, however 😊  Thanks for all the work.

I’m putting on my swami hat - holding the envelope up to my head.  What’s going to be great, make people happy, and launch in the second half of 09?  Envelope please…  :coolhmm:

EDIT to add: I’m all for transparency in communication, and I too think it is important to keep customers apprised of upcoming software features if they are known.  I also don’t think there’s going to be a built-in rating system in 2.0 just to keep on topic 😉

I’m always surprised with the responses of the EllisLab staff. Never do they look at things from the users’ perspective.

Technically I’m a customer, being a paying member of EE and its modules, but everything about this company irritates me. All responses come off in a fake corporate tone, with a slice of arrogance to finish. The whole feature request thing is a joke too. The community, however, is fantastic (I’m looking at you Mr. Bowen).

I actually think that EE is the best cms out there, and I’m always playing with it on my development server, but until the attitiude of the company changes I won’t be going live with it.

This comment might seem out of place here but Derek’s comment just finished it. I’ve been following the progress of 2.0 obsessively since it was announced and not once have I ever felt there was transparency. There is not one member here who would say they have been given enough information about the upcoming release.

There is not one member here who would say they have been given enough information about the upcoming release.

Please don’t speak for me.  I have to say I find the communication from EllisLab the opposite of corporate.  EllisLab says develop with current features in mind.  How much more clear can you be?  They are absolutely consistent with this message and I’m comfortable with that.

The community, however, is fantastic (I’m looking at you Mr. Bowen).

I promise that I did not pay for that comment 😉

Thanks for the kind words. Just glad that I am a help as sometimes I wonder if I might just be getting in the way of the team here.

Best wishes,

Mark

I agree that having some regular morsels of finished, baked in new features (along with the video demonstrating such) would benefit everyone associated with EE.

In all seriousness, how?  How will you benefit from seeing the videos?  How will EllisLab benefit from the developmental disruption to create them?

At this point it’s a credibility issue as much as anything else. How long have users been “teased” with tidbits of news about EE 2.0? Ad nauseum, I suspect.

As a user I benefit from seeing more of what’s coming. Software application developers do that all the time. It gets customers looking forward to something new and better and and helps justify what is likely to cost more money. You can’t really justify the questions “How will you benefit from seeing the videos?” or “How will EllisLab benefit from the developmental disruption to create them?” since EllisLab has already done both multiple times.

So, what we’re really talking about is timeliness; a more regulated or disciplined approach to releasing tidbits (via video, or screenshots, or whatever) about a few of the “fer sure” features in EE 2.0. If anything, such an approach could buy EllisLab more time by sating some of the curious—arguably already inflamed by EllisLab.

If EE is ready for a summer release, fine. But that was the tease, and it wasn’t ready, and for plenty of justifiable reasons, of course. OS X Leopard wasn’t ready for the original launch, got pushed back, and still got released early (probably for plenty of other reasons). Don’t get me started on Vista. Yet, all the while both houses released plenty of information about what was to come, though not everything did.

Again, once the cat is out of the toothpaste tube…

It’s not difficult to argue that a regular, reasonable, disciplined approach to releasing information about what is coming in EE 2.0 will go a long way to salving some of the inflammation caused by the earlier and less frequent tidbits about 2.0, and the subsequent delays in the release. That would take the place of “It’s coming, it’s cool, it’s near, it’ll be in summer, it’s delayed, it’s a ways off, shhhhh.”

Is it alcohol?  I’m asking seriously, do you get drunk sometimes before you visit our forums?

Rick, I get intoxicated by visiting the forums. There’s just so much to drink in…
😊

I felt like quoting Rick on this too, some of us could maybe benefit from EEA and AA.
I’ld rather help promote the goodwill for the former and not that latter.
Maybe I’ll write an expose’ on the evils of computing and adult beverage favorites that are over the 3.2% alcohol rating(hey a ratings system back on topic), and it might take sloshing back a few to get the proper perspective on that one.

I’m not sure more news on the coding going on makes sense.
Things are subject to change when a better method presents itself in the grander scheme of things.

I’m always surprised with the responses of the EllisLab staff. Never do they look at things from the users’ perspective.

Given that you have 24 posts, we’ll give you a freebie on this claim.

Technically I’m a customer, being a paying member of EE and its modules, but everything about this company irritates me. All responses come off in a fake corporate tone, with a slice of arrogance to finish. The whole feature request thing is a joke too. The community, however, is fantastic (I’m looking at you Mr. Bowen).

Perhaps you should compare our Change Log with Feature Requests given by the community. You’ll see literally 100s of them implemented.

I actually think that EE is the best cms out there, and I’m always playing with it on my development server, but until the attitiude of the company changes I won’t be going live with it.

To each their own. We’re not corporate, which I think is what actually irks you. We give real opinions that aren’t sanitized by a PR person. Sometimes this comes off as arrogant when really its just our opinion, like yours.

This comment might seem out of place here but Derek’s comment just finished it. I’ve been following the progress of 2.0 obsessively since it was announced and not once have I ever felt there was transparency. There is not one member here who would say they have been given enough information about the upcoming release.

That’s because we typically don’t give information about upcoming releases. We’ve given more info on 2.0 then we ever have with previous releases. We’ll always be transparent with our opinions and feedback but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be open about everything going on or tell people what’s coming in advance. We honestly believe that will result in bad decisions being made, so we don’t.

OS X Leopard wasn’t ready for the original launch, got pushed back, and still got released early (probably for plenty of other reasons). Don’t get me started on Vista. Yet, all the while both houses released plenty of information about what was to come, though not everything did.

Let’s go with that example, since for some reason, everyone jumped on Microsoft when I tried to just use them as an example. Apple showed off Leopard a year before it launched (maybe a little more). Those who started planning around Leopard didn’t have business sense - they were being smart. They took a look at what was coming, started thinking of ways to improve their products with the tools and features of the next OS that would benefit their customers.

Apple had two events for Leopard - each one showed off 10 features (although the second event pretty much “stole” 5 features from the first, so they really only showed about 15 features in total). Leopard was delayed, and sure, people were disappointed, but with the delay Apple still kept people in the loop.

Me personally? I’m not asking for a video each week or whatever. All I am saying is that adding a feature list to the EE 2.0 page, maybe with some screenshots of some of the features that don’t “make sense” with just a text description, would work fine. Then I can look at the obvious things and say, “Oh, that is coming - so I will wait on that since it isn’t a pressing need.” Or I can say, “Well, looks like that Commerce module still isn’t going to be available, maybe I should get X company to work on some sort of custom solution.”

You can’t tell me that something won’t help me, if I know it will. We all work different, we all plan different. Whether you agree with my business planning or not, what I can say is that we have been a profitable blogging company from day one, each and every month., with continued growth and never a single lay-off 😉 Not too many other “Web 2.0 companies” can say the same.

Anyhow, I don’t think you need to spend too much time on it, I (personally) just want to see a feature list, similar to the current EE 1.x feature list, but highlighting the new features of each area/module - again, with text and images. What would that take, a few hours to throw together? Heck, you can even do it with the caveat of “We are giving you this list, but we aren’t going to engage in too much conversation about it on the forums. You can talk amongst yourselves, but we are going to be hard at work building it.”

Then, if you still want to do videos of anything, go ahead - or don’t. But at least we can see the skeleton 😉

It’s not difficult to argue that a regular, reasonable, disciplined approach to releasing information about what is coming in EE 2.0 will go a long way to salving some of the inflammation caused by the earlier and less frequent tidbits about 2.0, and the subsequent delays in the release. That would take the place of “It’s coming, it’s cool, it’s near, it’ll be in summer, it’s delayed, it’s a ways off, shhhhh.”

We have provided updates, status, and releases about every two weeks. We plan to continue at about that pace until 2.0 is released.

The problem is that we can’t please everyone and inevitably someone posts something negative. That’s okay and understandable.

Again, once the cat is out of the toothpaste tube…

Ronnie, the toothpaste analogy is an interesting one, but it doesn’t really apply here.  Of course you cannot make people forget the cat that is already out of the tube.  But what about the rest of the cats?  Hypothetically speaking, if you do something with your own business that you later find out to be a mistake, the fact that you made the initial mistake does not mean that you must surrender to continuing to make that mistake in perpetuity.  I’m not saying that our previews, attempt at publishing a release date, and blog posts about what’s coming was a mistake, but it certainly has made us pause and remember the many benefits we had of previous policy of not releasing anything at all in advance.  For example, I just posted something rather detailed Friday, which I’ve done regularly since SXSW.  And yet you’re still criticizing that I’m not sharing enough.  I can’t win, and that’s incredibly frustrating.

So, what we’re really talking about is timeliness; a more regulated or disciplined approach to releasing tidbits (via video, or screenshots, or whatever) about a few of the “fer sure” features in EE 2.0.s

Alas, if only programming behaved and things fell into place at timed marketing intervals…

I think my blog post I have planned for this week will perhaps clear up some of the mystery, and alleviate some of your frustration, or at least shed some light on why we’ve chosen to speak about some things and not others.  Andru, that includes your list that would only take a “few hours” to create. 😛

@Deviance, this is the second time in your short time with our community that you’ve posted a rant that you’re fed up with EllisLab.  You’re entitled to that opinion, but do you really think everyone else shares your nihilistic view of the company?

...
Me personally? I’m not asking for a video each week or whatever. All I am saying is that adding a feature list to the EE 2.0 page, maybe with some screenshots of some of the features that don’t “make sense” with just a text description, would work fine. Then I can look at the obvious things and say, “Oh, that is coming - so I will wait on that since it isn’t a pressing need.” Or I can say, “Well, looks like that Commerce module still isn’t going to be available, maybe I should get X company to work on some sort of custom solution.”

You can’t tell me that something won’t help me, if I know it will. We all work different, we all plan different.
...

I personally agree with Andru.

I think my blog post I have planned for this week will perhaps clear up some of the mystery, and alleviate some of your frustration, or at least shed some light on why we’ve chosen to speak about some things and not others.  Andru, that includes your list that would only take a “few hours” to create. 😛

I, for one, look forward to it. Just to be clear, I meant a few hours to create the feature list and some screenshots 😉

I don’t think you guys are making a mistake to give us news in advance FWIW, again pointing to things like Leopard being shown off, iPhone being shown off 6 months in advance, the New Xbox Experience being shown off about 6 months early, Wordpress providing sandboxes to allow people to play with new features before they are officially released, etc. etc. These companies did it because, yes, they knew it would create hype - but it also sets expectations. Even in the case of a delay in whole, or a delay in some of the features so those can be more polished. People like being told what to expect, and it makes them feel included, respected, etc.

And heck, you guys have said yourself that a ton of the Change Log comes from Feature Requests of this community. We’ve built EE together, dare I say 😊 And I know there are hostiles here as well, which is never fun. You can’t please everybody, obviously…but you have a great product that drew this very passionate community together, so, your fault 😊

Erdal, Andru: Okay, so we publish a feature list that includes something that you’d have to hire a third party developer for to have now.  When we release 2.0, the feature doesn’t do what you thought it would, or had to be dropped altogether.  What now?  And if your answer is “I’d be okay with it, and then hire a developer to build the feature,” that’s great, and we’d appreciate your understanding.  Others won’t see it so benevolently, but as us letting them down at best, and as being liars at worst.

We’ve built EE together, dare I say 😊

Completely agree with this. Its one of the reasons 2.0 will be on CI.

We’ll consider a feature list after the Developer Preview is available. I’m not promising anything but we’ll be in a much better position to share a lot more things after the Developer Preview and initial betas are available. Until then, we’re all going to have to be patient.

Erdal, Andru: Okay, so we publish a feature list that includes something that you’d have to hire a third party developer for to have now.  When we release 2.0, the feature doesn’t do what you thought it would, or had to be dropped altogether.  What now?  And if your answer is “I’d be okay with it, and then hire a developer to build the feature,” that’s great, and we’d appreciate your understanding.  Others won’t see it so benevolently, but as us letting them down at best, and as being liars at worst.

Of course that’d be my response, I would be okay with it. If it didn’t do what I needed, I would ask a dev if an extension or plugin would be appropriate. If not, I would have it built. Same as I’d do if something I expected in Leopard didn’t work as planned or got cut. Or anywhere else.

Those who would feel let down or that you are liars are people who obviously haven’t been working in the tech/software field for too long, because it is a regular occurrence, happens all the time, and in the end, isn’t that big a deal. I would prefer seeing what is planned, seeing the direction you guys are going, what you are thinking, well in advance. Again, this is the software that I rely on to run my business, and to that end, you have to see where I’m coming from. “Where is this tool that I rely on so heavily going? What is the mindset and direction the developers are setting for themselves? Is there anything I should know about it before it is available, for planning purposes?”

As an example, from the video on the File Manager, I already know that:

1) I am going to wait, rather than using a third-party one.
2) I have some ideas for ways to simplify our workflow based on what I saw.

That helps me, a lot. 😉