World: r3wp

This was asked for a couple of times in the past.  Currently AltME 
does not have a way to do this.  It is on the list though.

Of course, if you want to make changes, you can build your own AltMe 
clone, as this 'list' of future AltMefeatures are likely vapourware?

Wow, did someone forget to change the monkey diapers in the peanut 
gallery?
You and Graham sure seem ornery.

Reichart, ever since Altme came out, you've been speaking of the 
"list".. not sure how many years so far.  What was the last update, 
scrolling?  If you don't want to update Altme, that's your perogative, 
but the "soon" and "it's on the list" vapourware speak only bears 
on your reputation.  I know.. I do the same thing :)

So if you want to get things done, you positively have to understand 
at any given point in time what is the most important thing to get 
done right now and if you're not doing it, you're not making progress 
at the fastest possible rate.
 -- Joel on Software


I'm guessing you're a 'switched on' kind of guy.. so..  .. Altme 
simply isn't one of your priorities.

Top of my list.. pick me up one of these..   http://indyskate.com/kickpopmike2.gif

I'm not really interested in debating with you, and other than this 
last statement on the topic I won't.  I'm only responding because 
there are a lot of new people here who might not be clear on the 
facts.


Vapourware is "New software that has been announced or marketed but 
has not been produced." We have been produced, people use our software, 
and it sells.  


Nor do we market or claim any of the new features people ask about. 
 People ask, and we tell them whether it is on the list, or if we 
are going to add it to the list.  We don't commit ourselves to a 
date.


You might not like these facts, but your accusations are inflammatory 
and baseless.  

The facts:


AltME came out as Beta, and we systematically brought it past version 
1.  We met our needs and goal.  If you would like something updated, 
I will give you the bank account number to transfer funds to, we 
can set a rate, and you can have any update you like.


We have never said no to any idea for AltME, we discuss them, and 
log people's ideas so that when we make changes, the ones most asked 
for are reflected (this group here on Rebol3 is not our only source 
of input).


If you do not like the rate with which we make changes, or the reason 
we make changes, then this is going to be a painful environment for 
you to remain in.


Otherwise I will state again, we are active on the development of 
an update to AltME, and we have no set date.   


If you would like to ask a constructive question I will always do 
my best to give a clear answer.  If you simply want to needle and 
dig at us, then I can no longer engage you.

You guys have done a great job with AltME. And it's free for us here! 
I can't think of any reason to complain. Quite the contrary: Thank 
you!
(If I needed something more, I should do it myself.)

despite its quirks, AltME works wonderfully and is a relaxing, non-intrusive 
way of instant messaging. being restricted to mailing lists or webforums 
would have made communications a whole lot slower.

Reichart - no such reaction was needed imo :-) Terry imo did not 
want to be strictly inflamatory. But guys, let's realise one other 
thing - once someone is trying to point out something, we imediatelly 
give the answer - if you need more, do it yourself, you are free 
to do so ... BUT! That is very incorrect marketing answer ...

I am not trying to defend Terry here, just trying to put things into 
other perspective ...

I also received email from one earlier reboller, that rebol's image 
is hurt also because of how do we aproach development (and the person 
in question meant product which has impact - Rebol itself, altme) 
... ppl could not be simply sure what exactly is going to happen 
and when.....

So - Terry just could use a bit less inflamatory language, but the 
core of his message remains .... some of you will have quick answer 
- open-source :-) But we know Carl opened Desktop, noone took it 
to improve it ...

we are running in circles of small adoption, open-source etc. topics, 
and how to improve current situation :-)

(Maybe nobody needed to improve Desktop. The next opensource experiment 
is MozPlugin. Lets see if this goes somewhere?)

it's easy, I don't use desktop at all, so I don't need to improve 
it

I personally think people didn't grab the open source desktop as 
there is no vision as to what can be done with it.

And I also don't use the desktop.

I will comment (for what it is worth) a little on AltMe's improvement.


If you guys have paid attention to Carl's reply on the DevCon Q&A...one 
of the things he highlighted is that /Platform is sold to SafeWorlds...(which 
is AltMe).


Draw your own conclusions there. Again, Reichart's commetns that 
they do things as they seems fit and of course $$ rules still applies.

IIRC my main concern with desktop was, there was no launch enabled, 
so it was only usable with tricks. And encapping made no sense because 
launching scripts was is prohibited. And then, after a while one 
had to search for the source, it was somewhere hidden.

part of RT's problems lies in the way information is scattered all 
around

About Terry, well, thats his language.. ;) That Reichart sometimes 
says "comming soon" and then it takes month i agree. OTOH altme works 
and works and recycles and works.

True.

Wikipedia def: "Vaporware (also spelled vapourware) is software or 
hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, 
but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted 
development cycle. "

perhaps i should have said "protracted development cycle" instead

Uh oh, an potential Altme killer made with AJAX   http://ccml01.medien.uni-weimar.de:8071/simplechat

I've yet to see an IM done well within a browser...

We have a couple computers in our office running altme that don't 
seem to behave like they used to. When we get new messages the icon 
no longer blinks. Anyone have a fix for this? I think it's a setting 
in windows because at home it works like a charm.

james, are you sure it hasn't been turned off in the AltME settings?

Yep.

I would say "Reinstall Windows", but that joke isn't even funny anymore

I think it is a setting in windows or perhaps some type of pop-up 
stopper gone mad. No worries. Just a minor an
noyance.

But you're right. That's the way we fix things.

The "AltME killer" above seems to have been killed :-) Error 500

altmedotted by us?!

wondering about how much bandwidth AltME takes... would it be too 
much for a GPRS connection?

AltME shuld be the best option you would have for a GRPS connection, 
since we only send deltas.

my ADSL is very unstable right now.... and modem is way too expensive 
for chatting/idling

uh oh, is it really so big trouble to "recompile" with 1.3 View? 
AltME keep crashing on me each week :-)

Why would AltME "start" crashing.  Do you belong to more than one 
world?  Can you confirm that it is really AltME?  As in, does it 
only crash in this (big) world, and never crashes in a smaller world?

he probably means the recycle error ..

yes, the recycle error. I use only this one world ...

Ah, then the answer to your question is : 100% of our energy is going 
into AltME 2.  It is not worth fixing that error (which is in Rebol 
I should mention), since we will be working with Carl when we wrap 
this up.

when? Wouldn't it be just a hour of work or so, to encap using View 
1.3 SDK?

I completely understand your reasoning,

But, in our universe we:


1. Make change systematically from a giant list of features and bugs. 
 The means multiple people checking in code that is often changed 
several dozen times and overlapped by different people.


2. The once compiled, an array of computers and operating systems 
are cleaned (often reinstalled from ghosted images of hard drives) 
and sent through a complete test suite.  


3. If anything fails…the team has to be taken off what ever they 
are working on at that moment.  Then repeat the test cycle.

This is what we release as Alpha or Beta.  Gamma is a nightmare.


These realities are interleaved with all the different products we 
work on.  It means that before we do a release candidate of anything 
we have to weigh our test-team's schedule, confirm the majority of 
developers are available.  And not just for the release, but everyone 
has to hang around for the next couple of days because after release 
there is a high chance someone will find something.

Wouldn't it be just a hour of work or so
 

No…

thanks for your explanation :-) Did not know your development rules 
are so developed :-)

We have a very low bug rate (we have won awards for it.)


We take it very seriously.  On one side it means things can be a 
pain in the ass (especially for us).  On the other side, what we 
do release is much better.


One thing it does cause though is for everyone to focus and gather 
up all the things they want to change at the same time.  Sort of 
like knowing that you have to put all your stuff on one boat every 
day to set sail.  If you miss the boat you have to wait a day.

I'd like to see a metric that measures the success of a world .. 
for instance, the number of posts per logged on user per unit time.

Hmmm.  Interesting.  So people that get on, post, and get off produce 
a higher number?

Then we could follow that metric to see if the world was fufilling 
the aims of the world