Hi Tim,

<< With regard to EWB 3, we're not asking anyone to do anything they don't want to do.  Everyone is free to "move on to greener pastures" if they're not happy with how much time it is taking, and I've talked with several customers that have done just that.  There are no hard feelings about customers doing what they need to do. >>

Nah, I'm in for the long haul.

<< I cannot understate that the time it takes to do a project like this is absolutely enormous, and the entire endeavor is a big gamble for us.  We've taken quite a hit, both personally in terms of the sheer amount of time that I've dedicated to the project, and financially due to me not working on anything else for such a long period of time (we're down about $25K in revenue this year alone - I could have made more money this year working a regular, run-of-the mill software developer job).  I wouldn't do something like this if I didn't think it was necessary for the product to move forward.>>

Personally, I don't know how you do it.  You're way more productive than me.  It would take me a month to do what you do in a day, if I could even do it.


<< Plus, it's really, really hard to keep telling my wife "it's almost done..." over and over and not feel like I'm full of s**t.>>

I know that feeling.  I do contract work from home and my wife is always asking "when are you going to get paid?".  Me: "As soon as I finish this next block of work". Her: "And when is that?".  Me: "Soon, soon."  Her: "That's what you always say." Oh boy.

<< - I was diagnosed with TOS (Thoracic Outlet Syndrome) in early September, 2017 and it took a couple of weeks to completely recover from the surgery.  I was back on the EWB 3 IDE by October, 2017.

- My mother passed away in late November, 2017, so I had to spend a better part of December, 2017 finalizing her affairs in conjunction with my normal workload, so the EWB 3 IDE work was spotty during that month.

- In February, 2018, I had to go back in for a follow-up surgery, and lost a couple of more weeks. >>

Holy crap Tim.  I'm so sorry.  You've had a really bad run.


<< For the record, I'm perfectly healthy (still) and the surgeries were a "life blip" due to a birth defect (cervical rib) that I wasn't aware that I had.   But, at any rate, that's where the time went.  Most of the bad estimates have been due to a) unforeseen circumstances, b) time spent on DBISAM/ElevateDB, or c) extra work I didn't know was going to be necessary and, therefore, couldn't possibly know to include in my estimate.  For example, the external native code interfaces for the compiler alone took about a month and a half longer than expected to get debugged and working right because a lot of the existing architecture broke down when the external bindings/calls had to work across DLL boundaries.  I'm aware of the general requirements with such features, but it's almost impossible to get right the exact amount of time it's going to take until you start coding it and realize where all of the "gotchas" are located. >>

You're better than me.  My bad estimates are generally due to them being, errr, bad estimates.  I never really know how long something is going to take until I start coding.  That's when I find out that my really awesome designs aren't that awesome and I have to scrap them and start again.  And things that I thought were going to be easy turn out to be really difficult.

= Steve

Having worked as a programmer for Federal Government here for most of my working life, either as an employee or contractor, I can honestly say I have never seen a software project finish within the estimated time.  

They have always run over budget and over time.  The only exceptions I have seen is when they drop functionality to get it over the line in time.  But then there is a lash back from senior executive for why that functionality is missing.

Now you may say well that's just typical of Government.  But in the areas I have worked in everyone has worked very hard to get the work done (not in the least due to performance reviews).

= Steve

After a careful and thorough analysis of available products, I have come up with a comparison of EWB vs the others.

Please refer to attached image.

= Steve

>>Steve Gill wrote:
>>After a careful and thorough analysis of available products, I have come up with a comparison of EWB vs the others.
>>Please refer to attached image.

Now that is genius !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS. And probably a fair reflection of reality

Steve,

<< Nothing that comes close to EWB.  I was referring to that Smart Mobile thing and the TMS product, but they're not even in the same league. >>

Jon Lennart Aasenden (SMS) has some very interesting ideas, for sure, and is a big proponent of Object Pascal, and I am always a fan of anyone that is trying to push the envelope.  IMO, his ideas regarding Linux and using the OS as a runtime environment for self-contained GUI applications is (most likely) the right idea.  The various window managers for Linux are probably never going to get their act straight:

https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

(under "Software Support - X System and Wayland").

I haven't been able to look a the TMS stuff much yet, but it looks similar to some of the other web development packages for Delphi.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Steve,

<< Nah, I'm in for the long haul. >>

Thanks, that's always appreciated.  But, as I said, I wasn't trying to tell customers to "go away", rather that I understand that everyone has deadlines and sometimes you just need to get something produced *now* for a customer.  I'm trying to position EWB for the next 5-10 years, so what someone uses this year isn't as important as what they use moving forward after the initial EWB 3 release.

In the future, I should probably have Sam proof-read my posts so that they aren't so muddled.

<< Personally, I don't know how you do it.  You're way more productive than me.  It would take me a month to do what you do in a day, if I could even do it. >>

A large part of the pain with EWB 3 was due to some less-than-stellar code that I wrote over the last 8 years (especially the compiler), so I'm not sure how productive that all turned out to be.   But, I'm happy to report that I'm getting better at it, and EWB 3 is really solid code, and I don't think I could have done EWB 3 without first learning where I went wrong with all of the prior code.

<< I know that feeling.  I do contract work from home and my wife is always asking "when are you going to get paid?".  Me: "As soon as I finish this next block of work". Her: "And when is that?".  Me: "Soon, soon."  Her: "That's what you always say." Oh boy. >>

Yeah, it's not fun...

<< Holy crap Tim.  I'm so sorry.  You've had a really bad run. >>

Meh, I've had a pretty charmed life, so I don't have much to complain about.  But, it is difficult to get back into the development groove once your life has been interrupted by something serious.  It was just a lot of false starts at the beginning of the project.

<< You're better than me.  My bad estimates are generally due to them being, errr, bad estimates.  I never really know how long something is going to take until I start coding.  That's when I find out that my really awesome designs aren't that awesome and I have to scrap them and start again.  And things that I thought were going to be easy turn out to be really difficult. >>

I'm in the same boat (I think we all are).  It's just nearly impossible for any up-front designs to cover *everything*, and often it is the small things that you didn't think of that kill the estimate.  It just so happens that EWB 3 had a *lot* of small things like this.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com