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Thread EWB 2 Status Update
Wed, Aug 20 2014 6:31 AMPermanent Link

Sergionn

I subscribe to question, Tim, any news? maybe some date?
We know you work very hard to make 2.0 to be out,
but we need at least some more news and deadlines.
Wed, Aug 20 2014 5:24 PMPermanent Link

Leslie

Godfrey wrote:

Also been waiting to use Ver 2 for my next project but I am running out of time.  Need an ETA.


I do not think it is realistic to expect Tim to be able to  plan ahead reliably when creating something new, something he has never done before.  Having an ETA you are unable to keep makes the life of any programmer miserable.

The current version is quite usable, is there something specific you are waiting for?

Cheers,
Leslie
Thu, Aug 21 2014 11:38 PMPermanent Link

Steve Gill

Avatar

It's a bit of a catch 22 situation, I think.

On one hand, it's hard to estimate how long it will take to build certain functionality into an amazing system like EWB. I know that Tim is beavering away like a crazed, err, beaver I guess. SmileAnd I'm sure that he is just as keen to get EWB2 released as we are. Personally, I certainly do not want to place any additional pressure on him. He's most likely under enough already.

On the other hand though, time is passing quickly. For those us who are using EWB for business (not for hobby purposes) and have invested time and money into it, the commercial reality is that time for some of us may be running out to produce something on our end. Customers won't wait around forever, and surviving in this economic climate is hard work at the best of times.

EWB1 is definitely quite usable as it is. I have been able to write some very useful applications with it, eg. client portals, a complete online business management system. It is a very good product that I would have a hard time living without.

Unfortunately though, IMHO, EWB1 is not quite mature enough for some of the products I have under development that I plan to sell to my clients. It lacks some important functionality that I need. EWB2 will fix this. Things may be different for others. They may be able to continue at a leisurely pace. My situation is I am under a lot of pressure to get my products finished and out the door ASAP.

Sure, you can fudge some things to make up the shortfall by cobbling together bits and pieces to make it look like the UI features you want - sort of. But in my experience that produces hard to maintain applications that are easy to break, and really doesn't perform like the real thing.

For me, I could go and learn Javascript or something else to try to do the same thing that EWB does, but that would take additional time and money, neither of which I have much of. It would also mean scrapping my existing partly-done products and starting over. It's all about productivity, and the quick and the dead. Take too long and you lose the business opportunity.

So where does that leave us? We still have to wait. Quality takes time and you can't rush it. Tim is doing his best and that's all we can ask for.

I'll probably get flamed for this but it's just my viewpoint from my side of the world. Things may be different for you.

= Steve
Fri, Aug 22 2014 8:28 AMPermanent Link

Godfrey

Ultimatesoft

Steve Gill wrote:

It's a bit of a catch 22 situation, I think.

On one hand, it's hard to estimate how long it will take to build certain functionality into an amazing system like EWB. I know that Tim is beavering away like a crazed, err, beaver I guess. SmileAnd I'm sure that he is just as keen to get EWB2 released as we are. Personally, I certainly do not want to place any additional pressure on him. He's most likely under enough already.

On the other hand though, time is passing quickly. For those us who are using EWB for business (not for hobby purposes) and have invested time and money into it, the commercial reality is that time for some of us may be running out to produce something on our end. Customers won't wait around forever, and surviving in this economic climate is hard work at the best of times.

EWB1 is definitely quite usable as it is. I have been able to write some very useful applications with it, eg. client portals, a complete online business management system. It is a very good product that I would have a hard time living without.

Unfortunately though, IMHO, EWB1 is not quite mature enough for some of the products I have under development that I plan to sell to my clients. It lacks some important functionality that I need. EWB2 will fix this. Things may be different for others. They may be able to continue at a leisurely pace. My situation is I am under a lot of pressure to get my products finished and out the door ASAP.

Sure, you can fudge some things to make up the shortfall by cobbling together bits and pieces to make it look like the UI features you want - sort of. But in my experience that produces hard to maintain applications that are easy to break, and really doesn't perform like the real thing.

For me, I could go and learn Javascript or something else to try to do the same thing that EWB does, but that would take additional time and money, neither of which I have much of. It would also mean scrapping my existing partly-done products and starting over. It's all about productivity, and the quick and the dead. Take too long and you lose the business opportunity.

So where does that leave us? We still have to wait. Quality takes time and you can't rush it. Tim is doing his best and that's all we can ask for.

I'll probably get flamed for this but it's just my viewpoint from my side of the world. Things may be different for you.

= Steve

+1
Fri, Aug 22 2014 10:18 AMPermanent Link

Uli Becker

Steve,

a good and carefully worded statement.

+1

Uli
Fri, Aug 22 2014 8:36 PMPermanent Link

Trinione

Steve,
Well said. You captured it perfectly from both ends.

We are all being patient, and I am sure we can appreciate the value of missed opportunity.

+1

triniOne
Sat, Aug 23 2014 9:04 PMPermanent Link

Mike

consultant


> For me, I could go and learn Javascript or something else to try to do the same thing that EWB does, but that would take additional time and money, neither of which I have much of. It would also mean scrapping my existing partly-done products and starting over. It's all about productivity, and the quick and the dead. Take too long and you lose the business opportunity.
>

Trust me.  give AngularJS a whirl.  You won't regret spending the time
on it.  You write surprisingly little actual code with it since so much
boilerplate crap you have to write in other systems its done for you.

I wont be renewing my EWB subscription.  It's just moving too slowly.
Great idea, but too much for one guy to pull off.  EMB should hire tim.
Mon, Aug 25 2014 7:23 AMPermanent Link

Matthew Jones

Mike Margerum wrote:

> I wont be renewing my EWB subscription.  It's just moving too slowly.
> Great idea, but too much for one guy to pull off.  EMB should hire
> tim.

I think that Tim is between a rock and a hard place. WebBuilder is a
great product today (I've got two projects using it with customers),
and it has a lot of potential for the future. From what I've heard, the
next version will be very powerful. The dilemma is of course that it
takes time to do complex stuff, and Elevate's resources are finite, and
thus it takes time, particularly at the quality that Tim is producing.
I think that EWB deserves to be twice the price for the value it gives,
which would give more resource, but the real world probably makes that
hard. I think that if we want it to succeed, we have to do what we can
to promote it to the world. That will give us users the virtuous cycle
we want. The last thing in the world we need is for Embarcadero to get
hold of Tim - that would be a disaster!

Obviously each of us has our own needs, uses, and hopes. But I
encourage all to renew the subscriptions (they aren't that much!) to
support its continued development. Sure, maybe wait for 2.0 to come out
to do so if you must, but as a cross-platform development solution it
has been superb for me to put out new applications that are reliable
and written in a language that I know already. (I've written before
that from what I've heard from Javascript developers they would like
some higher level concepts added, but that isn't going to happen -
WebBuilder gives me that today.)


--

Matthew Jones
Mon, Aug 25 2014 11:47 AMPermanent Link

Tim Young [Elevate Software]

Elevate Software, Inc.

Avatar

Email timyoung@elevatesoft.com

Steve,

I think Leslie describes our situation perfectly.

But, as you say, all of us have our own business goals and needs that must be met, and we must do what is best for our own business.

Having said that, I will say this: if anyone that is already somewhat happy with EWB1 decides to switch away from EWB *at this point*, they are probably going to regret doing so. Smile

I really do appreciate everyone's patience, and I believe that you'll be extremely happy with the end result.
------------

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com
Mon, Aug 25 2014 12:05 PMPermanent Link

Tim Young [Elevate Software]

Elevate Software, Inc.

Avatar

Email timyoung@elevatesoft.com

Mike Margerum wrote:

<< Trust me.  give AngularJS a whirl.  You won't regret spending the time on it.  You write surprisingly little actual code with it since so much boilerplate crap you have to write in other systems its done for you. >>

That's really not even in the same ballpark as EWB, rather it's part and parcel of the same type of situation that most EWB developers are trying to avoid, albeit somewhat automated.

<< Great idea, but too much for one guy to pull off. >>

Sometimes more bodies helps with these types of things, but not with the what has caused the majority of the delays with EWB 2.  To reiterate, I'm basically having to reconcile 2 different execution environments (design-time/run-time) under 1 IDE/codebase, and the design, not the coding, has definitely been the most time-consuming part of the process.  Delphi, for example, has 2 different execution environments, but they are identical in terms of compilation/support code.  Further complicating things, EWB 2 actually has one designer that operates in 2 different modes: one for designing control interfaces, and one for designing forms.  Delphi skipped the first part, at least with the VCL.

Also, it's important to remember that EWB1 got "stuck in a box" that was its design.  Large portions of time went by with no progress on the component/control front because it would have meant writing something that would only be useful for a few months and then be discarded.  This has caused the overall progress on EWB as a product to seem slower than it actually has been - when I've been working on EWB full-time, the progress has been fairly good.  In total, EWB 2 has taken me about 6 months of development time (I got started a bit later than I publicly stated, with a lot more time spent up-front on the design while I worked on some EDB stuff).  That's 6 months for a new designer from scratch, a new interpreter/execution engine for the design-time environment, a rewrite of the type system in the compiler, and a rewrite of the framework to support the new UI design.
------------

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com
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