Putting the Trust Back In “Trusted System”
It’s been a while back but I remember reading about the point when the crew working on Subversion moved their code base over from CVS to Subversion. (If you’re not the geeky type, Subversion and CVS are kind of like Time Machine for code.) Their own source control system was now being hosted on itself. Nice. I think I made the switch on my own source control server within a few days, knowing that if they trusted their own project with it, then I could probably trust it to host my projects too. And these guys weren’t marketers. They were programmers. Definitely power users. They did not disappoint. I feel the same way about the news that Apple is now building Leopard on systems running Leopard. When a marketer tells you their product is ready, take it with a grain of salt. Their product may still have serious bugs, yet they are under the gun to drum up sales and get media attention. But when a developer says they are eating their own dog food so to speak, I take note.
Cheers!
Now that KaDo List has reached this defining point, it seems that a post is in order. Now, I’m not saying that because I’m a developer, I automatically deserve a higher amount of trust than some random marketing person. I’m just stating that, for what it’s worth, my new trusted system for managing my Projects and Actions (including the KaDo List project itself) is now KaDo List. It is stable, crash free, and lightning fast. Putting the trust back in Trusted System.
What does this mean? It means that I can trust it with all of my “stuff.” It means that the system finally hit that point where it has that “Wow!” feeling. It happened innocently enough, while I was unit testing the filters and actions inside the inbox. That’s when the “YES!” moment snuck up behind me and dumped ice down my (very smooth Urban Outfitters) shirt. As I was clicking through each inbox item, one-at-a-time thanks to the filter for showing the top item only, clicking along, converting “stuff” to Projects and Actions, deleting unactionable items, all with a single click, it hit me. “I can use this right now for my trusted GTD system. It has hit the mark!” At that point, beer cans were popping open in slow motion, fresh out of the ice packed cooler, spraying cool mist for miles. Beautiful women were swishing their hair around (also in slow motion) as they looked toward the impressive zeros and ones emanating from Xcode (taken ladies, sorry…). Coltrane stepped up to take an extra chorus and exhaust every last bit of energy left in the audience. People were throwing kittens(!?). It was crazy, chaotic, and magnificent. Sure, I was just at my desk coding, but it felt great.
The Beta Approaches
Getting back to reality, everything is now clicking in KaDo List and mostly cosmetic items are left to complete. This serves as the ideal point to drop the axe on any needless features that might serve to complicate the clean interface. I will soon unleash the beta in two phases. The first will be the app on its own, possibly only to the private beta tester list. The second release will be the app plus the beta for its web app sidekick.
Thanks to feedback from my last screenshots post, and some keen advice from a fellow CocoaHead in St. Louis, I have decided that KaDo List is now officially a code name. The real name for the app now reflects the true spirit of the experience. It will be announced along with the beta release on this blog.
