SAFE Network Dev Update - May 16, 2019

[VaCrunch]

Excellent style and grammar critique.

[polpolrene]

@maidsafe

Viv

Next, we have a piece of sad news that we’d like to bring to your attention. @Viv, our current CTO, has decided to step down from his role at MaidSafe. As everyone who’s followed the project knows, Viv’s contribution to the company over the past 8 years has been exceptional, having worked his way up from a junior development position to lead the development teams. He has been an invaluable member of the team and he will be missed.

Thanx for all the hard work @Viv !!

[Mendrit]

Great update, lot of work and great results.

Updated website, new roadmap… it is masterpiece.

Thank you @Viv for all the hard work in 8 years!

[Toivo]

@happybeing

I went straight to the new roadmap and think it is fantastic. Very clear, streamlined and informative.

Me too and I agree!

Although the statement of PARSEC as completed seems bit contradictory to this line in this Dev Update:

@maidsafe

There is also ongoing work on a bug in PARSEC uncovered by Routing tests some time ago.

… especially when it seems that this bug really was interfering with the core function of PARSEC.

[dirvine]

@Toivo

especially when it seems that this bug really was interfering with the core function of PARSEC.

All bugs are really. So any we find we do treat as significant as we want parsec to be a production-ready library. All bugs are bad there, but we do want to see common-coin there as well to allow full async.

[Traktion]

@happybeing

the new roadmap and think it is fantastic. Very clear, streamlined and informative. It also seems to show Fleming and beta are more in reach than last week’s task boards - I’m not sure why, but it does.

Not sure how I missed that link, but I agree - they look great and are exactly what I want to see on the website!

[Sascha]

@maidsafe

That Oxford Comma was just for you Nadia.

Thank you, @Nadia!
And everybody else too, of course. I really do appreciate these weekly updates and the openness.

@JPL

apart from that Oxford Comma

Screw you, @JPL.

@Nadia

I’m sooooooo with you on that!

What am I missing here?

@dlux

professional literary editor

Bless you, @dlux!

[Nadia]

I’m not an Oxford Comma fan but if it was up to me I’d also get rid of 90% of the usage of the word ‘that’ also

[sfultong]

@Traktion

Such a senior figure leaving close to the release of Fleming seems a little odd, but I am sure both parties have their reasons.

Well, it could mean that Fleming is a disaster and he’s lost faith in the vision of SAFE, or it could mean that all of the hard and challenging parts are out of the way and finishing it should be so easy as to be boring.

Or it could be any number of other things, but those two scenarios seem like the worst and best cases.

I hope when the masses eventually embrace SAFE, @Viv will be recognized as a key part of its success.

[dlux]

@happybeing

Or a ‘roadmap updated’ tweeted whenever something is checked off the list, with a link to the roadmap. How about including a countdown of items left to do until beta too? This could feature in the tweet, in the weekly Dev update and on the website.

I really love these ideas. I was actually wondering if it would be possible to get alerts when items were checked off … I’m not sure what would be required to enable this (the man hours, etc), but my guess is that it would be used by quite a few community members.

[Toivo]

So, should the Roadmap be changed in a way that PARSEC is not marked as completed?

I’m not claiming that it should, I’m just wary of you sending mixed messages, especially when it could be interpreted as you trying to make things look better than they are - which I know is not your intention.

[dirvine]

@sfultong

I hope when the masses eventually embrace SAFE, @Viv will be recognized as a key part of its success.

We will make sure he is.

[Bogard]

Strong update. Thanks for the progress, clearer website, and unpublished data addition

[Traktion]

Just to add, I think the roadmap is critical if fundraising is required. Having this stuff out in the open really helps on many fronts.

[happybeing]

I understand why you find this confusing but finding a bug is different to ‘not complete’. It would be more confusing if items were marked incomplete every time a bug was found - bugs are found even after launch, so it wouldn’t make sense to do this. Complete means the code is complete, but not perfect/bug free.

[dirvine]

@Toivo

So, should the Roadmap be changed in a way that PARSEC is not marked as completed?

No, it is as complete as we would expect, but we will find bugs from time to time I think, The key will be going from version X → Y really and say do not use x, if the bug is bad enough. This one is tricky but we are OK saying it is a maintenance release. Until there is a reference in a formal language it is difficult, also the BLS/common coin is also coming so that will be another update, but probably not for launch, but we will see.

No politician, but we don’t perceive more resources there after this and before launch if that makes sense?

[Toivo]

Yeah, sounds reasonable and this is about how I thought it to be. It just caught my eye.

[Karamu]

I’m with you on a lot of these points - some of it is a question of style rather than right / wrong grammar though. Eg, my initial reaction was to raise issues around many of the uses of semi colons as I personally wouldn’t use them like that.

One other thing, we use British English so we’re working to standardise style…

[Traktion]

@maidsafe

There has been internal discussion around this topic for a while now and given his commitment and belief in the project, Viv has not taken the decision to leave lightly. However, after lengthy conversation, he’s of the opinion that stepping down will enable the executive team to become more streamlined in design and project decisions moving forwards.

Sorry to dwell on this, but I’m trying to extract the positives here. We all appreciate the work that Viv has done, but should this latest change allow @dirvine to more directly influence the direction of the engineering team? I sense there is a renewed focus to get a working network into the wild and this feels like a part of this puzzle.

I know it may be unprofessional to comment too deeply on this, but if we were to focus on the positives, what changes will this new structure usher in?

[dirvine]

@Traktion

I know it may be unprofessional to comment too deeply on this, but if we were to focus on the positives, what changes will this new structure usher in?

There is nothing can be said that would undermine or diminish @Viv s contributions as you are noting. each CTO will drive his/her own ship. I am very much project management/ RFC (design docs/scope/detail etc.) focussed. Viv is much more what do you want I will make it happen. So different approaches, but a joint desire to succeed. I would not want to bet which is best, but in this case I also would bet that both approaches have the same desire to succeed and that is really very good indeed. If pushed I would say both would succeed and that is also good. In terms of energy focus, Viv is like nothing I have ever seen or worked with, smart, sharp and very focussed. I am not like that and could not compete, I would not want to even try. He did what was needed and as a community, we cannot thank him enough and we must not underestimate his contribution. Now though, lets launch