Where's the weekly DevUpdate?

I know you guys are busy saving the world, but where is this weeks weekly DevUpdate?

We usually get it sometime Wednesday.

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Iā€™ll try to make time for writing the transcript tonight.

Cheers

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But I want my cookie now, lol.

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Sorry guys, didnā€™t get around to it last night. Tonight

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A gentle reminder guys - re-posted from June:

" The ongoing Mastercoin decline I think, gives us an opportunity to educate ourselves on what to avoid doing in order to maximise the chances of Safenetā€™s success. Iā€™m sure some valuable lessons have been learned already and this is a good thing, we are now a bit more streetwise I expect. By valuable, I mean weā€™ve gained something at an early point in our history (I believe this will be historic if successful) which is useful knowledge for the future. In furtherance of our education I would like to suggest a list of things to try and avoid doing in order to retain community/investor support and everything that flows naturally from that. Iā€™ll just start us off a bit, so my list wonā€™t be exhaustive and hopefully it will stimulate discussion:

ā€¢ Always have good communication: regular updates, keep everybody informed, donā€™t condescend etc.
ā€¢ Donā€™t appear to be frittering large sums of money away with little to show for it, such as ill thought out side-projects, huge expenses, expensive promotions, board payments etc.
ā€¢ Always be open and honest, issue board minutes, transparency etc
ā€¢ Involve the community in every decision of import, such as 6 grand a month board appointments etc and always have people whose position/reward can be 100% justified. Only essential skills such as business, economicsā€¦.or decorating

Iā€™m saying avoid giving the impression, not taking a position on current issues. Just the impression is all it takes."

Edit:
Would I be correct in assuming that aside from the fact that it is difficult to estimate software making time-scales, a large part of the problem is that the core dev team is too small? What I mean is, was it assumed you would have more community dev help and if so, what can we do about it? I understand that a team of say 10 devs will achieve things slower than an expected team of 50 would.
Am I wrong in my assumptions?
Personally, I find it a bit irksome (as a non-coder) that we have no approximation of timescales, however rough they may be. For example, to me, the dev updates mean absolutely nothing and Iā€™m sure there must be others like myself who do not understand any of the ā€œcode talkā€. People such as myself need rough timescales and things ticked off lists etcā€“ if that is not possible then it is inevitable that gradually the accusations of ā€œvapourwareā€ will begin to flourish ā€“ this is my present concern and I want to pre-empt it and nip in the bud.
Totally with you and 100% behind project btwā€¦.I just say it as I see itā€¦.as you knowā€¦lol

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Hi @Al_Kafir,

As I look down the bulleted list a feel very comfortable that we continue to adhere to these ā€˜guidelinesā€™. Yes we havenā€™t posted an update this week, but this is for good reason and a post by @dirvine on his metaquestions.me blog will help clarify this. I imagine he will post later today. It is hard putting these updates into a language understood by everyone (you can please some people some of the timeā€¦etcā€¦) and what we are building is inherently technical, but I believe moving forward this will become easier.

Yes, it doesnā€™t help. We are in a tricky position where we know we are under resourced, but if we start bringing in more devs prior to launch we will slow down as existing developers train new staff.

I think that we never realistically thought we would receive significant support on the core code prior to launch, the barrier to entry is really high. It has just taken longer as we have encountered unforseen issues and are working with a large and complex code base. Davidā€™s blog post will provide some good news here though.

That depends on the devs, if you 10 strong engineers constantly needing to train and help the other 40 then you would literally stand still. This goes back to the point I was making above about not bringing in anymore new network devs prior to launch.

As we move closer to launch this will hopefully become easier, and the recent and significant reduction in code complexity will really help.

I here the frustration Al and totally understand. We have made significant strides this past couple of weeks and I would encourage you to read Davidā€™s blog when posted, I donā€™t want to steal his thunder.

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I had thought as well that these kind of minutes and all were rather being written directly as they happened. Wellā€¦

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Maybe we should have Admin do this indeed :smile:

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Thanks for that Nick, I agree you have kept to my ā€œguidelinesā€ā€¦lol - it was a list of pitfalls that I observed from the Mastercoin Foundationā€™s various actions and the impact on itā€™s community. I can understand (now) that it would be counter-productive to hire and train a new bunch of brain surgeons, so to speak.
Had I known that there was a good reason for the lack of update and that this reason would be clarified later in a blog post by D.Irvine, then I would not have felt the need to post. - This was the missing information that I did not have that could have been posted I think.
Anyway, thanks for clarifying things and I look forward to reading the blog post.
I hope you understand that I donā€™t really care too much when it will launch, it is the having no inkling (as a non-coder).
Please donā€™t think Iā€™m chivvying you along as thatā€™s not where Iā€™m coming from. Tbh I am more concerned about team burn-out - Iā€™ve said it before a few times that I would prefer the team to take a proper break and come back to it after a couple of weeks if need beā€¦my concern is not how long it will take. Cheers.

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Good ideaā€¦maybe Happybeing could do it while you lot have a nice break aboard his luxury yachtā€¦have you seen it? I walked past to check it out - heā€™s living like a Bond villain cavorting with semi-clad beauties drinking Champagne and splashing the Safecoin aroundā€¦he didnā€™t invite me aboard thoughā€¦just made what I assume was a nautical gesture at meā€¦lol

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Were you meaning @justine_mclevy? She has been working through a larger project which she is close to completing, Iā€™m sure if we ask her nicely sheā€™ll be glad to help out.

Itā€™s always the quiet ones!

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I did a blog post of my recent activities, disclaimer itā€™s me my grammar and personal opinions etc. I am exhausted and incredibly excited at the same time about it all.

Anyhow here it is

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Excellent news, sounds like you had a Feynman ā€œspinning canteen plateā€ moment. I just love the deep thinking. You know what makes me even happier though?

ā€œnext week I am taking a few days off and heading North for a breakā€

lolā€¦brilliant stuff though and enjoy your break man.

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Might be the week after, still bedding down the new code so we will see :slight_smile:

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This is very, very good. I am an investor and concur with @Al_Kafir

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Happy to help out if needed :slight_smile:

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David Irvineā€™s blog was a great read indeed, thanks a lot for that update. There are however still many points on the test net 2 roadmap to reach the definition of done:

  • Provision of cross platform Virtual File System and improved user API
  • Introduction of public name registration
  • Implement messenger / mail system
  • Provision of continuous delivery of installers
  • Refactor of routing to include secure data dispersal algorithms
  • Routing to handle data synchronisation for vault and user level
    messages
  • Initial apps - Desktop Drive, Messaging
  • User introduction to development process
    (Jira/testnets/presentations/video conferences)
  • Docker container formalisation in QA stream
  • Establish Safe App Launcher

Is there any news on them? Are they nearly done, are any points problematic at the moment and lagging behind?

Weā€™re still working through these @Seneca. In fact, some had actually been completed, such as messaging, but with the huge simplification of vault code these need to be reimplemented. While this may seem like a backward step, the thought that we can reimplement in a few days/a week something that previously took months tells its own story. You will see this getting completed much quicker now and we have both an in house QT developer and a UI designer starting with us in the next couple of weeks to ramp up firepower on the app side of things.

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