The Road to RootsMagic 8 : An Important Update -----------
My mother also accused me of failing to learn from my mistakes. I was burned years ago by offering a date for a function that we added, so I vowed to never do that again. Then a few years later, we declared a deadline for finishing work on our integration of Ancestry, mostly with the same outcome. And, of course, I still haven't learned my lesson and, this time for RootsMagic 8, I tried again to estimate a release date beforehand.
RootsMagic 8 is the largest upgrade in the history of our software. I usually just say something like "it's going to be done when it's ready" and leave it at that, but we started telling people that by the end of this year (2019) we were hoping to get it out. It seemed like a safe estimate, but like those other times this has bitten me, I underestimated the effects of outside influences on our development.
I underestimated how many times we would have to stop working to fix breaking changes made to the APIs used in version 7. I underestimated the number of times the libraries we use in RootsMagic 8 would have to be rewritten. To be honest, because of their limitations, I never thought we would have to rewrite commercial libraries from scratch, but we had to do that multiple times. I also underestimated the amount of time tracking down bugs in other company's libraries to help them fix issues that negatively affected performance in version 8.
So now, where are we? By the end of the year, RootsMagic 8 will not be published. And if you're asking me for a new release date, I won't say. But here's what I'll do ...
Several months ago, we started doing blog articles with screenshots. But writing them pulled us off of actual software development, and were less than satisfying to you as a user. We want to do a better job of keeping you up to date on where we are, so I have recorded a 30-minute video below to show you precisely what RootsMagic 8 looks and feels like. As development continues, we’ll try to release more videos (although probably not this long) to keep you in the loop.
My mother also accused me of failing to learn from my mistakes. I was burned years ago by offering a date for a function that we added, so I vowed to never do that again. Then a few years later, we declared a deadline for finishing work on our integration of Ancestry, mostly with the same outcome. And, of course, I still haven't learned my lesson and, this time for RootsMagic 8, I tried again to estimate a release date beforehand.
RootsMagic 8 is the largest upgrade in the history of our software. I usually just say something like "it's going to be done when it's ready" and leave it at that, but we started telling people that by the end of this year (2019) we were hoping to get it out. It seemed like a safe estimate, but like those other times this has bitten me, I underestimated the effects of outside influences on our development.
I underestimated how many times we would have to stop working to fix breaking changes made to the APIs used in version 7. I underestimated the number of times the libraries we use in RootsMagic 8 would have to be rewritten. To be honest, because of their limitations, I never thought we would have to rewrite commercial libraries from scratch, but we had to do that multiple times. I also underestimated the amount of time tracking down bugs in other company's libraries to help them fix issues that negatively affected performance in version 8.
So now, where are we? By the end of the year, RootsMagic 8 will not be published. And if you're asking me for a new release date, I won't say. But here's what I'll do ...
Several months ago, we started doing blog articles with screenshots. But writing them pulled us off of actual software development, and were less than satisfying to you as a user. We want to do a better job of keeping you up to date on where we are, so I have recorded a 30-minute video below to show you precisely what RootsMagic 8 looks and feels like. As development continues, we’ll try to release more videos (although probably not this long) to keep you in the loop.
RootsMagic 8 Update
We know many of you can’t wait to get your hands on RootsMagic 8, and we are excited to be working on it. We just want to make sure that when we release it, you can depend on it working right.
And if you’re adventurous, we are still looking for more beta testers of all backgrounds to help us make version 8 the best it can be.
I want to thank you personally for your patience and understanding. Hopefully, you can see from the video the extent of the improvements and work that we’re putting into this release. We’re really excited by the feedback that we’ve received so far and we hope that you’ll find it worth the wait.
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