On Dec 22, 2009, at 7:42 AM, Niels Kobschaetzki <n.kobschaetzki@googlemail.com> wrote:

Dammit, Textmate 2 has just gotten to the fifth place in the Vaporware Awards ;)

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/12/vaporware-2009-inhale-the-fail/

Just goes to show what rubbish Wired has become as a reliable reporting agency with integrity. Their past lack of fact checking and error prone sensationalist headlines are reason enough to not take them seriously...

But their own rules to the "vaporware" article are as published in a linked story/article: 

The rules:

  • The product must have been promised to ship during 2009.
  • No rumors. That means no Apple iTablets, Nike hover boards or 99-inch LED TVs. It has to have been announced with a 2009 release date attached.
  • If you can buy it, play it, download it or open it in your browser, it doesn’t count. If it shipped — even if it sucked — it’s not vaporware.
  • Software stuck in a never-ending, pre-release, beta-testing stage can be considered vaporware.
  • Likewise hardware prototypes. It may exist in some company’s lab or trotted out at trade shows, but it’s vaporware until it hits store shelves.

Then, within the very article, they state: (last sentence the kicker)

But it’s also been stuck in 1.x limbo for years. Lead developer Allan Odgaard got so tired of answering the barrage of questions about TextMate 2’s release — including from those wondering if it would ever arrive — that he broke months of silence by posting a long sob story on his blog titled, “Working on It.” [1]

He claimed version 2 is operational, but that it is “lacking the spit and polish of a finished app.” He also refused to give a release date.

[1] Link to "Working on it"
http://blog.macromates.com/2009/working-on-it/

That rule, "Must have been promised to ship during 2009"; I do not believe such a promise was made. The very rule removes TM as a candidate.

Rule #2, did I miss a PR post somewhere? I really hope I'm not wrong about this. I'm on this list, I've got RSS feeds to every source I know. I suspect I'm not missing anything.  

Allan always seems careful; it's an inside joke on what a "no no" it is to ask about TM2 status on the mailing list. You can get away with a little trolling by asking about upgrade coats, but even that has been stated to be zero upgrade cost. 

The "sob story" Wired points to, in all reality was inspiring news to me. Unfortuneately, it was not realized. I'm not talking about a V.2 release, but mention of more transparency, a helper to write update posts and other user informative posts was good news.  Unfortunrately, that never happened. A bit of a bummer, but is also non related to the release date, which from the Wired article, and what I know, it has always been "TM2 will ship when it ships". 

I think Wired should retract this item from their list.  It does not meet their own criteria of rules.

At least they listed the CrunchPad, but that will just give Arrington a chance to write a real "sob story". 
--  
Scott
(Sent from a mobile device)