[TxMt] Re: TM2 in the Vaporware Awards

[Scott Haneda]

On Dec 22, 2009, at 7:42 AM, Niels Kobschaetzki <n.kobschaetzki at 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)
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