Re: Re: New Respect for Shadow

On Fri, 22 Jul 2011, Neil Slater wrote:

# I came late to PDAs, and bought what turned out to be the last version of
# Shadow. The only improvement it needed for me was better a Mac desktop
# version.

	That was a rough one for me -- a lot of the apps didnt' do a 
desktop at all; datebook apps tended to just survive off existing sync 
with Palm Desktop or Outlook or the like, which was a _huge_ boon to them. 
("Lucky" is the term I used :)

	For me, I was probably biting off too much -- supporting a Windows 
desktop, as well as a Mac OSX desktop, and even a Unix and Linux Desktop 
(that was really a quick freebie on the side .. I built everythign using a 
cross platform system, so only had to spend say 10% more time to get the 
Unix/Linux build out.) Still, that had me supporting Palm + 2-3 desktops 
at once, and Palm of course was already a handful what with all the 
splintered APIs.

	As a result, over time the project got bigger and bigger, and I 
had to try to keep primary focus on the handheld, and the desktops 
starved. (Not to mention the horrors that Palm placed upon us, what with 
buggy sync systems esp for OS5 that caused major data mangling issues and 
implied months of testing per change etc :/)

# I think it says something very positive about your software, Jeff, when
# we're still using Shadow after six years, on outdated hardware, and can't
# find anything to replace it. Especially when those 50-geek companies
# producing apps for everything can't do it as elegantly as you did.

	Thanks :) Its a different game now .. apps just are not nearly as 
ambicious as we were back then (in terms of function, though they sure 
look a heck of a lot sharper .. I bet half those apps have a graphics 
artist budget exceeding my entire budget ;)

	I'm still not sure if we shot too high, or the users wanted too 
much, or it was a different demo (power users, business users .. not every 
day joe), or what. Certainly, peoples needs nowadays cannot have gotten 
lesser .. so suddenly people are happier with less. A lesson there 
somewhere :)

# Jeff, you had a Small Person enter your life a while ago; not so small now,
# I'm thinking?

	Not so small when she came, for that matter ;) (more than 12.5 
pounds!)

	We're having twins soon too. Never much saw myself as a father of 
3, but life has a way of fixing you; those married to building new things 
and working overtime every day do need fixing, right? ;)

		jeff

--
If everyone would put barbecue sauce on their food, there would be no war.