Meteor 1.2 released

Just today I was welcomed with the news that Meteor 1.2 has been released. If you don’t know what Meteor is: It’s IMHO the most exciting current reactive JavaScript programming framework combining easy of use with flexibility and power of expression in a totally exciting manner.

We have been using Meteor for some experiments at QuinScape (and alternatively have been fiddling with ReactJS and combination of React with Java) for various ideas and seeing that Meteor now fully embraces React as an alternative view layer is interesting news.

Personally I have been using Meteor to refresh my JavaScript skills (it’s been a long time since I experienced the dawn of JavaScript 1.0 in times long forgotten and it has come a way), both to update my technical savvy with modern web development languages (I’m actually doing more JavaScript coding than Java these days… who would have thought…) and to also keep my skills up to date for our Kony activities at QuinScape.

I’m currently using Meteor for both a private “secret project” (still busy, these days I’m fascinated by collaborative productivity tools and I see the need for something special in the market I yet have not seen) and also plan to use Meteor for the upcoming community website of ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery; yeah, I’m still heavily involved in that; in case you didn’t notice you might want to keep up with the past couple of years on the official ADOM blog; it’s rise in activity almost correlates with the silence here) or follow me on Facebook and Twitter (maybe both my personal and my ADOM account).

I still have two days of vacation ahead of me and will try to combine ADOM work with some Meteor 1.2 fiddling. See ya soon, probably with more Meteor related thoughts.

2012 in review, 2013 ahead

Amazingly a year passed without updates to this blog, mosty due to the fact that the blog got hacked during some point in 2012 and I never found the time to fix that… until now.

So today will deliver just a quick summary of 2012:

• It’s been a fantastic year. QuinScape has grown to over 70 people and we had a splendid year!
• On the ADOM front I managed to run a fantastic crowd funding campaign and due to the overwhelming support of more than 1.000 donors ADOM Classic has been resurrected.
• On the ADOM II front several releases have happened and although development slowed down a little due to the crowd funding campaign ADOM II 0.3.1 is currently available and ADOM II 0.3.2 will follow soon.
• I have been pretty active on Facebook and Twitter – as planned.
• Private 2012 has been great – with holidays in South Africa, the Mediterranean (a fantastic cruise from Barcelona to Venice with many wonderful city stops in-between) and various trips through Germany.
• We have been healthy and happy.

So all in all a great year!

And the forecast for 2013?

• We will continue to grow QuinScape in a steady, strategic and healthy manner. I personally hope for at least 10% growth and believe 20% to be a possibility. We will see.
• I will have to do a lot of work to finish the promises from the ADOM crowd funding campaign… primarily a lot of programming, writing and printing the ADOM Lite RPG and other stuff. This will the primary focus of my spare time.
• Privately we plan to remain healthy and happy 😉

So thanks to everyone for an almost perfect 2012 and we’ll meet again in 2013! I wish you all a Happy New Year!

2011 in review, 2012 ahead

The last hours of a year for me always are a wonderful time for reflection and planning. The plans for 2011 didn’t quite work out as laid down – but I’ll get to that in a couple of minutes. I’ll also try my hand at some predictions for 2012 to see if I’m getting better at this business.

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Rank 38 on Facebook (for Germany)…

…as far as “being connected” goes. I have to thank all the ADOM and JADE fans out there for granting me this tiny moment of fame and happiness (oh dear, in December I didn’t care about Facebook – now I get a warm feeling out of such trivialities… I’m getting senile). Nonetheless the accompanying image is fun:

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Getting sidetracked while being sidetracked

Hopefully I’m just unfocussed in my leisure time as I otherwise have dire fears about the start of this recursion. This morning it just dawned on my that I managed to get sidetracked again while being sidetracked.

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Talking about open source software at the EU in Brussels

Today I’m giving a talk about “Transferring open source know how from industry projects to  the public sector – a one year retrospective” at the ePractice workshop: Open Source: Its place in a cross-border environment” in Brussels.I will talk about our experiences with OpenSAGA during the first year after the release as open source and I’m looking forward to interesting discussions in order to get a first hand grasp of the strategy of the EU concerning open source.

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Getting sidetracked… an introspection

This weekend I got sidetracked by an ancient pen & paper love of mine: The Gamma World line of roleplaying games. Gamma World in its various editions holds a special place in my heart although I never was perfectly happy with the underlying rules systems. This lead to the creation of my new Gaia Gamma blog at the weekend. My fourth blog… besides this one, my ADOM blog and my Hexer & Helden blog. And you could count the OpenSAGA blog, too, as I currently am the primary writer there (my colleagues just dont’t want to or don’t find the time).

This got me thinking: Why the hack do I start new projects all the time? Instead of finishing the running ones (spell: iADOM, ADOM Live, JADE, Hexer & Helden).

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Android versus iOS

Recently I have been thinking quite a bit about the commercial viability of Android versus iOS – from the viewpoint of a commercial developer. Should I support both platforms (which is quite an effort for a small development team if you are going for native support and not some web-based stuff) or should I prefer one platform over the other. My concerns are (for now) related to the development of ADOM Live, a mobile descendant of ADOM, my vastly successful roguelike game.

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iPhone App recommendation: iNuke

Today I have to recommend yet another great iPhone app created by my good friend Jochen, who is also doing al the various ADOM ports and stuff. Since he is a very good friend, I am somewhat biased but since we also discuss the design of his apps quite a bit before they are finished and he is a guy with both talent and the ability to listen and choose I am not surprised that I love this app. Ok, we are talking about iNuke now 🙂

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Planning for 2011

2010 has been a very hectic year with lots of diversions. I hope that 2011 will be a lot more focussed. Here are my plans concerning various pet projects…

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