Development Logs 2 (5/25/20)
These logs cover roughly the second month of development (and a bit). Things, as you'll see, are shaping up. Slowly but steadily something resembling a team is forming. Just like in the best anime, it will take a bunch of adventures before the shipping can begin. The road ahead is long, but the journey is entertaining. Stay tuned.
I just wanted an excuse to have a Saiyuki pic here. Baby's first fandom (and MA-rated lemons).
On the last update, I mentioned that there must always be time for a good April Fool's joke. Of course, there must also always be time for a good 4/20 event. If you haven't looked at the "Onceler Shrine", I suggest you spend some time marvelling at people's creativity and immersing yourself in the full y2k experience. Feel free to retweet/reblog what you like! That's what the shrine is for, after all.
Now, this might look like a completely unrelated project (or, to continue the metaphor, a filler episode *fingerguns*). Partly, it was. But partly, it was also an experiment in figuring out what a modern shrine—one pulling from many different sources while being respectful of people's ownership of their work—could look like. Further down the line I'd love to give others the possibility to build their own.
Now, onwards to the tech stuff!
This is what my kitchen wall presently looks like.
You can get a larger picture here. This is my current definition of the "alpha version" of BobaBoard. It's a very stripped down version of the functionality I'd like to see in the longer term. While the roadmaps to the "beta" and "omega" versions (yes, I'm absolutely calling them that) haven't been defined yet, they'll likely focus on moderation tools and opening up the board creation process to everyone.
Before we even get to the alpha, however, I'm also planning to release a pre-alpha on 6/9. While this might seem overly-ambitious (and it is), the pre-alpha will be an extremely stripped down version of the alpha with an extremely restricted amount of users. As experienced developers will tell you , it's important to get your products in the hands of real people as soon as possible. While I'd love to tell you (and believe) that my unparalled genius will come up with the perfect product on the first try, the truth is I'll likely screw up a thousand different ways in the process. The earlier I do it, the sooner I can fix it.
...
...ok, fine, the truth is if this project ever gets its own fanlore page I want it to say the earliest version was released on 6/9. Let a woman have this.
If Internet-Humor Driven Development was not a thing, it is now.
Where to even start? You can find a non-working, evolving version of what a board will look like here (slight gore CW). You can even try making a post (don't worry, no one will see it). As usual, feel free to report bugs, impressions, wishes and desires on the feedback form. While I can't promise a quick fix or answer, rest assured everything is read and filed appropriately.
The demo was released earlier this month on Twitter, Tumblr, and Mastodon, which are (in order of how frequently I post there) still the best way to get the freshest, juciest news.
BobaEditor (the text editor used for BobaBoard) is now an open source package released under a MIT license (which means anyone can use it and make modifications).
While it's still unstable and I can't recommend its use in production, this is a great chance for external people to contribute! If you'd like a particular editor feature to be in and know some JavaScript, you can hit me up! If you'd like to help but have no feature in mind hit me up anyway: features I need include spoiler tags, Tumblr/video embeds and sparkly text.
Is "we have an ExpressJS server with an initial hint of a REST api" an update? Because we do! While this month I've focused on the frontend most of all, the scramble for the 6/9 super-special-awesome-pre-alpha release means the backend will get some much-needed love soon.
...and that is a lot all! As usual, please feel free to use the feedback form or send me an email and let me know your opinions, ideas, desires, fears (or, more simply, say hi)!
See you next month!
PS: Someone asked about a version of this blog with RSS feed. I'll try to set up an actual blog soon but, in the meanwhile, the newsletter has its own here up top!