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Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

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Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#21

Post by wycats »

biot wrote: post #17
wycats wrote: post #7

Tokaido is not dead. It's taken longer than I expected, but I've been wrapping up the requirements for the MVP over the past few weeks [1][2][3] and hope to integrate the code I've been writing into the UI in the next few days. I initially anticipated that I'd be able to spend a number of full-time months on the work. I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent basis, largely because starting a compan…

Based on the comments, it looks like people are still waiting on handwritten thank-you notes and stickers which the Kickstarter project says were to be delivered in June/July 2012. > I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent > basis, largely because starting a company (tilde.io) ended up > offering fewer opportunities for dedicated, isolated work than > I expected. The stated goal for raising $25K (…

> Based on the comments, it looks like people are still waiting on handwritten thank-you notes and stickers which the Kickstarter project says were to be delivered in June/July 2012.

I have been furiously writing them over the past few weeks (at a pace of about 30 per day). I have about 500 to do in total and I've done about 300 so far. My intent was to deliver them around the same time as the beta release, so that the thanks would be meaningful.

> The stated goal for raising $25K (and any excess) was to take time off of work to dedicate 100% to this, at least until Rails.app shipped. What happened?

You're absolutely right. The original plan was to be able to take a few months off of work and use it to replace any lost company revenue. In other words, I was going to pay for my own time to replace consulting revenue. Co-founding a company turned out to be more time-consuming than I expected (I know that sounds stupid, but it's the first time I did it), so I wasn't able to purchase my own time in a single block. Instead, I used whatever available time I could manage and used the money to fund smaller blocks of time.

I also used some of it to fund full-time work by Patrick Gibson, an amazing iOS/Cocoa developer (he worked on the original iPad build process for Apple and the Batch app) who works for Tilde, so I could focus my energies on the necessary Ruby code.

I'm really sorry that my original estimates didn't work out. That was absolutely a mistake on my part and I have learned a lot from the mistake (and my inability to follow my original plan precisely has caused me a great deal of heartburn). In the long run, I will not allow this error to prevent Tokaido from shipping. See my other comments on this thread for more details.

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#22

Post by calinet6 »

biot wrote: post #17
wycats wrote: post #7

Tokaido is not dead. It's taken longer than I expected, but I've been wrapping up the requirements for the MVP over the past few weeks [1][2][3] and hope to integrate the code I've been writing into the UI in the next few days. I initially anticipated that I'd be able to spend a number of full-time months on the work. I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent basis, largely because starting a compan…

Based on the comments, it looks like people are still waiting on handwritten thank-you notes and stickers which the Kickstarter project says were to be delivered in June/July 2012. > I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent > basis, largely because starting a company (tilde.io) ended up > offering fewer opportunities for dedicated, isolated work than > I expected. The stated goal for raising $25K (…

Every Kickstarter project gets delayed, and as Kickstarter keeps hush about, funding a project gives you exactly zero guarantees of anything. If you expected anything less, well, I can't entirely blame you, but you should have known better.

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#23

Post by akonan »

wycats wrote: post #7

Tokaido is not dead. It's taken longer than I expected, but I've been wrapping up the requirements for the MVP over the past few weeks [1][2][3] and hope to integrate the code I've been writing into the UI in the next few days. I initially anticipated that I'd be able to spend a number of full-time months on the work. I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent basis, largely because starting a compan…

Thank you for doing this! Can't wait :)

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#24

Post by chaostheory »

wycats wrote: post #7

Tokaido is not dead. It's taken longer than I expected, but I've been wrapping up the requirements for the MVP over the past few weeks [1][2][3] and hope to integrate the code I've been writing into the UI in the next few days. I initially anticipated that I'd be able to spend a number of full-time months on the work. I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent basis, largely because starting a compan…

I don't really care when tokaido ships. I've been very grateful to being able to piggyback on your work for years now. A few bucks to back whatever you want is the least I can do.

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#25

Post by danso »

knowtheory wrote: post #19
danso wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Rails, on a relatively clean system, is so easy to install through the command line that if you can't do that work...then you may not be the kind of person who can easily debug a basic Rails app in the first place...Not trying to be elitist here, as I'm the kind of person who runs homebrew scripts without reading the actual scripts. Just saying that if you can't even do that, the…

Having spent a morning this week showing journalism students at Mizzou how to install Django, I would very much like the ability to say "oh you want to try rails? Just download Postgres.app and Tokaido.app and you're set." Also, this is a weird conversation to be having with a dude who has a book for teaching beginners Ruby ( http://ruby.bastardsbook.com/ )!

Ha! I'm all about teaching beginners how to use Ruby, which is painful in itself. By the time they get to Rails, they had better be used to typing in commands at a text prompt :)

No seriously, though...So many things can easily go wrong with basic Rails...not because Rails is bad, but because Rails has so many features...that if people haven't mastered the art of Googling lines from debug-output or command-line install instructions...then the time they've "saved" by having a push-button solution will be more than spent in the time trying to get off the ground.

But I'm obviously speaking from hindsight...as I've gotten more experienced, I've seen that writing script for minimal apps is more efficient than launching a full-fledged Rails app. However, I may have lost interest in the whole web-app game long ago if I didn't have the chance to play around (clumsily) with Rails 2.2

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#26

Post by 46Bit »

nachteilig wrote: post #18
eggbrain wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like having to install multiple different versions of Ruby/Rails is an important thing for a new person to learn, but we have RVM. It seems like getting a rails app deployed on a server is an important thing for a new person to learn, yet we have Heroku which takes little effort. We can say this about many of the things ruby/rails and the community has abstracted away for us, but that doesn't mean these tool…

I get what you're saying, but the thing is that it's really not difficult to get running. Especially on a Mac. Especially now that we have bundler and such. The only thing one really has to manage is ruby versions, and that can be done with rbenv/rvm. But doing everything in an app really does have the possibility of hurting one's ability to put code into production, even with heroku.

> I get what you're saying, but the thing is that it's really not difficult to get running. Especially on a Mac. Especially now that we have bundler and such. The only thing one really has to manage is ruby versions, and that can be done with rbenv/rvm.

I'm not interested in Rails.app, but I must correct you on that: it isn't difficult to get a Ruby environment running in most cases.

When you've spent half a day puzzling over why your colleague's new Macbook Air won't build Ruby despite everything seeming to be in order you'll never be so sure of how long setting it up will take.

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#28

Post by bdcravens »

wycats wrote: post #21
biot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the comments, it looks like people are still waiting on handwritten thank-you notes and stickers which the Kickstarter project says were to be delivered in June/July 2012. > I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent > basis, largely because starting a company (tilde.io) ended up > offering fewer opportunities for dedicated, isolated work than > I expected. The stated goal for raising $25K (…

> Based on the comments, it looks like people are still waiting on handwritten thank-you notes and stickers which the Kickstarter project says were to be delivered in June/July 2012. I have been furiously writing them over the past few weeks (at a pace of about 30 per day). I have about 500 to do in total and I've done about 300 so far. My intent was to deliver them around the same time as the beta release, so that t…

I think some folks might take issue with the idea that you were starting a company while this project was in progress. (I didn't contribute, and I understand multi-tasking, but my impression was raised funds were to capture your undivided attention; unsure if others had same interpretation)

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#29

Post by techpeace »

wycats wrote: post #7

Tokaido is not dead. It's taken longer than I expected, but I've been wrapping up the requirements for the MVP over the past few weeks [1][2][3] and hope to integrate the code I've been writing into the UI in the next few days. I initially anticipated that I'd be able to spend a number of full-time months on the work. I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent basis, largely because starting a compan…

This will make future Rails Girls events a breeze. :) Thanks for all your hard work on this and everything else.

Re: Is Tokaido (rails.app) Dead?

#30

Post by biot »

calinet6 wrote: post #22
biot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the comments, it looks like people are still waiting on handwritten thank-you notes and stickers which the Kickstarter project says were to be delivered in June/July 2012. > I ended up being able to allocate time on a less consistent > basis, largely because starting a company (tilde.io) ended up > offering fewer opportunities for dedicated, isolated work than > I expected. The stated goal for raising $25K (…

Every Kickstarter project gets delayed, and as Kickstarter keeps hush about, funding a project gives you exactly zero guarantees of anything. If you expected anything less, well, I can't entirely blame you, but you should have known better.

Funding a Kickstarter project creates a legal obligation on behalf of the project creator to provide the reward for the donated amount [0], even if the project itself is ultimately unsuccessful.

Of course, should a project go so off-track that a backer is compelled to seek a refund their claim is against the creator, as Kickstarter disclaims any responsibility.

[0] http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics#IsA...

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