Thoughts about this week

Hello everyone.

This post is meant to share with you what I've learned this week, with the release of versions 1.021, 1.022, 1.023 and the coming 1.024, and the patch 5.4.7.

What I've learned from the release of version 1.021

Version 1.021 was a huge update. It introduced the compatibility with connected realms, fixed a lot of bugs and added a few new features. I was really excited to get it out as it was the first real big update for me. Version 1.020 was just fixing the issue with the sliders corrupting users' files.

I've made a couple of mistakes with this release.

The first one : two many stuff. The truth is, I haven't worked on version 1.021 in december and january due to a lack of time. When I finally had time in february, I took every bug listed, every idea I had and decided to make one single version with all of that. This was wrong on so many levels and I see now how my excitement fooled me. If I had published several smaller version I would had a better view of what was not working at each stage. From now on, I will make smaller release, sometime fixing just one or two bugs, but that will ultimately lead to less chaos.

The second one : I published a beta version containing only the changes about connected realms and got a few feedbacks. I was afraid that publishing a beta version with all the changes would mean people will rush on it only to get the new stuff and they will not report bugs. That's wrong. Version 1.021 came out with not enough testing. If I had published a fully featured beta version, people would have reported the bugs with items and auras creations. Now, I will publish beta version with all the upcoming features. And I will now systematically wait before going from beta to release (if it is an emergency update I will wait two days and if it is not I will wait an entire week), so I'm sure I have all the feedbacks I need to file a release version.

What I've learned from patch 5.4.7

"You are not prepared!"

God knows I was not. I heard that patch was coming, but I completely forgot to test Total RP on PTR. I would have seen the issue with the chat frame and I would have been able to release a version right in time for that patch. But don't worry, I know Warlords of Draenor is coming As soon as I can access the beta I will work on making Total RP compatible with it so it will be ready for the release of patch 6.0.1.

An other mistake I made was releasing version 1.021 on a monday. I'm pretty sure when I hit the upload button on Curse, the patch 5.4.7 was not said to be released this week. It was announced a little bit after. This was a really bad timing as a lot of people believed my updates to Total RP made the issue with the chat frame (I had people sending me messages to "revert it back"). My updates was not guilty. In fact, every version of Total RP older than 1.023 is now completely unusable because of the changes Blizzard made to WoW's API. But to be honest, I'm glad of that. Now maybe I will stop seeing people with version 1.017 now
But from now on, not urgent release versions will be published between tuesday night and friday night. I feel like this is a nice timeframe to be sure nothing is moving on Blizzard's side that would require me a lot of time debugging and reassuring people.

Also, I've started giving nicknames to my versions. Here's what I've got so far :

• 1.020 "The waited"
  
• 1.021 "The unprepared"
  
• 1.022 "The accused"
  
• 1.023 "The incomplete"
  

Let's hope version 1.024 can be called "The perfect" ^^

Nice names   
I know for sure that none of the versions are perfect, because you can only work on some part of the code and you have to cut through the TODO listing.
However, you should always be proud of the released versions if there is only small bugs to fix

CMCCallaghan wrote:you have to cut through the TODO listing.

That's exactly what I had trouble with