The Recursive ISV

Day 31 (Tuesday) was nice and slack.  I did didly-squat pretty much and no regrets at all.  I needed it. 

I should point out however that my idea of doing nothing tends to be doing “research” and furiously scribbling notes into my notebooks, that accompany me everywhere I go.

So in doing “nothing” I was actually engaged in two activities. 

Working out in my head and then on paper the code changes I wanted to implement in MixAction.  I’ll come to some of those in a moment and over the next few days.

The other thing was making Mixerlicious (TM) something that no longer existed in my head but rather something scoped out on paper.  A little more than just random notes as it had been previously and thoughts about UI for it.  This particular product will also be an audio product but this time 100% B2B and priced around $2,000 US.  In time I’ll expand on what it is this product will actually do. Suffice to say prior to doing even the basics of notes on it I’d contacted and spoken to potential customers.

It’s had a domain registered for months, has a trading name registered etc and when I get to creating it I’ve decided I’m going to blog here about it as well.

At this point you’d probably be asking yourself “Why doesn’t he use project planning software?”. 

Well I do.  Eventually. But for this kind of stuff there’s nothing like the freedom of a notebook (A4 binder style so I can rip pages out if I want to) in getting down what I see in my head onto paper or what I see “on the screen” while researching.

The last year and a half  has been quite a break through for me.  While I tend to keep it to myself pretty much I’ve actually suffered for eight years now from a disease that for many people can be terminal.  It’s not that the disease itself kills you directly, but rather the symptoms can cause death under certain circumstances.  I’m on the other side of that now and it’s a fantastic feeling to have gotten to this point, as most folks don’t, run in a federal election (which was my first and will not be my last) and to be hammering away at code which I’ve not really been able to do consistently or properly since diagnosed originally. 

For me the 30 Day sprint of June is truly a milestone.  I proved to myself I’ve still got it in me to code up a storm and survive it.  Indeed it was this fact, probably more than anything else, that led me to decide to hold back while I polish up the results of what was a breakneck month - if not a marathon.

I used to code and in multi-national companies.  One thing I learned painfully is that clutter in code is a disaster.  I do like objects, but one has to also keep in mind there is a time and a place for them. 

However.  I spent today moving code that had crept into the UI that should have been self contained.  Separation was always my intention and it was spec’ d accordingly.  But in the heat of development during June it didn’t always work out that way. 

What this would mean of course is that you end up maintaining kludges.  Kludges can be handy in a pinch but they have no place in a truly release ready commercial product.  So today was spent moving them across out of the UI and separately into their own units and in some case objects.

I actually enjoy doing this. 

Secondly I began breaking the file system - again - so that the “meta” data goes right into the “database” or project file.  This makes things much cleaner and safer for the user and much cleaner and safer to code. 

I blogged here last month about that fact that grid I’m using - NextGrid - saves in Unicode.  Delphi knows squat about Unicode natively.  The obvious thing to do was to loop the grid and get that data into the database.  But of course a database doesn’t like “drag and drop” which the grid, as a playlist, needs to support so folks can change the order of audio tracks. 

Lots of possible ways around that of course.  At the time I chose to ignore it and leave things as is.  However after living with it in the back of my mind I knew it had to go.  So now it’s being streamed into the database in manner that permits drag and drop without having to do unnecessary restructuring of the dataset.   This was essential to me, not necessarily for MixAction which wouldn’t have large playlists ordinarily as there is only so much time you can pack into a “live performance”, but for Mixerlicious which potentially could have any number of tracks and performance would be a major issue, particularly in a multi-user environment on a network.

No more, when I finish this off tomorrow, will I have to synchronize various meta files and the database together.  Thus the project folder will now have one project file (which is capable of self healing) and an audio folder for all the audio files used in the project.  While MixAction does not need record locking Mixerlicious most certainly will.  So the more I get into the database the better at this time.  “Meta data” would not have played well with this scenario.

I’ve also been building up the homepage for MixAction.  It’s not online yet, still the place holder there, but hopefully soon I’ll be able to link to something that can be viewed.

OK.  Enough for tonight.  Have a good one!

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
The penalty for success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you. - Nancy Astor