Sometimes a hiatus can reinvigorate a software project. You forget the status quo because so much time has passed and make up a new one based on the current state of things. I like this because it helps to think out of the box again. However it's a luxury most commercial software projects simply don't enjoy.

I took a break from fanconcert and now I'm back at it. What was I doing?

I caught up with Eclipse development because it's nearing the 3.2 release. I updated Durham to make sure it compiled with 3.2 (and it didn't until I fixed it). I've also been working on Ant build scripts for RadRails, a Ruby on Rails IDE.

I also went on an idealistic tangent I'm calling unfoo (website not active yet). It's a generalized version of fanconcert's editing system. It's useful for exploring/experimenting where fanconcert could go in a perfect world situation without breaking fanconcert itself. When I like something in unfoo, I'll put it in fanconcert. It's that simple. I might release the code wiki-style, I might not.

So what's new with fanconcert? A fresh look at it leads to minor cleanup tweaks everywhere and well as a re-prioritization of the major upcoming features. Right now I'm working on 1) notifying people by email of new events and 2) submission bots to dramatically increase the number of events on the site. Should be fun!

If you haven't checked the site out in a while, please do. I'm eager for feedback! If you're interested in writing a submission bot, let me know.