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Answered

Software Update

Dave S 1 week ago updated by Guillermo D 6 days ago 4

It's costs $750usd a year to keep the support license active for File Run and I have received my email for a renewal, however, there has not been an update since last May. I was under the impression FileRun was moving to an upgraded PHP system. 

Answer

+1
Answer
Answered

I am sorry about the lack of information on what is going on. I will take this opportunity to address it.

There hasn't been an update release in a long time now, but it does not mean that development stopped. On the contrary, I've been actually putting more work in these past months than ever before.

So while usually there are smaller updates released a few times a year, this time it's going to be just one, but a very chunky one. With more than 12 hours of work a day, 7 days a week, I am quite excited about the results. My wife does not share my enthusiasm 😏, and I know it does not look good at the moment from a client's perspective either, but I'm sure that it is going to be worth it on the long run.

Let me first tell you what happened with this update and after that I will tell you Dave how I'm going to make up for the wait.

So, PHP 8. Moving on to PHP 8 could have been done in two ways. Quick and dirty or proper and slow.

The quick way would have meant to accumulate technical debt which would have just translated to much slower development in the future and also not taking full advantage of the benefits PHP 8 offers either. It would have still taken quite a bit of work, and that work wouldn't have been great value on the long run.

So I went with the second option, the proper but slow one. And because this required me to go over pretty much the entire code base, I figured it was the best opportunity for future-proofing the architecture of the application. The benefits will be seen very soon, particularily on the performance, security and overall quality side, but also on the speed of development with the next FileRun versions.

However, it turns out I took a much bigger bite than I could chew and my initial estimation got off by a few good months.

Not only development got much longer than anticipated, but because the internal changes were so big, I also badly underestimated the amount of testing needed to make sure nothing breaks on the existing installs. And that is where we are right now, on the very last part of the testing phase.

Once the update is ready, I will go through all the support subscriptions which extended few months past the date of the last FileRun release and I will make sure that they get compensated with extensions, regardless if they renewed in the meantime or will renew in the future.

Sorry again for the wait, and thank you for your understanding!

+1

have the same feeling. I haven't completed the 12 months on the product but there is no single update.

+1
Answer
Answered

I am sorry about the lack of information on what is going on. I will take this opportunity to address it.

There hasn't been an update release in a long time now, but it does not mean that development stopped. On the contrary, I've been actually putting more work in these past months than ever before.

So while usually there are smaller updates released a few times a year, this time it's going to be just one, but a very chunky one. With more than 12 hours of work a day, 7 days a week, I am quite excited about the results. My wife does not share my enthusiasm 😏, and I know it does not look good at the moment from a client's perspective either, but I'm sure that it is going to be worth it on the long run.

Let me first tell you what happened with this update and after that I will tell you Dave how I'm going to make up for the wait.

So, PHP 8. Moving on to PHP 8 could have been done in two ways. Quick and dirty or proper and slow.

The quick way would have meant to accumulate technical debt which would have just translated to much slower development in the future and also not taking full advantage of the benefits PHP 8 offers either. It would have still taken quite a bit of work, and that work wouldn't have been great value on the long run.

So I went with the second option, the proper but slow one. And because this required me to go over pretty much the entire code base, I figured it was the best opportunity for future-proofing the architecture of the application. The benefits will be seen very soon, particularily on the performance, security and overall quality side, but also on the speed of development with the next FileRun versions.

However, it turns out I took a much bigger bite than I could chew and my initial estimation got off by a few good months.

Not only development got much longer than anticipated, but because the internal changes were so big, I also badly underestimated the amount of testing needed to make sure nothing breaks on the existing installs. And that is where we are right now, on the very last part of the testing phase.

Once the update is ready, I will go through all the support subscriptions which extended few months past the date of the last FileRun release and I will make sure that they get compensated with extensions, regardless if they renewed in the meantime or will renew in the future.

Sorry again for the wait, and thank you for your understanding!

That's going to be one hell of a changelog! 😂
I do think at least your enterprise/paying clients deserve more frequent communication. Perhaps a blog section on the website, that you can refer to via other channels like this forum and Reddit.

Would it be possible to give a realistic expected release date? Or would you rather not do that, to manage our expectations?

ps please if you have a moment could you check my email regarding my existing license? Much appreciated. 😇🙏

thanks for the update Vlad!. The last release is very stable and could not complain, but there are some usability things that could be of use like a better sharing control center.

look forward to hear about the next RC

thanks