inessential by Brent Simmons

NetNewsWire 1.0.2 progress

In case you’re curious on how NetNewsWire 1.0.2 development is going...

It’s a four-step process:

1. Move low-level, relatively bug-free code into separate frameworks. The RSS parser, for instance, goes into a framework. (The main reason is that it makes code maintenance and testing easier, and it makes it so I can re-use this code easily in other software.)

2. Fix a bunch of small quick-hit bugs. Things like bugs with date display and keyboard shortcuts. A particular crashing bug in the weblog editor. That kind of thing.

3. Fix—or at least dramatically improve—performance and memory issues when one has lots of subscriptions and lots of unread headlines.

4. Add a few new features—mostly weblog editing features such as supporting more Radio and Movable Type options. (Some other things too.)

I gave myself a week to do step 1—but it’s already finished. I did it over the weekend. It was totally fun, by the way. If you’re a Cocoa developer, but you’ve shied away from building frameworks, you should know that it’s a piece of cake.

So now I’m in the middle of step 2, doing a bunch of quick-hit bug fixes. This is one of my favorite things to do, because it’s all about polish, getting the details right. With some good hours of brain-time you can knock off bugs by the anthill.

Later this week I’ll move on to performance and memory issues, then on to adding new features probably next week. Then I’ll release the first beta of 1.0.2.