Musings from The Software Underground

Users of SQLGrinder who have been waiting for word of a new version can take heart, work on finishing up version 2 has started again. After a hiatus of... way too long, I've completed pulling out all of the pre-Panther work I had done that was obsoleted by features included in the Panther version of Cocoa. This means that SQLGrinder will now require Mac OS X 10.3, but I don't think that's an unreasonable requirement at this point, as the user experience will be improved, and I can spend less time working on features that come for "free" and more time adding great new cool features exclusive to SQLGrinder.

So when is the next version due? Well I had expected to spend most of the summer on it, but between finishing MacGoumet and working a contract that doesn't seem to end (which is a good thing, money-wise) it keeps getting pushed back. Work HAS started again, and most new and updated features are pretty far along. Lately I've been mainly tending to a lot of code and feature clean up that remained from the port from mostly Java to mostly Cocoa, and I must say that the whole application is coming along nicely, if slowly. I can't really set a time frame. I've done that in the past and been bitten by the estimates being wrong. All I can say is that I HOPE to get it done and out sooner rather than later now, and it's risen in priority.

I'd actually like to get an alpha version out before too long, so that people can play with it and submit feedback before it's done, but I want to try and get it closer to being feature complete first. To get there I still need to add the table editor, stored procedure editor and import/export manager. That sounds like a lot but it's not so bad. I also still need to add data editing and paging to the data view of a table in the database browser (which used to be the schema browser). At least that's the plan. Also on tap are all new toolbar and application icons. I know, FINALLY.