A Narrower Gap

One of the most common questions that I’m asked when I’ve told someone about an upcoming new version is “when will it be available?” and unfortunately, I can rarely answer. “But why,” people ask, “I just want to have an idea!”

It is hard to resist answering, and it isn’t like we don’t have an idea of when we’ll release — we do keep a schedule, and we do try to stick to it, but invariably when we tell people a date, things go wrong.

There are three things that we, as software developers, have control over:

1. The features list. What new things will be in the software, what improvements, and what bug fixes.
2. The quality. How much testing do we do, how closely we monitor the changes, and so on.
3. The release date. When we ship the new version.

By revealing any one of these, we lose control over at least one other one. For example, if I were to reveal the release date of something, and something goes wrong (such as a late design change, or a nasty, hard to find bug), then either we have to remove features or sacrifice the quality of the features (or, in some cases, both) to make the release date.

There is one other option: we delay things, saying we need more time. Now, as soon as we announce a delay it appears that we’ve been dishonest, or that we can’t keep our schedule, and can’t be trusted when we say things.

This is also why we’re not announcing the upcoming features until they’re already in Humanis and tested to the point that we’re sure they’re going to stay in. If we tell people about this amazing new feature, and it doesn’t make it in because of time or technical reasons, we look bad for not delivering on our promises.
So please don’t get too excited and demand we tell you when v8.1 is coming out. We have an idea, but we just can’t tell you or everything falls apart.