Pretty sure you misunderstood what I said. I wasn’t asking about choosing Rails, I was pointing out the fact that their development, current and future is very transparent. DHH is very vocal about the platform and you know what you’re getting when you get involved in that ecosystem. The same can’t be said for Meteor, as of right now.
It’s not about momentum, because we’re not talking about JS here, we’re talking about Meteor. JS has the momentum, but does Meteor?
The point being, with the number of changes to Meteors future and the recent departures from the MDG, some transparency from the group would be appreciated by the people who want to embrace the platform, but just aren’t so sure it’s a great decision.
I’m pretty confident that any past and future changes are bringing MDG towards being a more open and collaborative platform - we’re working our butts off to have a more open design process, bring in more contributors, handle GitHub issues and pull requests better, and integrate with the wider community wherever possible. I think many of our actions in the past months show clear steps in that direction, and I anticipate still more movement in the near future.
Perhaps I’m biased as I look at this (Meteor) as a project that I’d have to answer for. When moving forward, every dev or team has to balance things like testing, documentation, community, and actual development. If a client demanded complete transparency about every decision made by a dev team, how would that affect productivity?
Also, comparing Rails (b. 2004-5) and Meteor (b. 2011) and assuming they are/should be in the same cycle/state of dev seems like a cheap shot to me.
Its funny how people in these forums put words in others mouths to defend their position. Nobody brought up comparing features, state of development, etc. The only point, and the only one that matters, is transparency. This isn’t a client/developer relationship, so you’re deflecting there. The point is, and remains, that the MDG needs to do a better job being transparent about the state of Meteor and not expecting people to just ride it out with them because they’re good at giving vague answers. Sorry, but thats the feeling towards the MDG OUTSIDE of this forum.
Whats the roadmap for development? What are some hard dates to look forward to? What’s your anticipated feature set for 2016? Where are you moving with Blaze? How focused in NPM integration. Some of us have to hard sell our solutions to employers and when working within a team, you need to have solid answers to back up your position. Right now, its a bunch of “well, maybe, we’ll see, we’re trying, we expect, we anticipate, etc.”
Be straight forward with your community or you might lose it.
I have two full time clients, both large projects in Meteor, a platform I suggested in both cases. So I feel your pain when you’re asked the tough questions about Meteor and you have to worry about perception with investors, etc. Still, I believe it was a good choice in both instances, and just have to move forward.
That being said, I’m not trying to defend a position or a person or a company; I enjoy a good discussion as much as the next. If my analogy was interpreted as deflection, then it was misinterpreted. I was merely trying to relate a common scenario amongst devs.
If you want to look at Meteor as a standalone project, implying that it is a gimmick based on reddit/twitter and comparing it to Rails isn’t the best strategy in my opinion.
I will agree that the transparency could be improved, but I think things like Transmission, more communication on the forum, the blog, etc. are an effort to move things in the right direction.
Thanks for the wishes After almost 4 years at Meteor, I felt like it was time for something new. 4 years in startup land is a lot! I’ve changed courses in my life every few years since I remember myself, this is no different.
Going forward, I’m spending part of my time on consulting (Meteor and otherwise), and the rest of my time learning AI and working on some personal AI projects. Right now I’m more interested in AI than in JavaScript frameworks.
And I agree with @abhiaiyer – people move jobs all the time, especially in Silicon Valley.
@avital thank you for all the years of hard work you put into Meteor. Truly amazing. 4 years is a lot, I was just reading how the average dev employment length is 19 months in the Valley. I wish you great success in the AI world, it is certainly very exciting times!
http://aoliver.org/
When I was ~15 years old, I built a 3D rendering engine in pure x86 assembly language.
Say what?
Man, this guy is pretty impressive. His 5 points beats my 7 page resume without effort. Actually, I should say, any one of his point beats my 7 page resume at ease.
I framed the post wrong. What I meant… The MDG team works insanely hard at what they do. We see MDG team members as a older sibling of sorts. Just like when we celebrate a new team member hire, I think a company and community should honor someone for their contributions when they leave. If there is no recognition of them leaving then there is no opportunity to thank them and wish them the best (like you said above).
So I guess I was calling out MDG and asking them to recognize those who left (more than just Avital) so we all could thank them for their contributions over the years. Meteor would not be what it is without them.
Agreed. People just leave every now and then. I used to do the same. It’s not always about the company either. Besides, at my current startup, which I’m looking at with a fairly objective opinion (since I’m more like a guy who can leave at any time once our own startup makes enough revenue so I’m not too “invested”) can say that people leave here very fast. We’re happy if we can keep some people longer than a year, which is mind boggling because I’ve never worked in such a great environment before my whole life. It’s not always in control of the company if people leave. They just do, doesn’t have to be related to the company.
Perhaps in the USA it’s not culturally normal but here in the Philippines for example it’s a fairly common thing for employees to switch fairly often (sadly).
As with all jobs there’s an important work/life balance to maintain. I get the feeling that, as @benstr says, people at MDG “work insanely hard” (I’m fairly certain @sashko’s been cloned, given what he puts in). No matter how much you may enjoy working anywhere, it’s easy to become burned out when the pace is hard. Sometimes moving on is the right thing to do for all.
Anyway, thanks to everyone, past and present, who’s helped make MDG and Meteor awesome.
Yeah exactly – both. There was a small demoscene in Israel that grew out of the BBS scene… Oh the days before the Internet. Everything was so simple But learning how to program was all about finding some random .txt file on that one BBS that happened to had it. There was no “search”. Ha!
It’s not that difficult, I could teach you but last time I did that was when I was 15 myself. It was a pretty fun thing to do in the pre-Internet times.
Greetings to all the demoscene folks, let’s shed a tear or two for the good old times.
@avital Just love your work with a special shout out for your Meteor Salt Lake City meetup webcast some years ago which was one of the first I watched and went a long way in getting up to speed in the framework and all the best to you in all of your future endeavors.
After almost 4 years at Meteor, I felt like it was time for something new. 4 years in startup land is a lot! I’ve changed courses in my life every few years since I remember myself, this is no different.
It was a pretty fun thing to do in the pre-Internet times.