I’ve been intentionally quiet about how Subtext is progressing (apart from a couple minor posts on how to obtain the code via CVS). My reticense is certainly not from lack of excitement or enjoyment of the project. Working on Subtext has been about the most enjoyable software development project I’ve ever had the pleasure to work on. So much so, that I’ve fallen a bit behind on my “real” work. Unfortunately this has caught up to me as I now have two projects with a potential third not far behind to work on (Yes, I know. A good problem to have, so quitcher belly-aching). This is very exciting for me as it may herald the beginning of a company. But it also means I need to slow down on Subtext a bit.

The reason I have been so reticent about Subtext up to this point is that we have not yet had a release. It was suggested to me that I probably should’t have waited to make the original Subtext announcement until I had a first release. This is definitely good advice for one who is starting an open source project. However, it may have helped in my case that I was building on an existing project familiar to many. And the few who did jump at the chance to help have been invaluable in what progress we’ve made so far.

What progress you ask? Well as you can see in this post, we are making great progress in having a nice logo. This is not the final logo, but probably really close. As you know, if a project has a nice logo, the code must really be nice. ;)

Subtext is progressing nicely in other areas too. So much so that I upgraded my blog to Subtext after a particularly withering comment spam attack. Subtext hasn’t yet completely eradicated comment spam, but it definitely has made a difference already.

In any case, I hoped not to talk much about it until we did have a release, but here I am anyways blabbing my mouth fingers. The goal of the first release is to generate excitement about the project and have many more contributors help with the next release. By talking about it now rather than waiting, I hope to try and encourage people to contribute before the first release. As my involvement declines for a few months (hopefully at most), I hope to have others pick up some of the slack and carry the torch sub forward.

Project Website
If you’re interested in tracking the progress of subtext, check out our new project website at http://subtextproject.com/. It is definitely a work in progress, but it has plenty of instructions for how to get the latest source code and how to contribute. Not only that, the site itself is in our CVS repository. So if you want to contribute to our documentation efforts (please! please!), you can submit patches to the project site.

Roadmap
Also be sure to check out the updated Roadmap.

Well that’s it for me. I spent today on some Subtext housekeeping to clear the way for others to make some nice progress. I’ll probably be much more quite for a few months, though I will respond to emails and such and continue to try and guide the process. It’s been and continues to be fun sailing.