What’s the Hold Up?

I thank everyone for their patience in waiting for a version of Mystcraft for Minecraft 1.6.4. I’m happy to announce I’ll be doing that very soon now.

First I will release a build that I’ve been sitting on for over a month now (for 1.6.2). Then I will update it to 1.6.4 and release that.

Why have I not released this build for so long, you ask? Many reasons. Once of the leading points is time. For the past couple months I’ve been working on my Master’s Thesis, along with my normal studies and activities. This has left me with little free time to spare for Mystcraft development.
“How long does it take to push a build if you have all the code written?” Well, for some people it can take a long time. In my case, I automate stuff and know how to run a project, so it actually is more a matter of pushing a button. That’s not what’s been holding that release back.

The actual reason that time has been a factor is that about two months ago I decided to transition from the Mantis bug tracker I’ve been using. Talking with the testing team, it was suggested that the next release wait until after that transition. I started that, but part of it depended on the host of my server, who has been very busy with work and RL things as well, and I’ve been so busy lately I’ve not had the time to try to work around it. Since there was nothing in the current build to require a more immediate release, I didn’t worry about changing this decision.
At this point my server host is back and we’re finishing the process for moving over to Trac. Once that is done I’ll post the newest build and start the transition to 1.6.4. In theory that shouldn’t take more than a couple hours, maximum. Once it’s updated I’ll push that, too.

Included in these releases will be the first public releases of the Mystcraft API. It’s still a bit rough around the edges, and anything without javadoc is subject to change, but it’ll be out there for people to work with. I very much look forward to seeing what everyone can do with the framework and system I’ve provided. 🙂 I expect there will be a lot of feedback on things I’ve not thought of, which is why I’m releasing it, and why it’s still an alpha.

I look forward to rewarding everyone’s patience soon. Sorry for the long wait.
Cheers!

PS: I note from the suggested permalink that this is not my first post titled “What’s the Hold Up?” I’m apparently repeating myself… And apparently often waiting on events beyond my control to occur. 😛