Towards the end of 2015

written by Mickey on 2015-12-27

'Tis the season to let the year pass by and make plans for the next one. 2015 was what I'd call a "transitioning" year. Although LaTe App-Developers had been shut down in 2014, we still had to spend most of 2015 to work on some things our clients already paid for. This is now finally done and I can move forward looking for new endeavors. Here's a bunch of my plans for 2016:

First off, I'll attempt to bring three iOS-apps in the AppStore. These apps will be completely new versions of those that I did while working with my colleague at LaTe, in particular it's going to be a radio station app, a guitar songbook, and a matching game for kids:

• The radio station app will be the successor to the popular "Volksradio" App, with a clear focus on streamlining (i.e. only a bare minimum of features, but those supersolid) and social recommendations ("listeners who enjoyed 'Space Station Soma' also liked 'Chillout Radio').
• The guitar songbook app will be the successor to the "Chord Pro Songbook" app, with the focus on collection 'sets' (a number of titles to perform at a given time) and 'alternates' (variants of songs). My dream would be to incorporate a great edit function (to create new transcriptions right on your device), but I'm not sure whether this will make it.
• The matching game will be the successor to the "Match and Learn" app. This one hasn't been updated for ages, I have new animals and plan to add a better gameplay as well as incorporate support for new devices.

I also have started working on 'retro player', an app that will be the successor to SidPlayer, Module Player, and PokeyPlayer -- I have mentioned this in an earlier installment of this blog. This one is going to be huge and I plan a crowdfunding campaign later in 2016 to make it happen. Note that the campaign will not be launched until the product is in a stage where it is sure that it can be completed. I'm not going to make this mistake -- something that has annoyed me this year as a contributor to some projects.

Next to this iOS-related work, over the last year I have seriously reinvested time (and money) into my music again. In 2016 I'm going to publish some new material, consisting of rearranged and enhanced versions of some of my ancient AMIGA MODs), but also completely new compositions. It looks like my writer's block has vanished and after roughly 15 years of sucking on my thumb, I started recording new stuff. Isn't that exciting? :)

Professionally, there will be some iOS work, but hopefully also architectures with a broader scope. I really want to do more Python and distributed middleware again. I'm not so sure on Vala (one of my other favorite programming languages) though. This language has flourished between 2008 and 2012 and sadly I'm afraid it's not going anywhere anymore. There's little activity on the mailing list, the original author has moved on, and there is not enough fresh blood. Very sad, but given that state, it looks like my half-done book on Vala will not see the light of day.

That's about everything I think of at the moment. I wish all of you a great healthy and successful 2016, may we manage to make the world a bit more peaceful (although I have my doubts). All the best to you! Yours truly,

Mickey.