December '24 Dev Notes

[GregJohnStewart]

So due to the hectic nature of the universe, looks like these devnotes will be an every other month kind of thing, at least for now. Hope that works with everyone :)

On that note, things have been both exciting and slow moving. Exciting, given we have some of the first outside people joining the OQM community; both in submitting the first first bug report (not made by myself), and reaching out on our Discord server. Not going to lie, this is the first time I have seen something I have made that has even the beginnings of such a community, and it is a breath of fresh motivation into the project. It is exciting, unnerving, and humbling to know there are those out there picking up our hard work, and I hope it speaks for itself (in good ways), and we can get the feedback we need to carry us forward.

On the slow note, real talk, been a slog working through the rework of how we store items. Not in technical means, but more of process and ensuring the changes are rolled out without breaking installs. Between the nature of the changes (foundational, nearly all aspects of the system changing and breaking), and as stated goals of not breaking everyone (especially since we seem to have a community now) there are a large number of boxes to check and functionality to make sure still works.

In other news, we have also been working hard on getting our website in order (more than just a simple splash page), so development efforts have been split. TL;DR, things are moving, in exciting directions, but there isn't enough time (or energy) in the day. Seeing the beginnings of community really helps give a renewed sense of purpose and motivation, thanks for being here and taking the time to read.

And, of course, Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays. Here's some holiday cheer on an awesome piece of computing history: https://youtu.be/-HibkocVn1U?t=1525