Scheduling

In my attempt to take a much more professional approach to the creation of my editor, I am actually using some scheduling software. It is called Hansoft and I am using the free license that they give to attempt to manage myself. I find that I am always wandering off the path towards actually getting something usable so in an effort to control that, I will become my own manager.

I just installed it and have been playing around with it for about an hour or so. It seems to support everything I will need: bugs, tasks, and scheduling. Hopefully I will be better at estimating how long features will take so I can be more committed to my release dates when I set them. Currently, I have too much of a 'when it is done' attitude and would like to correct that.

As an addition to this, I am also trying to come up with 'use cases' for the editor. I want to be able to build a test room as my first real milestone for the editor. In order to accomplish that, I am going to strip away all of the unfinished features, tuck them somewhere in a directory on my computer for later, and start fresh and actually finish a feature and flesh it out before I move on. That being said, the goals I have laid out for myself will mean that I can make a basic test map of 2 rooms [just simple cubes] that are snapped together with 2 lights inside as well as having 2 'volumes' inside that will be read in as triggers for the game engine whenever that gets completed. I have given a really rough schedule for this [I will go back and re-evaluate my estimates soon when I'm more rested] and it appears that I should be able to finish all of this by the end of August if I just work on the weekends and 2 days through out the work week. That being said, I am going away for vacation for 1 weekend in July so that will have to be taken into account. At least now I have a more realistic estimate as to how long it will take me which is always a good thing. It's humbling to know that what I want will take me 6 years but what I need will only take me 1 [as a metaphor, not in reality].

I'll probably post a schedule from time to time to show what I am working on, what's currently finished, and so that people can have more of an insight into my own work habits. I will post some more technical details about the tools I am using in an upcoming post.