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So obviously Delicious is broken now and everyone who has ever used it is upset and baffled at how this happened. I don't have any insider scoop or anything, but I do have a software developer dad (and thus some dinner-conversation idea of how long product development takes, especially working with old code that no one documented and the guy who wrote it moved to a monastery in Spain) and some facts.
The first thing you need to know is that when Avos bought Delicious, Yahoo gave them a timeframe to get Delicious off Yahoo's servers. That is a great big ticking doomsday countdown for a developer, right off the bat. A countdown of just four months, I believe.
Second, I am told that much of Delicious was Yahoo-specific code. Also, all the developers were fired before the sale. So the people who were familiar with the code are gone and a good portion of the code just got yanked out from under the new developers. Ouch.
So basically these developers have to build an entirely new product from scratch. Oh, and also integrate the data from all the users. There is no way in any world that this will happen in four months. So you start damage control: what features can be done by then? Is there any possible way to have a vaguely-functioning release in time for that big doomsday clock?
If you look in the FAQ, you'll see that pretty much all the tagging functionality is planned, as are subscriptions and everything else that's broken. They simply did not have the time to code any of it. It'll come down the pipes eventually - the big question is whether it'll be too late.
Does any of this excuse the sorry excuse for a social network that's currently masquerading as an archive service? Fuck no. I'm looking for a new home for my links the same as everyone else. But in a year or two, Delicious should be useful again... if they don't chase away their entire userbase first. (Hint, Avos: TRANSPARENCY. If you tell people this shit, they will understand. Silence does not endear you.)
Before I forget: Seperis has some links for doing things like seeing all your bookmarks and tags, editing tags, creating bundles, and the comments have a tip for accessing the data still present on Yahoo's servers before it gets deleted.
The first thing you need to know is that when Avos bought Delicious, Yahoo gave them a timeframe to get Delicious off Yahoo's servers. That is a great big ticking doomsday countdown for a developer, right off the bat. A countdown of just four months, I believe.
Second, I am told that much of Delicious was Yahoo-specific code. Also, all the developers were fired before the sale. So the people who were familiar with the code are gone and a good portion of the code just got yanked out from under the new developers. Ouch.
So basically these developers have to build an entirely new product from scratch. Oh, and also integrate the data from all the users. There is no way in any world that this will happen in four months. So you start damage control: what features can be done by then? Is there any possible way to have a vaguely-functioning release in time for that big doomsday clock?
If you look in the FAQ, you'll see that pretty much all the tagging functionality is planned, as are subscriptions and everything else that's broken. They simply did not have the time to code any of it. It'll come down the pipes eventually - the big question is whether it'll be too late.
Does any of this excuse the sorry excuse for a social network that's currently masquerading as an archive service? Fuck no. I'm looking for a new home for my links the same as everyone else. But in a year or two, Delicious should be useful again... if they don't chase away their entire userbase first. (Hint, Avos: TRANSPARENCY. If you tell people this shit, they will understand. Silence does not endear you.)
Before I forget: Seperis has some links for doing things like seeing all your bookmarks and tags, editing tags, creating bundles, and the comments have a tip for accessing the data still present on Yahoo's servers before it gets deleted.