sfmagic.org: Stepping Away
I hate giving up on projects. Especially projects that I’ve spent a lot of time on, that have had some success, and that have come close to being finished without making it the final, crucial steps. I really wanted to get a new version of sfmagic.org written, in Python, with good web development practices from top to bottom, but it’s far past time to let that go.
I actually got very close to a releasable version; closer than I think most of the interested parties might have realized. But a couple of hard drive failures, plus the death of the machine that I’d intended to host it (and other things) on, coupled with a very foolish decision to not finish replicating the functionality of the old site before trying to write a perfect pod-running application in JavaScript, kept me from making it to the point where I could put it out there.
All that, and insufficient focus and determination, of course.
In some ways it’s a shame, as I had a ton of good ideas for it, and I think that the provision of stats over years, or MTG sets, spurs interest from players. But the group keeps on moving along without that, and others have stepped up to provide useful technological solutions to some of the more annoying logistics, and it’s pretty clear that my vision of the stats-tracking, while nice, is hardly necessary.
My reason to step away from it is also, of course, connected to the fact that I really don’t play much MTG at this point. I haven’t played since GP Portland, and that’s now five months ago. And I don’t mean “I haven’t played in a tournament”—I haven’t played at all. I’m not sure I will again, although I hope I do, somehow. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that after some time away some future set will grab me and I’ll feel the same enthusiasm-bordering-on-obsession.
For now, though, I’ve turned it into a WordPress blog and I’ve handed upkeep of that blog over to others (who may or may not want it…), and I’m stepping way.
My apologies to everyone I let down by not finished the project, my thanks to everyone who’s worked to keep the group going over the years, and my best wishes to any who take on that work in the future. Hopefully I’ll make the occasional visit.