The Natives and The Classics are Coming
11 November 2005--As long as we've been running this Helix 6 information series, we've posed the question and answer below:
Q: When will Helix 6.0 be released?
A: We don't know yet.
But now, at long last, we do know that answer. At long last we have cleared the final hurdle in the pre-release process. Alpha testing is over. Beta testing is nearly complete.
What, you may ask, do we mean by nearly complete? The executive summary goes like this: we've told our beta testers that they can begin using the latest beta version in production. This means that we have achieved a level of confidence in the product that will allow us to support it as though it were the final release version. Ever cautious, however, it's still a test. If all goes well we'll build the "final candidate" and let the beta testers give it one last check before releasing it upon the world at large.
In the best of all possible worlds, this phase lasts about a month. During that time, we go about the business of pre-release work. We prepare release notes, update documentation, draft press releases, prepare various promotional pieces--the "fun" stuff we to which haven't been able to devote any real time or energy because there has been no breathing room in this process. We put on the so-called finishing touches. Think of "dealer prep" when you're waiting for that new car you ordered.
We also try to fix whatever remaining problems exist and make any other improvements we can, be they cosmetic or substantive.
Even where the improvement is cosmetic, an effort is made to remain faithful to the Helix paradigm and maintain a connection to the product's roots. To that end, we hired Ann Wasserman to design the new Helix icons. Ann, for those of you who don't know it, designed the original Helix icons as well as the various pieces of internal artwork that gave Helix its original look and feel. Does anyone remember the sleeping Macintosh 128 dreaming of the old Update Collection guy while the waiting user dreamed of Rhett and Scarlett while Update Collection ran through its paces? Or the registration "blackboard" and the cat sleeping under the desk?
The development of the new look began shortly after work on Helix 6 began, and will continue as we begin to roll out the other products in their native formats and enhance their functionality. It's an evolutionary and iterative process, like the process of Helix development itself.
As anyone who really reads all the stuff we put on this web site knows, the initial release of Helix will feature three new OS X-ready (native) applications, Helix Server, Helix Utility and Update Collection.
The initial release will also feature four old favorites, Helix Client, Helix RADE, Helix Engine and the Helix Developer Utility (formerly known as the "Helix Converter"). These products, while still requiring the Classic environment or OS 9.x to operate, have been improved in various ways to aid them in their roles as companion tools for the new OS X products.
Can there be such a thing as too much communication?
In the "bad old days," Helix users complained that they never had any idea what was going on with their beloved applications, information trickled out in drips and drabs and was always so cryptic that it barely made sense.
When this mission began back in June 2002, we made three promises to you. One of them had to do with keeping you informed. A look into the left column will show you that we have fulfilled that promise with Helix 6. A look into the same column on any "Latest Word" page will show you that we've done the same with everything else that concerns Helix.
Yet somehow a frustration remains. The other day a customer called up to ask when Helix 6 will be out. He uses RADE, he said, and wanted to know when Helix 6 would be out because he wanted to stop using Classic.
We asked whether or not he had been reading these Helix 6 updates. "I looked at your website," he said, "but it's just a whole lot of words."
"True," we replied, but within those words are the ones that say--and have said over and over again--that the only products that will run native in OS X when Helix 6 ships will be the Helix Server, Update Collection and the Helix Utility, and that work would resume in earnest on the other products once Helix 6.0 ships.
We can't really be much more clear. We realize that the idea of running a Server in OS X with Clients in Classic may not sound like it makes sense to some users, especially those who ask us questions like, "What's the difference between RADE and Server?" But it really works, as anyone who has visited our public beta HelixChat over the past three months knows. And it's only temporary. As soon as the native Helix Client is ready, clients will be able to abandon Classic once and for all. And once we finish the native RADE, collection designers will too. But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here.
What the future looks like now
Again, as anyone who really reads this "whole lot of words" can tell you, Apple threw us a curve this year. One of the things we now have to address in addition to getting all our products done in native versions is making sure we'll be able to run them on Intel-based processors when they arrive.
Achieving that level of compatibility involves two important steps we need to take that have no perceptible value to our customers, yet which must be done. As has been reported on this site before, one of the tools we use to create and improve Helix is called wxWidgets (formerly known as wxWindows). Another is called CodeWarrior.
Back when we were first rewriting our TCP/IP code, we had to move from an old version of CodeWarrior to a newer one. It was a fairly involved and costly process. At the end of that process, we had to do something we call a "sanity check." This means we had to rebuild our existing products using the newer tool and make sure they behaved exactly as they did before.
We have another sanity check in our future. Once Helix 6.0 ships, our first orders of business will involved updating to a newer version of wxWidgets and moving from CodeWarrior to Xcode. We have no choice here--these things have to be done. At the end of that process, it'll be sanity check time again.
So here is the latest news and the best possible answer we can give you on the rollout of Helix 6 technology: if we encounter no further bumps in the road during the gamma test, Helix 6 will ship in December. We'll annouce the exact date when we have the same level of confidence in our pre-release materials that we had in our product at the end of beta.
If we're sane at the end of the sanity check, the next items on the agenda will be Helix Client and Helix Engine. The short-term objectives will be to get them running natively in OS X. There will be no immediate concerns for taking full advantage of all the OS X features and functions, just a focus on putting Classic behind us. Then the same focus will be put on RADE.
Once all those products are free of OS 9, we'll begin enhancing their actual functionality, doing the job on them that we have just finished on the Helix Server.
We said at the beginning of this process that it could be a very long and bumpy ride. This was a job everyone knew had to be done but nobody wanted to do. Our families--and many of our users--thought it was too big a job, and possibly not worth the effort. We're happy to report at last, that we're about to cross a major threshold and we can already see well beyond the light at the end of the tunnel. There is a future for Helix. The rest of the trip won't take nearly as long as this first leg has taken, but there will still be bumps ahead.
Should you sit tight or order now?
If you're a Client/Server user and you're going to upgrade to Helix 6 when it ships, please be aware of a small incentive buried in our price list. It says:
Customers who purchase Helix Server 6 before it ships also receive:
• Free Upgrade to the OS X Native Helix Client 6 when it ships.
Make no mistake about it folks, this process still requires money to keep it rolling. A lot of users have already taken advantage of the pre-release offer. If you've been planning to upgrade and your accountant says to do it before the year is up, take his or her advice. You'll be glad you did.