by Jason Snell
Updating a 16-year-old app
Jonathan Deutsch released the last version of HyperEdit more than a decade ago. Now he’s released Whisk 2.0, a (renamed) update to the very same app, which he launched in 2004:
With encouragement from that passionate group of beta testers, I was able to bring out version 1.0 a little less than a year later. A few updates followed. Yet HyperEdit was frequently put on the back burner while I focused on my corporate job and subsequently on developing Hype. Some of HyperEdit’s code lived there: the source editor is the same in both apps. I personally kept using HyperEdit and it continued to have a dedicated user base asking for updates. Whisk 2.0 was a labor of love, meant as a fulfillment to the promise of an update for these users.
This is a fascinating look at what has changed in Mac software development—not just on the platform, but with all the tools that now surround it, including notarization, gatekeeper, and even the accepted methods for distributing independent software (like Read Me files)! Also, Deutsch added support for auto-updating in the very last update, meaning he never used that feature until now. Amazing.
[Via Charles Arthur, who is mentioned in the post.]