Deliverance Teeth hits
the bricks

View from the rear of the convention center. Aircraft carrier 'USS Merchant v3.0' seen in the background.

Time to bring some conclusion to the event. Closure & all that Californian stuff (that's closure to Northern Californians, sitrep to the Southerners).

With regret-filed haunches, I missed the Saturday boat trip. My spies tell me that it was like an elegant continuation of the Friday beach party; but with less room for escape & fewer homeless guys stopping by for freebees. People waxed poetic over the quality of the food and the exquisite surroundings. I could not find anyone who did not like the boat trip, or who failed to recognize the mondo number of bucks that Miva Corp invested in the event overall; and the boat trip in particular. It adds to the tangible evidence that this is a company that is internally committed to the future of their art form.

Leaving San Diego proved to be more dramatic than getting there.  Wonderful thing when you show up to check in for your flight and find that they've delayed the flight by 2 hours - and cancelled one whole leg of the journey altogether. I have it on good authority that the scheduling revision was due to a failed Perl script which connected the United Airlines reservation system to reality. Perl & common sense don't fit too well together. So I ended up being routed through a momentary hole in the Colorado fire line.  The manifestations of Mother Nature's work in that area are tangible from the air. The trail of smoke stretches across a few states. 

The Business That Brought Us There

But let's turn to a review of the most important results of the conference. In random order, some of the stuff that stuck in my tired brain are:

Improvements to the Empresa engine - with the Q4 release of the v4.x engine we will gain arrays, header control, pervasive SSL support, binary data capability, and "case" and "structures" improvement; which a major brain blem refuses to permit me to explain further (i.e. I can't remember what Jon said about these elements).

Miva Script Compiler - Probably the most exciting development on the horizon. Miva will be launching in Q4 a new script compiler which is slated to greatly improve script execution speed and reduce server overhead. The compiler will be linked to a free Miva run-time engine, and will include full syntax checking upon compile (hip-hip-who-ra!). The aim is not entirely performance oriented; for the first time, Miva script developers will be able to protect their major investment of labor hours. This is sure to spur more serious and exciting application development. Developer's have the right to protect their earnings along with their sweat and tears.

Miva Merchant Internationalization - Among the things coming on the Merchant front is a complete German version of the app (why German? That was never said). This will take advantage of the new localization features of the 3.7x series of Empresa and, if nothing else, will demonstrate the increased potential for the customization of this application. It will include German-specific features such as currency formatting, payment, shipping, and sales tax configuration unique to the German language and transaction scheme.

Future of Miva Merchant - Among the goodies projected for the v3.00 version of Merchant (due in Q4 of this year) are volume discounts, merchandising features (i.e. cross-sell & affinity sales capability), the capability to become an upgrade path for the Miva Order application, and localization for UK, France and Canadian versions. Along with this will come a more flexible - possibly even upgradeable - manner to wrangle with the user interface. As I mentioned in my Thursday report, they are considering (but not yet firm on) ways to dramatically improve the potential for user control of the UI. My personal hope is that this will drive more developers into developing 'drop-in' replacements for the standard Merchant UI; without requiring a move to OUI sorts of adaptations. For me to take it seriously, modifications to the Merchant 'look-n-feel' - or any other module for that matter - must conform to the full Merchant API. Splitting from the standard does not strike me as an appropriate way to prepare for the improvements coming for that API. While the (applaud able) goal of many has been to adapt to the loss of customized elements at upgrade time, my own fear is that in doing so the results take you further & further away from "the real deal." Miva Corp cannot feasibly restrict or adapt their own development efforts to ensure compatibility with the after-market efforts of others to re-make the core of the application - regardless how high-quality and creative those efforts are. The API must progress with blinders on; no matter how impressive the local scenery.

Personal Observations

When I first decided to attend the Miva conference it was with some hesitancy. I was quite literally on the cusp of moving away from Miva script as a development platform. My impression was that the company was somewhat stagnant, and also didn't really care much for their end-users. The appearance was one of 'tolerating' end-users as a nuisance by-product of their focus of sales to web host providers and hardware vendors. And while I did not find much (if any) to dispute the latter impression, the former impression proved to be incorrect.

Miva Corp is clearly anything but a stagnant company. Their rapid growth and expansion over the last year is tangible.  There are now more Miva employees than sample Miva scripts, and many of the new folks strike me as talented, committed individuals who will add great value to the company from their presence. Like most technology companies, there is a core group within the organization who have a true passion for what they are doing. These sorts of folks stand out from the rest and, in most circumstances, are the catalyst for the upward progression of their firm. 

However, the passionate are also the first to suffer from the frustration of working with a growing crew of 'less than passionate' people who's sole motivation is the collection of a paycheck. This is not unique to Miva Corp; I've experienced it in a number of non-technology firms who were/are at the same level of development, and who struggled to 'keep the vision alive' when faced with the realities of trying to grow a company. The challenge will be to continue the progressive growth schedule in the face of a dwindling overall percentage of 'passionate' staff members. I personally am impressed much more with passion than efficiency. But I'm in the minority.

On The Down Side

But on the second matter, that of a perception of of distain towards the 'end users' I really did not see anything that changed my perspective greatly. There was no direct mention recognizing the personal efforts of members of the user community who have spent years bearing the off-loading of technical support issues for the company. 

In all fairness though - this was not a convention for end-users -- it was intended as a meeting of professional developers (although there seemed to be many more hosting providers than developers wandering the convention floor). Even in that context it would have been appropriate to, at minimum, acknowledge the long-term efforts of the many members of the user and developer communities. There was only a cursory mention of Starebase21; most likely the most visual, capable Miva developer group out there. Not one mention of William Wieland, Don Elbourne, Ray, Mr. Moon, Ivo Truxa, Troy Lever, Adam, Rich, Greg, Brian Bullock, Jack Wilson, Erich Iseli, Bruce, Keith Hunniford, Jonathan, Luray Williams, Darren Ehlers, Jeff Collins, Scott, Alan - and a host of others I will sincerely regret for not mentioning personally (and who's absence from that short list is purely non-intentional).  

These people (and others not mentioned) are as much responsible for the growth and success of Miva Corp as some Miva employees themselves; and in some cases, even more so. Lord knows they have each directly contributed to the development of the community and the product lines.  Yet not even a passing acknowledgement was made of the years they have put into 'the dream'. Heck, the only one on that list who appears to have been invited to share their wealth of knowledge was Alan - who was treated rudely in front of the group on top of all else. But at least Alan took a moment to acknowledge the extremely worthy contribution of Mr. Moon to "our thing."

And I felt that the continued distain for 'those pesky end users' was tangible from a couple of the ruling elite of Miva Corp. You almost felt the rolling upward of their eyes as 'end users' came physically close to them. Why? I have no idea.  These end-users are the people who, for no compensation or personal advantage, have spent untold hours working to shore up the weaknesses of the corporation. In conversation their facial expression was one of tolerance. No names are needed here; others in attendance will probably know who I am talking about. 

Other staffers (and by no means meant to be an inclusive list!) like Jeff Huber and Joe Austin infected all near them with their enthusiasm for the potential of the company, and their own personal love for their chosen occupation. Anyone who could hang around those two and not get excited over the grand designs for the future of WorldMiva were probably brain dead to begin with. No shit. (wow.. all that text with only one curse word? I must be failing).

So on the one hand, my own personal commitment to the sandbox that this company has provided for my pleasure has been re-energized. El-neato new features and potentials were illustrated for the first time, and I met enough really nice people to give me warm fuzzies until October. But when all was said and done, I was still left with the impression that we of the end-user cadre are simply not well liked. Our opinions & presence appear largely a nuisance to the corporation's web hosting sales, and are sometimes met with a level of defensiveness inappropriate given the venue.

In one abstract example, there was not even a survey circulated to gauge the attendees' opinions & reactions to the presentations they attended. I honestly cannot remember a seminar/teaching session which did not even bother to ask afterwards "Was it any good for you?"  It leaves the attendee with the impression that the sponsor simply does not care. In this specific case, I took it as a normal extension of the attitude prevalent to some (like me) in the Miva community. And as long as the company's focus remains a tunnel-vision view of sales to web hosting providers, I fear the progression will continue unabated.

So as I decompress and resume my normal abnormal activities, I'm still left wondering what my own future in the stadium might be. I attended to see what sorts of people these Miva fans and team members where. Still comfortable staying in the stands, I enjoyed going to the game for the chance to 'hang with the best'.

But I still have the nagging feeling that the team I was watching really didn't care whether there were fans in the stands or not. It didn't seem to affect their game, and would appear to have little to do with the season's schedule. Like many, maybe the pleasure I gain is from the peers in the stands; regardless the team on the field. But folks do not tend to renew their season tickets solely for the tailgate parties.

Postscript: Once again, the Miva mailing list server seems to have puked. Sad that they cannot find a reliable combination of man & machine to handle such a simple task. Maybe they should contact one of their list members to have it repaired? (grin)
       But it reminded me that one particularly nasty rumor I heard at the conference regarded a mention of making the Miva mailing lists 'moderated'. I, for one, will run for the hills if that happens. Over the past 4 years Miva Corp has not been able to participate on the lists in any regular manner. Why would we assume that moderation of a list would ever get done? Bad idea guys. Really bad.