I mean it: I started to dogfood Chandler seriously since Friday September 23rd!

So far, I’m fairly happy with it though I ran through a couple of crashers that I carefully walk around in my daily usage. I’m avoiding anything too adventurous with recurring events (like sharing or moving between collections…). But despite the bugs, the great news is: Chandler is rapidly becoming usable, there’s nothing I was doing with iCal I found myself not being able to do in Chandler. I can save my data (in .ics) and read them back with no loss. This last aspect alone is paramount when dogfooding and I’m glad to report I haven’t lost anything so far (knocking on wood…).

So, what does it mean to “dogfood” Chandler?

• Download Chandler of course: at that point, considering the rate of bug fix and that we’re not rearchitecturing anything, I recommend using the latest checkpoint (top link on the download page).
• Run Chandler exclusively: I know it’s hard to get rid of old habits but, if it’s hard for the enthusiasts, just think about how it will feel for others…
• Take notes of every behavior or issue you find when running Chandler: mild annoyances, UI defects that bug you, anything that make you want to leave Chandler and start iCal again… Those are things that are not necessarily bugs and that you may want to discuss with someone on the team. The design mailing list is a perfect place for that kind of discussion.
• Report bugs religiously: we have a great tracking system and we use it! Don’t just send an e-mail out and hope someone else will track the problem.

I’ve been logging quite a few bugs since Friday but I don’t feel bad about it: this is exactly where we should be right now.

I encourage everybody at OSAF to start dogfooding. This is important we get some mileage among ourselves and feel confortable with the application before we roll it out to the World with fanfare.

After years of development it feels strange that people may actually use our stuff but this day is actually really really close now… and it’s a pretty exciting place to be.