As esoTalk slowly approaches a stable release, I thought I’d give the homepage a revamp and set up an official esoTalk blog. And I figured that I’d better post something on it, ’cause having a blog with no posts would be kinda pointless. So here’s a bit of an introduction post—welcome to the esoTalk blog!

So esoTalk has actually been around for a fair while. My older brother, Simon, came up with the idea to make a really simple and fast forum in 2003, and whipped up a very basic version to use on his website. This version sucked. Like, really sucked. Like, “I-think-it-relied-on-magic-quotes” sucked.

In late 2007 Simon and I started seriously thinking about remaking esoTalk. We kinda wanted to re-think how forums worked, mostly ’cause we were lazy and hated spending 60 seconds to make a post when 30 seconds could do it. So in an ironic turn of events we got totally motivated to spend our free time working on esoTalk, which (of course) backfired completely, because I think we’ve easily spent a couple of thousand hours making and remaking this software, and that works out to… what? 240,000 forum posts’ worth of extra clicking? Hmm…

Simon and I worked very hard this year as a two-man development team and managed to get a few alpha versions released. However, today Simon is no longer with us—he passed away several months ago after we released the fifth alpha. In a pledge to continue his legacy, I’ve committed—through dedication, and through git—to the esoTalk project, and I’ll continue development by myself. And I’ve managed to get two betas out so far, so hey, I figure I’m doing OK!

Here’s some examples of what you can expect from this blog:

• Complaints about Internet Explorer.
• Posts in which I describe the problems I have had coding for Internet Explorer.
• Strategies for working around Internet Explorer behaviour.
• General venting about how much Internet Explorer sucks.

And when I get tired of complaining about Internet Explorer, I might post about:

• Coding techniques.
• Minimalism, and how we got the esoTalk package down to 231kB.
• Ideas we’ve got for new esoTalk features or plugins.
• Web application trends.
• Random stuff, completely unrelated to esoTalk.
• How bad Internet Explorer is, seriously.

So stay tuned, say “hi”, and check out esoTalk if you haven’t already!