This has been a long time coming and something I've announced is "just around the corner" since I can remember. The truth is, I've been so overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work involved that I've put it off and off. More importantly I've been stalling because I want to be sure that the software is ready.

"Release" is a pretty big word in the software industry. You can release something quite half-assed and patch it up later. In fact there's even a name for the development cycle of repeatedly patching an unfinished article of software. It's called "agile" and it's the development cycle I subscribe to personally because it's how I most like to work (I've worked in two developer roles full time now. The latter went with agile due to the changing nature of the work. The former had stricter development cycles which ended up falling back on patching anyway because you simply can't catch every bug but I digress!)

In any case, this being the development it is, the process of repeatedly updating and patching it up is integral. But for initial release I feel like readiness is important. That first big release has to be something memorable and stable. First impressions count and with something that's been as involved and major as N-Dim, I want the first impression to be as good as it gets.

But there's a limit. You have to reach a point in order to prevent perfectionism from crippling your project in which you say "okay, time to finish". So I've decided to impose a self-set deadline and stick to it. On December 1st, I'm officially releasing N-Dim to the world. I'll be promoting, advertising and spreading the word throughout forum hosting communities. There's no telling how successful this will be and frankly the idea of it scares the hell out of me but it's also tremendously exciting.

Development on this may never end. It's a project I will continually evolve and alter. So release won't mean anything different to this individual forum though it will make or break the project as a whole. Some notable changes post-release will be that updating will be less sloppy. It'll be a much more careful cycle but things will be tighter. I'll also really appreciate you guys telling me if anything is off as I do now.

I will be incredibly busy between now and release but hopefully that will pay off as I slowly finish the ultimate to do list and start pushing out every "completed" page. This is a process that's already underway and you should notice a few nice graphical/speed changes as well as bug fixes that should make everything feel tighter.

I'd like to take this time to thank everybody. Not to sound cheesy but I really do owe this community in more ways than you can ever know. This project wouldn't have started, developed and continued without you guys and that's the truth of it. Both FE and ProM have been amazingly supportive and patient with the work I've done. They've eagerly used the software despite its kinks and unreadiness. They've reported swiftly every encountered problem. I've had constructive criticism and genuinely heart-warming positive feedback.

When I first said absent-mindedly on January 2011 that I was going to make my own forum software, I think people probably thought it was a joke. At the time I thought it was a joke. It was really a case of "I've done a ton of work with databases, I wonder how far I can take this." It started with a flash of inspiration just to prove a point to myself and see if I could, and grew into something so much deeper.

As somebody who self-admittedly has a short attention span and leaves a multitude of projects on the wayside, I think it's very surprising that I actually saw this one through. I think if I went back to the day that first online form was up (it was literally just a textbox you typed in and pressed "post". No usernames, just a screen of text. A handful of you might even remember it) and said "in two years this will be released as a fully-fledged forum host" people would have laughed or rolled their eyes.

To be honest, so would I. But this time it was different. This time it felt different. And this was one thing I didn't want to give up with. Believe me, the temptation to give up has been high. Even going back as little as a month. I've looked for every escape route from this project I could find and I've hovered on the edge just waiting to call it quits but I've always managed to pull it back. There's no telling if it will really take off. Maybe this time will be nothing more than a learning curve. We will see.

But I owe you guys for some of that persistence. Whenever I was ready to call time I'd have somebody from the community talk to me and give me something very encouraging or fill my mind with a reason to continue. I think if it weren't for the positive reception I received from everybody involved, this would have died a month after inception.

Well and truly thanks to you all. To everybody who sat around and tested those early web forms. To everybody who hit me up on AIM when I was down and gave me words of encouragement. To everybody who put out they'd like to use the software in the future to host. To everybody who put their mafia games, ORGs, or scumboards on NDim when there were fully developed alternatives (and then patiently sat by whilst I fixed glaring errors). To everybody who spread the word to their friends and promoted this community with nothing but positivity and kindness. To everybody who celebrated the moves of their major long standing communities to the software without any resistance. To every bug tester, every person who dropped me a message or PM with a screenshot explaining the problem or who even raised a problem. And to everybody most of all who genuinely, without irony, sat and honestly told me that they wanted the project to be a success and that they firmly believed it could be.

Without this community I would not be making this announcement and I'd still be stuck in a dead end job and hating my day to day. You guys have made this a reality.

Congrats bro! Looking forward to the release. I now know I have until then to take all the cool domain names to sell at a future date

Do it. We can work out a commission and make them exclusive for the NDim forum community. Everybody wins!

Congrats Paul, I hope this will be a hit :)

congratulations Paulus!

IN ALL SERIOUSNESS I've been very surprised at how well this has come along. We both know how often you start and stop projects so to see you come this far with something has been very impressive. And the current software is genuinely great (already miles better than ProBoards imo) as well as the features that are coming down the pipeline. So, good job Paul! I truly hope this is a huge success

THERE YA GO! now it's time to get paid!

i'll roll one up to the occasion. all the best for the future yo!

THATS MY BOY

I WAS ALIGNED WITH HIM IN A GAME ONCE!!!!!

Yep....I just made this thread about me....

cant say I read the text :)

but bito's gonna ASSSUMEEEEE that N-dim is complete and is going to be released to the public!

so congrats!

I felt bad.

and so I finally skimmed something!

a REAL congrats to you now Paul. You've won the battle, but now you must win the war too. I wish you luck and appreciate your constant support.

well done porl ! you have done an excellent job :)

Member list has been updated to release version. Despite my claims in the cbox I gave up on releasing the forum page for the evening. There's far too much overhead involved in that. I'll come back to those pages later.

The new member list has a few neat little changes to the layout and extras that make it look nicer though. It should also load quicker.