The latlng release was due two years ago. It is still not out. I have been working on it the entire time.
The desk
I sit down at nine. I open the terminal. The command is in the history. I press the up arrow. Then I stop.
The phone buzzes. It is a parcel. I track the parcel, then read the reviews for the thing inside it, then the reviews for the thing I should have bought instead, and when I look up the cursor has been blinking for eleven minutes. It has been blinking for two years.
I check staging. Staging is fine. Staging is always fine. I refresh it in case it has changed its mind.
Then I do something smaller. I rename a variable nobody has read since 2024. I update a dependency I do not use. I add a line to the release checklist. The checklist is now four pages long.
The reasons
None of them are engineering. The build either works or it does not. What follows is a list of things I have said out loud with a straight face.
The list, in order of dignity:
- The release notes are not right. A wrong note is worse than a late release. That is not true. I say it anyway.
- Someone might look at it. Not a bug. Me. Someone might form an opinion. It would sit beside my name in the log. It would outlive the repository.
- It is Thursday. I have a rule about Thursdays. I invented the rule this morning.
Two years
People have stopped asking. One still asks. He sends a single question mark at four o’clock. It is the most efficient form of contempt currently available.
The version number on the site has not changed. 0.9. It has said 0.9 since the first autumn. I check it on my phone. I am in the lift. There is no signal. The page cannot load. I know what it says.
Two years. I have read the same diff four hundred times. I could recite it. Some mornings I do. Quietly. To myself.
I close the laptop at six. The release is due. It was due two years ago. I will do it tomorrow, after I fix the changelog.
