Welcome to Huey, the youngest member in our pattern family. Huey is a zip-up hoodie with an (optional) front pouch. I’ve made one for myself — the one in the picture above — and I have yet to take it off since.
Meanwhile, I’ve been wondering why the hell I didn’t design this pattern sooner. It’s just that nice to wear.
Available as of now, in beta
The pattern is available right here, right now, but it’s in beta.
To find out what that means — and why I’m doing this — just continue reading. But if you’re itching to make this, here’s is what you need to know about beta status:
- Beta patterns lack documentation
- Beta patterns are made by few people (so far)
As time goes by and these issues are resolved, Huey will move from beta to core.
So why this beta business
As I explained in my round-up post of last month, pattern testing is a real bottleneck for me.
A number of people came forward, offering to help out with testing (thank you very much for that) which lead me to consider how this would work in practice.
Like, I’ve got Huey to point of it works for me and I am somewhat confident that it will work for others too. Stil, nothing replaces a real-world test so it would be nice if a couple of people could make it.
Rather than given the opportunity to test Huey to a handful of people who came forward, I figured I might as well open it up to everyone who feels so inclined.
And to indicate that this pattern isn’t as road-tested as the others, I’m keeping it in the beta namespace, where it actually is developed and this will also show up on the pattern page. No changes required.
Release early, release often
Going forward, I will release patterns as soon as I can, and work on completing the documentation while they remain in beta.
I think it’s a good way to go, and adheres to the release early, release often mantra of open source software.
If you think that’s a bad idea (or a very good idea), make sure to tell me about it in the comments below.