6 History

6.1 Origin of Pomegranate

Personal context of

Global context

6.2 Overview of major versions

• The vision of an integrated system to manage all my personal information in Summary 2008, after lots of frustrations with existing PIM desktop applications. Each one was great in some way but fall short in the other areas, and left me in the middle of the road after some time using it. I was willing to develop it on my own. The decision wasn’t been resolved to
• Version 1, 2009. A small web application to manage code snippets (notes), while learning to develop web applications. The ease of which Grails application could be developed
• From versions 2 to 6, frequent expansions in scope and features. Many features were abandoned or redesigned as I put them to the test of daily use to manage large and dynamic volume of records.
• Version 6.5 was the first stable version to be use daily and reliably.
• Versions 7 is the last unreleased version.
• Version 8, first public release after a major and comprehensive code clean and interface tweaking to reduce the rough edges and the particular assumptions of my own computing environment.

0.8.4

0.9.0

What took time the most was not the implementation time but applying numerous new habits in my daily and weekly routine. Adapting the new habits often results in changes to the software.

In the domain of organizing and planning, slight adjustments can turn an unproductive process into a very productive one. The important ingredient is persistence and refinement of the process until it gets its fruits.

6.3 Lessons learned

Big steps often fails. Trying to make big changes in the way I organize things often have more drawbacks than advantages. In habits, small steps are what works in the long term. Big sudden changes can backfire after a while.

It is better to start testing a new way of work, writing, planning, on paper first. Only when successful, will I start to implement it in a system. System are not magic. They reflect a way of work in the physical world to the electronic world. If it doesn’t work in the physical it may not work in the electronic too.