New Blogger

Ann Althouse has made the switch to the new Blogger, and is having lots of issues. I haven't made the switch yet because of problems like that. Let everything settle, then I'll move. Being able to put labels on my posts or getting a feed for comments on each post (I'm lucky to get one comment in a month) just doesn't seem a priority. I don't have a big blog so it probably wouldn't be a problem, but there's no reason to rush.

But I do feel oddly sympathetic to the folks over at Blogger:

[T]he bug was identified yesterday and a fix is being coded as I type this. It's non-trivial, and has to do with the new way feeds are generated in the new version of Blogger. We apologize deeply for this - please understand that Blogger was completely re-built from the ground up, and we're ironing out all the bugs in the new version as fast as we can. Blogs with lots of posts and comments were delayed from migrating precisely to avoid these types of things, and we definitely fixed a bunch of issues in that meantime, but unfortunately we missed this one. Bugs are a reality of software development, and once found they're always fixed ASAP.

Fingers crossed, this fix will be rolled out today or tomorrow at the latest. For the time being, please let your readers know that we're incredibly sorry about this, and that they should visit your blog in their browsers (not their newsreaders) for the next day or two until this is fixed.

Again, you have our deepest apologies for this - thanks for your continued patience.

Let's just say I have become very familiar, particularly in the last week, with where they're coming from. Rewriting large chunks of code and getting lots of bugs. Been there, done that. Despite extensive testing, still finding problems? There now, still doing that.

My whole project team was in the office all last weekend putting our new stuff in, and fixing lots of problems. The thing runs for the first time Monday morning at 6. I walk into the office a little after 8 AM and I'm not even to my desk (and I'm not far from the elevator) when a lady from my team runs up to me and tells me we've brought down a part of the system. We've been fixing things ever since.

So, yes, I feel a kinship with the Blogger folk right now. I feel your pain. I'm still not switching, though.