As for the development time, I've been watching 1.9 intently for the past year or so. As it's not yet usable and is still a bit formless many of the eggheads are leary of contributing. Add in a few issues of people getting torqued off for one reason or another and you find that 1.9 has been a slow jerky ride.
From the looks of things last I saw (which was about 6 months ago although i read the eggdev archives at least once a week to keep up) 1.9 is actually a couple of development spurts away from being ready for alpha use. Once it's alpha and things are relatively set in HOW it will work i think we'll see a reasonably wuick trip to Beta. Then the standard eon till the perfectionists in the dev crew ordain it as stable

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When will the spurts come to thrust 1.9 forward? Who knows. Stdarg has been the major contributer and the driving force. God knows he's gotta be tired of dragging the project forward. So i would suggest that everyone try to think of some way to offer support or encouragement to him and the rest of the Eggheads crew.
1.9 looks like a major leap forward for eggdrop in functionality, ease of use and maintainability. 2.0 should be the lightest most stable eggdrop yet still overpowering it's predecessors with its ability to do anything you need it to. Eggdrop has always set the bar for extensabillity and this one will notch it up a bit higher.
anyway.. i'll step off my 1.9 sopabox and quit preaching
