The Setup
“What should you do when that Ol’ Tester Magic grabs a hold of you?”
Dunno.
But what you can do is sit around at a nearby coffeehouse, drink your coffee, finish your coffee, get a refill and drink that one, and then declare to all the other crazies sitting around you that you’re going to set up a bunch of publicly accessible test/preview sites.
The Premise
We’ve been doing plenty of testing internally for a variety of stock and commissioned software products and components, which is all great and fine… at least on the Java side. It’s a fairly well-understood, documented, regimented series of cooperating workflows that mesh well.
But what about the PHP code that we’ve been trickling out into the public? Or Web sites, like Javamancy, that have a structural aspect alongside the content (such as this post) that require careful feeding and maintenance over its lifetime? Don’t they also deserve a more extensive set of tests, previews, new concepts and integrations, etc.?
The short answer is: yes.
The Action
The plan is simple: starting soon (ostensibly in April 2009 if we stick to the initial development schedule), we’ll be setting up a few test/preview sites for Javamancy, among others, so that our kind and gentle readers will have an opportunity to see new features as they enter our pipeline for the public-facing (and some commissioned) Web-based products. These activities should not significantly alter many of your current work habits (at least, hopefully not), and it should not deter our Java folks from continuing with their favorite products and services that they know and love.
Just think of this as something “extra”.
Because when that Ol’ Tester Magic grabs a hold of you, odd things seem to happen… 
