Today, Legal Text Collector graduated from beta to production, version 1.0. It’s been a long time coming: I started working on it seven months ago. I made my first notes on the idea about five years ago.

Exactly thirty years ago today, Reagan said, “open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and in a small way, I think I can sympathize with Gorbachev. The main change from beta to production is that now people can start posting reviews: I’m opening the gates of public criticism.

Google allows public reviews only after a production release. In the safety of beta, Google provides a private feedback option, which nobody used. Many people did, however, send me questions and bug reports via email.

It’s hard to overstate the the value of that feedback. My friend Trish, my aunt Meg and my erstwhile colleague Jon of Sandline were especially helpful in testing the early alpha versions; strangers who stumbled upon later public betas kindly sent me information to resolve some of the final bugs. Through 14 alphas and 16 betas, Text Collector grew from 3.5 thousand lines to 5.5 thousand, a testament to how long the long tail can be.

So it is a dramatic moment. Much remains to do, but at some point I must tear down the wall to public criticism. Private feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, so this doesn’t worry me too much, but only time will tell.