ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
Turbo Lister was written for Windows (older versions of Windows). Migrating it forward is not a matter of adding more patches (Turbo has acquired a lot of patches these past several years). The program needs to be rewritten from the ground up to incorporate the features necessary to remain compatible with the direction eBay's listing process is going. The third-party listing programs are a newer vintage than Turbo Lister and can more easily adapt to the coming eBay changes, and their subscription prices will allow them to keep up with the revisions necessary to keep pace with eBay.
With all of the other site maintenance issues, I suspect eBay doesn't have the manpower to write an entirely new Turbo Lister from the ground up. They even asked if users would be willing to pay a subscription fee to support full time maintenance of the program. Apparently, the user response was not significant enough to pay the wages of a programmer. So, with ready-to-roll programs out there like SixBit, eBay is terminating support for the program.
I don't think sellers appreciate what it takes to create or maintain a desktop program. There is a huge difference between programming for the web and programming for hardware. With web updates, which reside entirely on eBay's servers, the program can be released with less stringent testing because a patched version can be uploaded as soon as fixed or the program can be rolled back to the original version directly on the server. The effects on users can be minimized by fast response times, and without any action by the users. eBay's programmers are web and server developers and they have immediate and direct control (to the extent that a team can work as a single entity).
To my knowledge, Turbo Lister is eBay's only desktop program, an anomaly in a web world. It requires a different type of programmer, writing in a different programming language. So eBay can not simply divert some of its web programmers to Turbo. Does eBay still have any desktop programmers on staff? Are they part time now? I don't know.
With a desktop program, there is no rollback to a prior version, and pushing a new version on the user every other day is inefficient. A desktop program takes me about three to six months to get to the point where I can send it to selected users for testing, and then three to six more months of rigorous testing before it can be compiled and released to the general public. (I can't imagine how long it would take, and how many programmers would be required, to create a program as complex as Turbo Lister has become.) After the release, bugs are collected until enough stack up, or are severe enough, to warrant revisiting the program.
It takes me from two days to a week to get a program running in my head again so that I can determine if a bug fix here has a detrimental effect over there -- those unintended consequences we so often see with every patch. A programmer new to the code would spend that much time, or more, getting acquainted with the code. A desktop program requires a LOT of retesting of every aspect before the next revision is ready to release because a release is non-trivial. That is why it takes so long for desktop programs to be patched.
Yes, I suppose eBay decided that a $100K programmer, or two, might not be justified, and corporate decided to save those 6-digit dimes. Alas, if every single Turbo user had volunteered $12 a year, it might have been doable, but we are seeing a lot of posters balking at paying anything to anybody. So let's suppose half of the Turbo users would volunteer to pay $24 per year and give the other half a free ride. Might that work?
