*MAJOR TANGENT WARNING* (you have been warned) I'm going to interrupt the constructive part of this discussion for a moment. There's something important here that needs to be addressed - it keeps knawing at me.
First, let me repeat one of my most favorite sayings of all time - "hate never ends hate" (Buddha). Below, I have quoted (and responded to) some comments from earlier in the discussion... Let me say before digging into these - Arjun, I like your technical focus and see a lot of value in your points. But please understand there are human beings working at Apache and on this project - and this is opensource. If noone gets enough itch on a specific piece of code, it languishes. The vast majority of open source coding is done with company money behind it; for example, companies building new tools with the intent to later be able to sell support and training. And companies using existing software and contributing fixes and desired features; even sometimes hiring the original developers to implement new features + functions. Yes, there are people who just love to code and solve problems here giving time without pay (as I am doing right this minute), but they can only give so much. And they deserve to earn a living as well. So please understand the following comments distract from the valuable part of the conversation. My energy levels get drained just reading them, which makes me want to avoid further discussion so that I can "avoid suffering" -- BTW, this brings to mind a reference to The Dailai Lama who states in one of his books "*The desire or inclination to be happy and to avoid suffering knows no bounds. As such, it needs no justification and is validated by the simple fact that we naturally and correctly want this*" [1]; he also makes the point that we should try not to infringe on others' being happy and avoiding suffering.... On to the specific comments. Activemq-cpp is a "how to pretend we're writing Java in C++" veritable > nightmare for anyone with even the remotest familiarity with C++ usage > and idioms. You are right that the code is a fairly straight translation of its Java cousin, and that's not ideal. That's all that needs to be said, saying it is a nightmare and accusing people of "pretending" - well, if someone said your work was a nightmare, would you help them with it? (BTW, I'm not a fan of the high level of inheritance here, but I'm going to avoid going off to yet another tangent). Even a comment to the effect "activemq-cpp is now a crock. Strongly > suggest looking for an alternative" could have been helpful Instead of "crock," you could have just said, "not maintained." Again, if I were Tim working countless hours on activemq-cpp and someone told me it was a crock, and they were fixing it, I think I would just close the ticket without response. Not great, but totally understandable. (NO, I am not accusing anyone of actually saying that to him - just making a point; also not suggesting that's how he responded - just making a point). I suspect that participation and feedback are rare because, not to put > too fine a point on it, C++ is really not welcome in a Java-centric > milieu. Once the Java folks took over the ASF (around 2005 or so), > C++ people have been "chased" away, in effect. There are more users > than you're likely to hear about or hear from. > The "really not welcome" and "chased away" - we all know there are people fixated on "my tool is the best." It happens. But I haven't seen anyone on this project ever reject any contributions based on them not being Java. Of course, we do need to consider maintainability and who is available in the community, so non-Java contributions into a community of mostly Java folks will have a natural challenge to overcome. Note though that we also have the NMS sub-project which is C#. I think that's true for quite a few C++ subprojects across ASF, which > is quite unabashedly Java-focused. What happened to the ASF overall in the past, and where it is going in the future, doesn't really affect this discussion. I can appreciate there may be a feeling of a large organization that doesn't have your best interest at heart, but as I mentioned above, I personally see an interest to have people with different skill sets on board. I mean, we do still have an activemq-cpp sub-project, but you are right - it has suffered poor attention. If I were working with a client using activemq-cpp and having problems that needed fixing, I would offer to help with it. On the clock, of course. With that said, I recognize it may be hard to encourage C++ developers to contribute at the ASF if the communities at ASF primarily consist of people focusing on Java. By the way, check out the following page - there are many different languages used across ASF. Yes, Java appears to be the heavy-weight, but there is plenty of room for others. https://projects.apache.org/projects.html?language I hope this comes across with the positive intent with which I wrote and send it. You clearly have a lot of good knowledge, and we really could use some solid C++ skills on activemq-cpp, or a replacement. And even if you walk away, I hope you recognize that I have a lot of respect the technical input you are providing. Art [1] The Dailai Lama. 1999. *Ethics for the New Millenium* On Thu, Feb 13, 2025 at 7:27 PM Arjun Ray <ara...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, 13 Feb 2025 16:31:26 -0600, Justin Bertram > <jbert...@apache.org> wrote: > > | > Are there links explaining the role (capabilities, responsibilities, > etc)? > | > | This is a good place to start [1]. To be clear, this is just an idea > | at this point. > > Thanks very much! I have some reading to do. :-) > > | Apache is more about community than code [2] and my concern is that > | the community simply hasn't coalesced around this code-base > | sufficiently to sustain it on an ongoing basis. > > I think that's true for quite a few C++ subprojects across ASF, which > is quite unabashedly Java-focused. C++ users have been in effect > incentivized to strike out on their own, as contributing to C++ > emulations of Java code is quite unappealing in general. > > | Given the lack of resources and interest in maintaining activemq-cpp > | combined with the effort it would take to not just make it work but > | work well, why wouldn't we simply point folks to alternatives like > | STOMP and AMQP. > > There is in fact very little effort needed to maintain well-tested > code here. The C++ client works well. Its problem is the use of > obsolete code that modern compilers barf on. Fixing that is a big > deal only because the gatekeepers are simply not interested and just > as dismissive of outside contributions. > > | I would be happy to see folks step forward and embrace responsibility > | for this code-base. > > (I wonder: is there a way to call for volunteers?) > > | What I'm not happy to accept is this continued limbo where valid > | problems never get fixed and there is no clear communication as to > | why and what the future holds for the code-base. In my opinion this > | situation is worse than either of the previous two. > > I fully agree. > > > Arjun > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@activemq.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@activemq.apache.org > For further information, visit: https://activemq.apache.org/contact > > >
