Hello Jim,
As Bill pointed out, it would be helpful if you could identify some
specific details within the general trend you are observing.
But the kind of thing that you are mentioning is something that I would
expect to happen far more often than can be observed in the Apache HTTP
Server project.
If individual contributors are each trying to "scratch their own itch",
then there would be a tendency for code to become less coherent over time.
What keeps things from growing into chaos is the review by experienced
contributors who are looking at the overall purpose and direction of the
project as a whole.
Another thing that helps the Apache HTTP Server project is the modular
design of the code base. New and diverse features can be isolated into
separate modules, be given time to mature and then eventually be better
integrated with the core code.
Over the last few months there simply has been a lot of activity.
But there has also been a lot of quality debate around this activity.
Some very impressive new functionality has been attempted.
I personally have not had enough time (and possibly not enough skill) to
know if the quality of the code is good or not. But from my limited
perspective the discussions seem to be going in a good direction.
Thanks,
Mike Rumph
On 10/24/2015 8:49 AM, Jim Jagielski wrote:
Just some food for thought; let me know if I'm off the rails.
Over the last several months, it's appeared to me that we have
been adding patches that feel, well, very-patchy to me. They
feel like cumbersome add-ons that create some level of fragility
to our code, with special one-off considerations instead of a
deeper more complete fix. In other words, it seems that httpd is
becoming more crufty rather than planned and cohesive and
consistent.
Thoughts? Comments?
