Hey folks, Won't waste time echoing the sentiments above in many words. Contest stupid. Ground-up rework in 2.0 (maybe). Refactor & clean up existing stuff in the meantime. Design czar(s) needed to chaperone this work into existence.
I don't think that I'm qualified to submit myself for a "djesign czar" position, but "design in Django" is something I'd really like to champion in some capacity. I certainly contribute more design than code to django's community -- and I'm truly grateful that I have a means of contributing/giving back to the community that isn't just code. Whoever/whatever solution is settled on, I think a key goal of the czar will be to impose django's sensibilities on the design process -- "trusted, conservative tastemakers." I'd hate to see a nascent "design group" experiment in django flame out early. Design is hard, just like code, and it deserves the same rigorous consideration as any patch. -I On Feb 6, 10:20 pm, Bryan Veloso <br...@revyver.com> wrote: > Let me get straight to the point, since I seem to suffer from chronic > "tl;dr" syndrome as of late. > > 1) I'm all for a re-thinking of the admin, and I agree that a > rethinking would be better placed with a 2.0-release because of the > aforementioned backwards-compatabilitiy issues. Baby steps are better > than no steps. > 2) On that note, I am completely for tweaking and "cleaning" the > current admin to make it easier to skin and just tweak in general. > Compartmentalizing CSS for widgets, or even just restructuring it to > 2010 standards without any changes to the front-end look would be > leaps and bounds ahead of where we are now. > 3) I like Eric's proposal. Hell, I'm willing to step up and be that > guy. It makes me wonder if there was somebody that had a design hat > much in the vein that Maclom/RKM/Alex have their ORM hats if people > would be more willing and enthusiastic about submitting proposals and > bugs. > > I think three is enough for now. We've gotten this far through the > thread with a lot of heads nodding, so let's start thinking about how > to take action. > > Cheers, > Bryan > > On Feb 6, 11:52 am, Eric Holscher <eric.holsc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > I went ahead and replied to this on my blog[0]. I'll copy it here for > > completeness. > > > [0]:http://ericholscher.com/blog/2010/feb/6/role-designers-django-community/ > > > There has been a recent discussion on the Django Development mailing list > > about the role of designers in the Django community. I think that this is an > > interesting discussion that can come from this, and I would like to explain > > my thoughts on the issue. > > > This discussion came up in the context of redesigning the Django Admin, > > which everyone knows and loves. The UI is growing a bit out-dated, and there > > was talk of working to clean it up. This then turned into a discussion about > > how design proposals and improvements aren't taken as seriously as they > > should be by the community. I think there are a number of reasons that this > > happens, and I would like to take a look at them. My purpose here is to > > start a discussion about how to better integrate designers into the > > community, because they are a vital part of making our world more beautiful > > and efficient. > > > I don't trust myself to judge your work > > ======================================= > > > The normal process for changes that go into Django is that a proposal is > > sent to the mailing list. There is a discussion that happens around them, > > and then if the code is produced, and it works, it gets committed. For > > design changes, I don't reply to these messages, because I don't have the > > skills or knowledge to judge the work. I think that a lot of people on these > > lists are in the same boat. > > > When someone sends a proposal to the list, and it doesn't get any replies, > > that feels like rejection. This happens more than it should, but it isn't > > anyones job to respond to these messages and say "sorry, I'm not qualified > > to critique your work". This happens with code proposals too, but I think it > > may happen more with design. This leads to designers forsaking the mailing > > list, and this problem perpetuates itself, by not drawing designers into the > > community. > > > Design is not special, except when it is > > ======================================== > > > Part of the problem that seems to have come forward is that there is a > > feeling that design is "special". That it should be treated somehow > > differently in the process. As we know from history, even with all good > > intentions, different is never equal. So I think that we should work to fit > > design into the current scheme of how things work, instead of trying to > > adopt new ways of dealing with it. > > > When I look at the current Core Developers of Django, I don't see many > > people who are designers. As I said above, that fact that very few of the > > current core developers are well versed in the design realm, really hurts > > inclusion of design changes. This creates a lot more friction in the process > > of getting design changes into the code base. > > > I don't know if this idea is crazy, but should we have the concept of a > > "core designer". These would be people that the community trusts and knows > > have good taste, that would be an obvious person to make these design > > choices. I think that there is a problem when I have a design change for > > Django, and I really don't know who to talk to. There is an obvious > > authority (BDFL) for code changes, but I don't know if Adrian and Jacob are > > really the correct people to making these judgment calls on design? > > > I realize that this is open source, and "core designers" would be the same > > as developers, just people who care about the direction of the projects > > design. However, I think that having more design oriented people in the > > community in a more direct fashion would make it more obvious that design > > changes are welcomed and seriously considered. > > > I don't know how far we need to go down the path of making this explicit. > > However, most of the documentation about contributing is explicit about > > "code". This is another of those lines, where I don't know if it makes sense > > to be explicit about design, having a "design" section in the contributing > > documentation, or if the implicit knowledge of core designers will make it > > obvious > > that we mean design changes there too. > > > The actual process > > ================== > > > I don't want to talk about the actual design process, because well, I really > > don't know how it works. I think that once we integrate designers into the > > community better, the process for design will naturally fall out better. > > > Conclusion > > ========== > > > I would like to point out that Django has some of the best designers of any > > open source community out there. I am lucky to work with a number of them on > > a daily basis, and I really think that they make our community special. So > > thank you guys for sticking with us. > > > This is a place where I could see Django leading the way in how to integrate > > design into the open source development process. Let's make a grand > > experiment, and see how it works out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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