Andreas L. Delmelle wrote: > With all due respect, I think you're overreacting here. Maybe you already > know this yourself, and have changed your mind about the > 'adios'... Anyway, > I have been following the discussions between Peter and yourself > (--at least > the recent ones, which may be exactly why I'm convinced this is > all strongly > exaggerated). > Before you leave, I have a thing or two to add about one of the previous > posts in this thread, where you are talking about an abstract 'team' where > at first 100 percent of the committers are pro one particular design --you > know, the part about 'choosing sides' and how this affects global > efficiency > within a project. Since the post in question was composed shortly after my > 'heads up' to Peter, I can't help but feel it's somehow related to that.
No. It took me several hours to draft that message. The fact that they were sent close together is a coincidence. > Perhaps you would rather have seen me (or others) having a go at him as > well? Yes, I think some discipline is needed here, but I don't expect it to come from you. > It definitely was never my intention to occupy myself with something so > mean/common as 'choosing sides'. Fact of the matter is that, for > the moment > I *know* too little about the workings of FOP (either HEAD or > alt-design) to > actually have a thoroughly reflected preference for either approach. > Hey, maybe I just need to catch up on the archives, and will then suddenly > discover what kind of a pest Peter really is... but right now, I lack any > indication of him trying to undermine every one of your design proposals, > neither have I been confronted with any evidence that he is > actually trying > to force anyone to see things *his* way at the cost of everything > else (and > these are two things you seem to be _reproaching_ him in your replies). The gist of this section seems to be ... that you don't know enough to comment on what is going on. Duly noted. > Re-reading Peter's posts, on the contrary, I see someone who was daring > enough at some point to say: "I'm going to try it like that, regardless of > what the rest of you does." Some time later, he came to the > conclusion that > he wouldn't solve some of the issues the others were trying to > solve at the > time he went his own path, and now he's here again --to see if any of the > issues have already been sorted out. If what you say were true, the alt-design properties work would have been integrated into the trunk, and the alt-design branch abandoned. No, he is here, again, to sell us on the idea that you can't build an FO Tree without first building the Area Tree. He is unwilling to consider simpler alternatives. > Look, I can understand your agitation stemming from the fact that you had > put considerable time and effort into providing a means to be > able to choose > between different layout strategies, and now it turns out this > wasn't really > necessary after all --and Peter's shrugging his shoulders, which obviously Where do you get the idea that LayoutStrategies aren't necessary after all? IMO, they are crucial, regardless of what Peter does. > would cause a lot of frustration with (and would thus come across as > offending to) someone who takes the project seriously, like yourself. I don't care whether Peter uses LayoutStrategy or not. My frustration stems from the fact that design questions can be repeated ad infinitum and ad nauseam. People who take the questions seriously and try to develop answers to them have the same weight as those who flippantly say "-1" or those who let the thread dangle until they can reagitate the question again. > However, right now, reacting the way you do, I'm getting the impression > you're taking it waaay *too* seriously --in fact, you have been doing that > all along. It almost seems like you are backing out now, because you see a > certain failure ahead and you want to avoid it. You just don't want to be > there when it turns out your proposals were worthless to begin with. Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what you are talking about. Specifically what is it that you think will fail, and why? If you can answer that, then you can answer the question that I have asked Peter to answer 4 times now. I have acknowledged that my proposals may be worthless. In fact, I have asked Peter to simply show that they are. If the solution requires a complex system to coordinate parsing and layout, then that is what we need to do. I have proposed a much simpler alternative that leaves our existing code base intact, and have asked Peter to find any flaws in it. The nature of this stuff is that some days you teach and others you are taught. I can't get Peter to do either one. Your ad hominem attack on my motives is rude, arrogant, offensive, and not supported by anything that I have said. And I don't mind saying that it is false. > Nowhere have I read any allusion to you as the guy everyone else wishes > would go away (perhaps somewhere in the whitespace in between two words in > one of Glen's posts ;) ) Things get rough sometimes, not everyone is as > fluent in expressing himself in writing, and, as it turns out, > not everyone > seems to be as fluent in reading what is written... Again you have misunderstood the issue. It is not that we do not understand each other, but in fact that we understand each other too well. Victor Mote
