Brett's analysis nails it. And I agree with you Fred, that it's a "good fail."
It really boils down to finding an arrangement that fits naturally with the team's and community's work habits. It's too easy for the core GWT team to ignore "that other project" when we work on GWT trunk every day, yet the existence of the incubator might actively discourage autonomous community projects from springing up as separate Google Code projects (because would-be project founders feel they ought to instead work in the context of the incubator). Anyway, nothing drastic comes of any of this. And we still badly need a paging data grid (that is really fast, small, and scalable) to land in trunk! On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 1:03 AM, Fred Sauer <fre...@google.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:23 AM, brett.wooldridge < > brett.wooldri...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> I'll throw in my 2￥. I see two things as untenable: >> >> 1. One incubator project with a bunch of widgets. I know it's >> convenient to have one project to build to get all the cool bits, but >> the reality is that each of those bits has a different maintainer with >> different levels of commitment (and time) to getting it current with >> the trunk. >> >> > I think this has be the reality of the current incubator. > > Overall I'm quite happy with the incubator. It was a great experiment which > had some great code come of it. Even if we declare this experiment 'failed' > I still consider it a success in that it's helped us to an even better path. > > Thanks > Fred > > > > > >> 2. Committing to support plural versions of GWT with a non-branched >> incubator. If the incubator branches with the gwt trunk, users can >> have some assurances that everything will work for a given version of >> GWT -- save defects in said projects. >> >> I'm actually for giving the whack-a-mole process a go, with projects >> living (independently) until they are merged or die a natural death. >> Once merged, the project should be deleted or otherwise marked as >> stopped. Truly abandoned projects will either be adopted by someone >> who cares, or will suffer bitrot. Either way, there would be no >> commitment to keep them current. >> >> Maybe with the lessened guarantees, fewer people will choose to employ >> such projects, but my gut says that when you need a PagingScrollTable >> you'll take one where you can get it. >> >> -Brett >> >> On Sep 15, 11:26 am, Isaac Truett <itru...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > Bruce, >> > >> > I pondered this topic over the weekend. I don't think I have enough >> > information right now to arrive at a better solution. I honestly >> > thought until Wednesday that the incubator was working well. I >> > understand that things look different from the inside. >> > >> > Ray said last week that the new direction was going to be developing >> > widgets in GWT trunk or in separate projects. I assume that means >> > there will be throw-away projects for new widgets or groups of widgets >> > that will last until the code is incorporated into GWT trunk. On the >> > pro side, that would mean you're not bound to long term backwards >> > compatibility or supporting the dead-ends that hang around in the >> > incubator but are still used by a few people. But if the pace of new >> > development is fast enough, I could see it turning into a game of >> > whack-a-mole with new projects popping up and disappearing rapidly. I >> > think one of the advantages of having a single incubator project is >> > that users can build one project and get access to all of those >> > experimental widgets at once. >> > >> > On a side note, a couple of other people have discovered the >> > StyleInjector change: >> > >> > >> http://code.google.com/p/google-web-toolkit-incubator/issues/detail?i...http://code.google.com/p/google-web-toolkit-incubator/wiki/MakingIncu. >> .. >> > >> > I'm not sure what to tell them at this point. I think at the very >> > least the wiki needs to be clarified. >> > >> > - Isaac >> > >> > >> > >> > On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Bruce Johnson <br...@google.com> >> wrote: >> > > We've been a little ambivalent about how well the incubator is working >> -- >> > > it's taken a lot longer to things to move into trunk than we ever >> guessed it >> > > would, usually for pretty good reasons. So, we need to find a >> different way >> > > of building up a pipeline, and that's a somewhat unsolved problem as >> yet. If >> > > anyone has ideas, let 'em rip. >> > >> > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Ray Ryan <rj...@google.com> wrote: >> > >> > >> If you're after guarantees I guess that would be 1686, the one that >> the >> > >> 1.7 jar was cut from (gwt-incubator-july-14-2009.jar). Looking at the >> svn >> > >> history, nothing has actually changed in the code from that one to >> the >> > >> removal of StyleInjector. It's all wiki edits and such since then. >> > >> > >> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 8:46 AM, jay <jay.gin...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > >>> So...as of right now, what is the *last* version of gwt-incubator >> that >> > >>> is guaranteed to work with GWT 1.7? Is it safe to assume that it is >> > >>> the version immediately prior to the removal of StyleInjector? >> > >> > >>> thanks, >> > >> > >>> jay >> > >> > >>> On Sep 10, 8:28 am, Isaac Truett <itru...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >>> > [oops - +gwtc] >> > >> > >>> > Hi, Ray, >> > >> > >>> > I appreciate the drive to move forward and I applaud jumping on >> > >>> > opportunities to remove redundant code. >> > >> > >>> > The reason this policy was important, to me at least, is that it >> > >>> > provided a baseline to work against. The code in the incubator can >> be >> > >>> > very useful (I use PagingScrollTable extensively and used >> DatePicker >> > >>> > from incubator before it graduated) but it's also risky because >> the >> > >>> > code is still experimental and subject to change. The assurance >> that >> > >>> > those changes would be compatible with a packaged and released GWT >> > >>> > build (even just a milestone) meant that I could build incubator >> from >> > >>> > trunk and pick up the latest features and bugfixes as long as my >> > >>> > project tracked the latest GWT build. Because of the GWT policies >> on >> > >>> > deprecation and backwards compatibility, this has been fairly easy >> in >> > >>> > practice. As it stands now, incubator will not compile except >> against >> > >>> > GWT trunk, which is also notoriously unstable (it wasn't building >> as >> > >>> > recently as last night, which I see was corrected this morning). >> This >> > >>> > presents a much higher risk for those of us using incubator code. >> > >> > >>> > It also becomes harder to work on the incubator itself when it has >> to >> > >>> > compile against GWT trunk. I wanted to look into issue #267 last >> night >> > >>> > and I was stymied by GWT trunk not being in a buildable state. Not >> an >> > >>> > insurmountable obstacle, but one that seems unnecessary to me. >> > >> > >>> > - Isaac >> > >> > >>> > On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Ray Ryan <rj...@google.com> >> wrote: >> > >>> > > Hey, Isaac. >> > >>> > > That policy has proven very difficult to live with. (And to tell >> you >> > >>> > > the >> > >>> > > truth I forgot about it.) >> > >>> > > The reasoning here was that we have released incubator jars that >> work >> > >>> > > with >> > >>> > > 1.7 and no plans to issue further ones before 2.0 MS1 lands. >> Should >> > >>> > > it prove >> > >>> > > necessary to go back and do so we can go back and branch. >> > >>> > > In the meantime, we were faced bugs due to FastTree in >> particular >> > >>> > > being tied >> > >>> > > to the old StyleInjector while new development was moving to the >> > >>> > > version in >> > >>> > > GWT. We saw the opportunity to delete redundant code and took >> it. >> > >>> > > Is this going to cause problems for anyone? >> > >>> > > rjrjr >> > >> > >>> > > On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Isaac Truett <itru...@gmail.com >> > >> > >>> > > wrote: >> > >> > >>> > >> Last year, Emily stated that it would compile against the >> "latest >> > >>> > >> gwt-milestone and gwt-trunk". There hasn't been a 2.0 milestone >> that >> > >>> > >> I've seen, so under the policy from last year StyleInjector >> should >> > >>> > >> not >> > >>> > >> have been removed in revisions 1712-1715. >> > >> > >>> > >> So, what's the current policy for incubator trunk >> compatibility? >> >> > > > -- > Fred Sauer > Developer Advocate > Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway > Mountain View, CA 94043 > fre...@google.com > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit-Contributors -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
