Hi Grzegorz,
Many thanks for your response : )
On 19 Aug 2008, at 12:54, Grzegorz Kossakowski wrote:
Hi Jeremy,
Jeremy Quinn pisze:
From the PoV of users, it should also be clear :
If you want or have to use Ant, use 2.1
If you want or have to use Maven, use 2.2
If you just need the Pipeline API, use 3.0
I'm not sure if I get you here correctly so I'll ask:
Do you express your own wish or your own perception of situation we
have when it comes to differences between 2.1 and 2.2?
I am trying to think about this from a 'marketing' perspective.
It would be typical to assume (IMHO) that 3.0 is somehow better than
2.2 which is somehow better than 2.1, just because of the version
numbers.
Whereas from the point of view of a User, making projects (using
SiteMaps, XML, XSLT, JXTemplate, FlowScript, etc. etc.) 2.1 and 2.2
are as much as possible, completely compatible and mostly just as
capable as each other.
The fact that once a User has a suitable build, it makes very little
difference whether they use 2.1 or 2.2 (not sure about 3.0) is
something that I think we should put across more clearly.
It would be a shame to loose potential Users, because they perceived
that the version that used their preferred build-technology, was in
some way obsolete (which could now happen with both 2.1 and 2.2).
Maybe a capability matrix of some sort, would help a User trying to
decide which version to use, would provide more reassurance that the 3
versions (or at least 2.1 and 2.2) would provide a viable, stable,
long-lasting platform, even though the version numbers may say
otherwise.
There should be no other difference in quality between the release
versions, and none should be implied.
I'm afraid that it's not a case for some time at least according to
my understand of Cocoon 2.2.
The build and distribution system for 2.2 is clearly more modern and
sophisticated.
It has a polymorphic block paradigm that suits the build technology,
it has the powerful concept of virtual pipelines etc. etc.
And this is all great !
But from the Users' PoV of making projects, I cannot imagine a project
that could be made successfully with 2.2 that could not be made using
2.1 (don't know enough about 3.0).
My assumption is that you personally find 2.2 more powerful because
you prefer the build technology, not because 2.2 is intrinsically more
powerful, or less buggy.
This is why I propose that we should give a clear message that all
release versions are valid choices, primarily dependant on the build-
technology that you prefer, not on specific version numbers.
AFAIU, TomCat is in a similar situation, where the different primary
versions, represent not quality, but the version of the ServletAPI and
JSP Spec they support.
see: http://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html
I hope this is clearer
best regards
Jeremy