Hello all,
I'm new to the list and have been lurking for the last few months. Just to
further illustrate the point Nikolaos made, I thought I would let you know
my story. I've been asked to create a web site for a new company. Myself
and my buddy are going to be the only programmers on the project. We were
seriously considering using Stripes, and I even bought the Stripes book from
amazon and read it. I really liked what I saw of the framework, but was
worried about building a new business on a framework in which I had the
exact perception Nikolaos presented.
To quell my fears, I asked this question on StackOverflow
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3221687/risk-evaluation-for-framework-selection
<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3221687/risk-evaluation-for-framework-selection>I
left the name of the framework off in order to try to keep people from
forming an opinion based on the individual framework, but it was all about
stripes. The answers were good, but still not enough to get myself and my
friend to go with Stripes. We've since chosen another framework and are
just starting implementation.
If I wasn't working a full time job and implementing this new site in my
spare time, I would love to jump in and help with Stripes, but as it is,
this is just a testament of Nikolaus concerns.
I hope you guys are able to get the traction in the community (users and
developers) you need to get Stripes to really take off.
Joel
On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 10:26 AM, Nikolaos Giannopoulos <
nikol...@brightminds.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> <off-topic>
>
> This week I was looking for a JSP caching solution (something that is
> right up the alley for Stripes Layout) and discovered that there was a
> product with excellent features called OSCache whose feature set was in
> deep alignment with my project's requirements. I became dismayed when I
> looked at the last release and it was for 2.4.1 on 07/07/2007. Yes,
> that is 3 years ago. The 1st thing that came to mind is that this
> project is either a) incredibly mature (wishful thinking) or b)
> abandoned for some reason. Looking at benchmarks I discovered that the
> product throws exceptions on a cache miss... a bad practice... but worse
> a known bad practice that has been in the product for quite some time.
> Then I looked at the list of bugs and found 4 blocker bugs and at least
> 11 critical ones. I then went to the support forums which were said to
> be in the process of cut over in Nov of 2009 and the message was still
> there almost a year later; worse yet there had been literally no
> activity on the mailing list in the past few years. I emailed the admin
> and my concerns were founded.
>
> Moreover I looked at other solutions like ehCache, Java Caching,
> JSPCache, etc... and with the exception of ehCache and found that many
> were also discontinued. In fact, even though ehCache appears to be the
> defacto product it didn't suite my requirements anywhere near how
> OSCache did (their web caching support is extremely feature poor). I
> thought, here is this great product that despite its greatness has
> fallen. Before anyone can say well this is nothing new... remember BETA
> vs. VHS... I'll agree but there are stark differences with Open Source
> software... as quickly as Open Source projects pop up and gain inertia
> they can unfortunately fall from grace as equally fast.
>
> Also, *perception* is huge and moreover *perception* can kill an Open
> Source project very quickly if the *perception* is that the project
> isn't being evolved or may soon be on life support.
>
> </off-topic>
>
> Why do I go to great lengths to mention the above which has nothing to
> do with Stripes. Because I am concerned. I am concerned because there
> are *a few* current similarities between Stripes and OSCache but
> *perception* is key.
>
> In looking at Stripes development:
> --> 1.5.3 last svn update was December 16 2009
> --> 1.5.4 Snapshot was progressing at a feverish clip until June 10,
> 2010 w/ a much hoped release that fizzled...
> --> Trunk (1.6.0) has 3 commits in the last year... meaning lots of
> fixes in 1.5.4 Snapshot still need to be ported to the trunk (which is
> fine as this can obviously wait until 1.5.4 launches but is a little
> surprising from an new feature / activity perspective).
> --> Luckily other than a blocker issue in 1.5.4 Snapshot (which isn't
> even released yet) there do not appear to be any other serious Critical
> bugs and although there are many Major bugs a lot of them don't appear
> to be as harmful as OSCache's race condition, synchronization issues,
> etc... so that is a very good thing.
>
> In looking at Stripes releases:
> --> Whether you like Maven or not one thing is for certain Maven will
> *spur* adoption and provides positive *perception* assuming the releases
> are kept up to date (very negative *perception* if releases are not
> recent). Stripes suffers from some negativity in this regard with 1.5.3
> not being available... some time ago Ben was looking to setup Sonatype
> repo but that too fizzled...
> --> Although one can setup an Internal Maven repo quite easily... using
> any web server... it is the negative *perception* that hurts most. I
> think at very least this should be setup ASAP and 1.5.3 should be made
> available via Maven (w/ site + doc links updated).
>
> In looking at Stripes mailing list there is a trickle in the developer
> list (if any) in any given month and the user mailing list has low
> volume. The good news though is that the community does still respond
> to questions or calls for help in a very timely manner.
>
> What spurred this post was *perception*; *perception* of OSCache, my
> recent fun with 1.5.4 Snapshot nested Stripes Layouts, 1.6.x future
> development and finally Grzegorz's post which in part read as follows:
>
> Grzegorz Krugły wrote:
> > I work with stripes on glassfish a lot, so could be able to fix/text
> > some gf-related bugs for sure. When I have some spare time, I'll also
> > look over the ticket list on Jira, perhaps I could offer my work on some
> > of them.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Grzegor
> I think *many* more developers need to step up to the table and start
> helping with Stripes fixes and ongoing development otherwise I'm afraid
> this project like many open source projects I have seen over the last
> few years may end up like OSCache... a wonderful product but one that
> simply lost its inertia and then most likely fell victim to
> *perception*. My *perception* of Stripes is that it is a great product
> but I think we all can agree that *perception* of its development and
> future is lacking. This is not so much a *criticism* as much as it as
> *observation* as clearly nobody is being paid money to provide their
> time (of course rewards come in many flavours :-)
>
> Personally, at this time I have zero spare cycles to assist directly in
> fixes unless they are show stoppers but hope later this year to offer my
> services as well. In the interim, as I continue to leverage Stripes for
> a large project, I hope that those experiences and incorporation there
> can help makes Stripes a better product... through reporting issues,
> testing fixes, providing workarounds, etc... and possibly producing
> patches.
>
> What does the community think? How can we improve things for all?
> Comments / ideas???
>
> ASIDE: One thing that isn't clear (to me at least) is how does someone
> go about getting involved to directly contribute to Stripes
> development? i.e. how can Grzegorz or I get involved when we are
> available... .
>
> Regards,
>
> --Nikolaos
>
>
>
>
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