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jonathan, as a turbine-user, i think i've got the point now.
but, please let me add some notes about style:
first of all, ad hominem arguments are unacceptable.
Peter,
I'm not completely sure you understand what "ad hominem" means. The ad-hominem fallacy is where you attack a person's character because you cannot legitimately deal with the argument that person is making.
That is precisely what Henning was doing in his last respose to me. The ad-hominem fallacy was very much inevidence. These "arguments" like I'm such a disagreeable person, so nobody will be interested in FM. Of course, that's an ad-hominem argument. Unashamedly ad-hominem!
And meanwhile, it's really the most utter, vacuous nonsense, you know. People do not choose python over perl because they like Guido personally better than Larry. Or vice versa. People aren't going to use FM because they think I'm abrasive??? C'mon, Henning doesn't believe it himself, I'm sure, it's such obvious nonsense....
Anyway, when I pointed out the less-than-honest, rigged nature, of some of the arguments that Henning had produced in the past, and that this had led to extreme tension, shall we say, I was not engaging in ad-hominem.
There has definitely been something of an honesty deficit in my communications with people. And that deficit has not been on my side. I mean, this stuff about how nobody was using FM and that's why support was removed. Really, a very contrived half-truth, that I have deconstructed several times already. And not just me. When one of my collaborators, Daniel Dekany pointed out the contrived nature of this argument, Henning started insinuating that he was a nutcase and alluded to "conspiracy theories". Pure ad-hominem...
So there's some background here that people maybe aren't up on. It is really not so strange that I am on edge with regard to some of this.
second, as far as i can tell from a users perspective, the turbine development team seemed to be not only cooperative, but also quite interested in putting freemaker support (back) into turbine.
Well, that's fine. They can do it. Given the state of Velocity development, they probably *should*. But that has pretty much nothing to do with me.
they merely discussed if they should "bolt it on" (making some hacks here or there, if i understood correctly), or do it right (which would lead to a major redesign of their product).
Oh, the technical stuff is all fine.
As I explain above, I just get very sensitized to hearing nonsense. That's all.
from this point of view, you seemed to have achieved your goal.
It was never much of a goal of mine, you know. Henning brought it up on the Velocity list. He suggested that I should provide a patch, and I said quite matter-of-factly that that was not going to happen, since, Turbine removed support for alternatives for rather murky non-technical reasons, AFAICS, and my position really just had to be that, if you guys wanted FM support back, you had to put it back yourselves.
Then Henning started all this stuff about how we were nutty conspiracy theorists for believing that the removal of FM or WM support and leaving only Vel support was political in nature.
on the other hand, if you're not satisfied with the path the developers want to take, it is of no use to get personal, start insulting people and whine about how much this or that sucks. this *is* open source. if you want it another way, code it. if the dev-team doesn't accept your changes, fork.
You seem confused. There's nothing to fork from my POV. I am not involved in Turbine.
And do understand that I don't really get anything out of this. There are half a dozen MVC frameworks that interoperate with FM at this point.
third, ad hominem arguments are unacceptable.
My observation of these communities does not bear that out. It seems that ad-hominem and all sorts of other assorted fallacious argumentation is acceptable as long as it emanates from certain people.
However, when you point out the fallacies, people start pointing at you and saying that *you* are the one engaging in ad hominem etcetera.
Well... I can't believe that I'm the only one who can see through this.
fourth, permanently producing the shortcomings (or perceived shortcomings) of velocity does not make freemaker any better.
As far as that goes, yes. However, the fact is that FM and Vel are competitors. A review of a product in a given space is necessarily based largely on a comparison with alternatives in the same space -- whether that product is a sports-car or a refrigerator or whatever.
To point out that a competing product is deficient in a certain way may not be considered "nice". However, it really is perfectly fair and the only grievance you could express in this respect would be if my statements were false.
Moreover, most of Velocity's success is due to positioning. Everybody knows that, right? So, to expect me, when competing at such a disadvantage, to pull any punches, does not seem reasonable.
In short, it is completely fair for me to point out deficiencies in Velocity. It is also completely fair for me to point out that there is no ongoing development. (This is a first-order meta-deficiency because it means that any existing deficiencies will never be remedied.)
fifth, ad hominem arguments are unacceptable.
thanks for your time. i'm always interested in a constructive discussion about the future of a tool i use, but this is getting out of hand.
I think it appropriate to re-iterate what I said in a previous message. If you want to foment constructive discussion and activity, I think you first need to foment more honesty in the basic culture here.
You guys should stop these attempts to spin and distort what's really going on.
Look, FreeMarker has a very productive development culture. We're abrasive, but we really get the job done. I think a lot of it is that we're honest. That's not a moralistic thing, maybe, so much as pragmatic. I mean, once you stop expending a high percentage of your efforts trying to bullshit one another, it really becomes amazing what can be achieved.
Regards,
Jonathan Revusky -- lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
peter
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