On 3/20/06, Craig McClanahan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 3/18/06, Mark Lowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > Tomcat is perhaps a little different in that its a reference > > implementation its survival and usefulness is potentially broader. > > > Having been heavily involved in the development of Tomcat (the Catalina > servlet container in Tomcat 4.x and later was basically my original design > for Apache JServ 2.0, but was adopted by the Tomcat community for 4.0), as > well as Struts, I think I can be a reliable commentator here :-). > > * Tomcat didn't succeed becase it was a reference implementation. > It succeeeded because it did the basic job of being a servlet and > JSP container better/faster than many implementations at the time, > and it was available under a business friendly license. It continues > to be popular because it continues to excell at execution of these > goals (along with adding very nice configurability and other features > that go way beyond the spec required functionality). If it was > "merely" a reference implementation, it would have been ignored > by the market.
I wasn't suggesting that tomcat was only successful because it was a reference implementation, that one of its uses that's distinct from something like struts is that is a reference implementation. I was just trying to make a point about how the absurd idea that success/popularity of a given piece of software, framework etc. Is more likey to be a function of its usefulness and not political conspiricies as dakota jack would have folk believe. Mark > > * Struts didn't succeed because it was dreamed up by some idiot > sitting on the beach (although the initial 0.1 version *was* coded > on a three day weekend at the Oregon coast :-). It succeeded because > it met real world needs, and continues to be popular because this > continues > to be the case, plus the fact that the developers listen to their users > (which is a blessing and a curse -- it means a strong commitment to > backwards compatibility, and a corresponding reticence to break > backwards compatibility willy nilly :-). > > I would submit that these two use cases (which happen to be two of the most > popular Java based downloads across all of Apache) make a pretty good case > that the Apache development model can work wonders. Throw Ant into the > equation, for the same sorts of reasons. It's all about consensus among a > developer community, not about individual opinions on what is technically > elegant or not. Don't agree? Please show me some Java based projects that > are more popular. (I don't care if you think their technical design is > superior or not -- I'm asking about popularity :-). > > If you don't like the technology, you're free to offer alternatives. > Likewise, the Struts developers are free to accept or reject those > alternatives. That's life. Nothing is stopping you from going out and > evangelizing an alternative approach -- other than the fact that the world > at large (a) may not agree with your assessment of technical beauty, (b) may > not care because they have xxx thousands of lines of Struts code already, or > (c) may not even bother to pay attention because they can't find any > developers that know your framework well enough to create and maintain > applications with. > > Technical elegance is, in the big picture, only one factor that leads to > popularity. You have to execute well on basically *all* of those factors. > Plus, more often than not, you have to be lucky with your timing. If you > want to fundamentally change the world, you have a *much* better chance if > you tackle a problem that has not been solved yet. Building YAWAF (yet > another web application framework) might be fun and rewarding, but if you're > starting in 2006 it is unlikely to be market relevant -- no matter how cool > the architecture is. > > Craig > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
