Bart Busschots wrote:
Right, as I see it this all boils down to Jon whinning that the struts
guys are adopting WebWorks for the basis of struts 2 rather than Struts
1.X.
I'm not precisely whining about that.
Anyway, I have one question that intrigues me. Did you understand what
was going on with this before today?
I mean, this has been in the works for over 3 months, I think.
So the problem seems to be that two groups trying to achieve the
same thing have come together and merged. Hang on a sec .... that's NOT
a problem. The struts guys saw that webworks was good and adopted it.
GREAT, BRILLIANT! They are DOING WHAT IS BEST FOR THE USERS, i.e. US!
Well, Bart, Webwork has been there for years, available for guys like
you to use. The Struts guys didn't do the work to make that technology
come about. That was done by the Webwork guys of course.
They're not making anything available to you that wasn't already
available. So, all this stuff about BRILLIANT, shouting this in all
caps, seems a tad over the top to me...
The only thing that's going on is that Struts 1.x fell way behind being
the state of the art. Due to its visibility/projection non-technical
assets, it was able to attract new users, like you -- as recently as 9
months ago, despite being technically obsolete.
Now you've made an investment, building applications on top of Struts
1.x and it's brilliant that they move to the Webwork codebase
(relabelling that as Struts Action 2.)
BUT.... you could have simply avoided all the bother -- if you knew what
was going on -- by using Webwork in the first place!
Just because you switch to a new track does NOT mean you have stagnated!
It means you are moving foward in a positive manner. How on earth can
that be a bad thing and how on earth can such obvious progress forward
be stagnation!
Well, there are various issues here. You have the fact that the
innovative work was done elsewhere, yet the community that, somehow,
despite its built-in advantages, was not able to innovate, swallows the
community that did the innovative work, and imposes their culture and
project management practices on them. This is, in general, a kind of
problem IMO.
This discussion originated in the context of discussing open source
project management. Various Struts/ASF bigwigs were being -- at least
AFAICS -- quite arrogant about the so-called "Apache Way" being the last
word in how everything has to be done.
This ultimately got me questioning openly how on earth they can say
this. In this Struts/Webwork merger, you have a tacit acceptance of the
fact that the developer community that was presumably doing things
according to the "Apache Way" (I mean Struts here) did not innovate, and
ended up having to bring in a codebase not developed at ASF (Webwork) in
order to have something reasonably up-to-date to offer.
Yet you will still hear this people saying: "The Apache Way" is X and
pointing you to pages about this like they were scripture.
So, my pressing them about the Struts 1.x codebase and that it stagnated
occurred in that context.
You really have to understand the context in which conversations developed.
By Jon's "logic" Windows development stagnated when the Windows ME
code-base was abandoned and MS have serious questions to answer as to
why they moved on to a better technology (WinNT Code Base). Not to
Mention Apple really stagnated when they moved from OS 9 to the NeXT
based OS X.
Well, in both cases, there was a clear migration path offered to users
and I think there was far more clarity about what was going on.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but before I brought this up, you didn't really
understand what was going on with this. So, at the very least, the
communication with users has been terrible.
In any case, I am not "whining" that the superior technology (Webwork in
this case) is going to replace the inferior technology (Struts 1.x).
That's not exactly my point. In terms of the overall open source
ecology, I have some real misgivings about a team that failed to
innovate imposing its culture and project management practices on the
community that really was able to innovate and be at the cutting edge.
This is problematic.
Again, you have to understand the context of the discussion.
Besides, since I started using struts about 9 months ago Struts have
moved on at least 5 minor versions, that's hardly stagnent now is it!
Well, consider this. Step back and look at it: you could simply have
been using Struts 2.x for the last 9 months by using Webwork instead.
So I think there's reason to look askance at what a great favor these
Struts guys have done for you. You've been using technology for the last
9 months that the Struts developers themselves consider to be inferior.
Stuts is moving FORWARD, the struts code base has been STRENGTHENED by
the inclusion of WebWorks,
It's not an inclusion, Bart. The Webwork codebase is simply replacing
the Struts 1.x codebase that you have been building your stuff on top of.
where on earth is this mythical stagnation?
The only thing here that seems stagnent to me are John's posts. They are
just the same thing over and over and over and over and over .........
again. We get it Jon, we know what you think, it's just that not
everyone agrees with you and no matter how many times you say the same
thing everyone will NEVER agree with you!
This topic is dead, it has been for weeks, can we now please do the
honourable thing and bury it!
The topic has been avoided basically. In any case, if you still think
this topic is not worth talking about and other think it, why do you
care if they talk about it?
Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
Bart.
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