Jim Fulton wrote:
Martijn Faassen wrote:
[snip]
Sounds like the original vision of Zope 3 without the X. I thought we never got around to developing this stuff the last time.

Actually, no.  We originally said that we would provide a transition
path.  I said over and over that this was *not* going to be backward
compatibility.  I guess this was too complex a message.  I think your
post proves that it was.

I know exactly what was said, and we, the Zope community, said it wrong, including the backwards compatibility bit. I quote the release notes for Zope X3.0:

"The "X" in the name stands for "experimental", since this release does not try to provide any backward-compatibility to Zope 2."

What do you think that implied? Maybe you didn't say backwards compatibility, but our release notes certainly said something about this.

This message wasn't new:

"""
1b. "Zope 3X" is the preliminary version of Zope 3. It is built from the
ground up, paying attention to the lessons learned from Zope 2 and CMF.
It is not a product but intended to let developers get familiar with the
new architecture early.

1c. "Zope 3" is the mainline release intended for production use and
including backwards compatibility to Zope 2.
"""

It was here:

http://cvs.zope.org/Zope3/doc/security/background.rst?rev=1.3

I had a lot more to say in this posting which I recommend you read:

http://mail.zope.org/pipermail/zope3-dev/2006-February/017939.html

[snip snip]
I don't see how *saying* what Zope 5 will contain will make it *exist* any time sooner.
You seem to be arguing against a roadmap, which is puzzling.

Obviously, predictions of the future are imperfect.

I'm not arguing against a vision. I'm worried about marketing and what we will be implicitly implying. I want to be very careful about roadmaps as we can't guarantee they will happen, and broken promises in this will be worse than no promises at all.

I think, for now, our vision should be sketched with what we have right now (Zope 2 and Zope 3) and where we think they are going. Talk about it names we already know, or if we really make new things, new names that are not Zope for the time being.

[snip]
The current story of Zope 2, Five and Zope 3 gets us in the right direction (Zope 5, if you want to call it that, though I would definitely want to introduce yet another name in the mix), step by step. We don't promise too much to people. We don't raise the wrong expecations anymore.

What expectations did we raise?

See my referenced mail:

http://mail.zope.org/pipermail/zope3-dev/2006-February/017939.html

AFAIK, the official story is that Zope 3 will eventually replace
Zope 2 and that Zope 2 will be augmented with Zope 3 technology
to make the transition easier. I don't think there are many people,
if any, really working on making Zope 3 a credible replacement for
Zope 2.  There are people working on making it into something
wonderful, but not a replacement for Zope 2.  Do you agree that
this is the current story?  If not, and if *we* cannot agree on
what the current story is, think how confused everyone else must
be.

I think that is indeed the current story. It's not complete:

Zope 3 technology is replacing Zope 2 today in that I can write a Zope 3-like application in Zope 2. In that sense, Zope 2.9 *is* the Zope 3 without X. Zope 3 technology is not only in Zope 2 for the transition, but also because it's cool stuff we can actually use profitably now, not only because we might be able to transition to Zope 3 more easily in some future.

I think part of this story is that the Zope 2 people will work on Zope 3-based technology to replace bits of Zope 2 step by step, bit by bit. I believe this is happening in the context of Five, the Zope 2 core (the event system), and the CMF. I think part of this story is also that Zope 2 is safe and is going to be around for a loooong time.

Emphasizing these bits of the story would be good, and I think we agree on that. We need to be careful though we also are seen to stay the course: introducing new version numbers and names of the mix is I think right now the wrong action to take.

[snip]
 > It won't contain the

features you list unless someone actually does all that work.


That's right.  Someone needs to do the work.  Similarly, Zope 3
won't be a replacement for Zope 2 unless someone does the work.
What's your point? That we shouldn't plan?  That we shouldn't
have a common vision for where we're going, or communicate that
vision?

These are rhetorical questions...

My point is:

Have a vision, but plan step by step. Don't promote the presumed endpoint of the steps too much yet. Evolve the message step by step too. Change the message slowly, not all at once, to avoid creating confusion and unrest. Don't change the message before we're ready. Introducing a new message always carries a strong risk of being misunderstood.

The alternative is to put Zope 5 in the nebulous future when all the work you list is done, and it'll be just like our mythical "Zope 3 without the X" then - confusing people and raising the wrong expectations.


The Zope 3 that provides support for transitioning from Zope 2
is "mythical" in the sense that it doesn't exist.  It is something
that we've been working on.  Are you going to call anything that
doesn't exist "mythical"?   I don't see how that is useful or productive.

I call vaporware on the promise we made for years on that, sure. I worry about Zope 5 being vaporware too. We're not close enough yet.

As a community, I think we need a common vision of what we're working
toward.  It appears that we have that today.

Sure. I think this thread made this explicit. Let's not stir the pot and just work on this for a few Zope 2 and Zope 3 releases more. Maybe the pot's ready for stirring after then.

Regards,

Martijn
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