Over the last few weeks, we used Django to successfully create prototype applications and it just worked great (well, large file upload is broken, I had to patch our Django version with #2070 a couple of times). What a relieve compared to Java web development! A big "thank you" to all developers and this friendly user group.
However, to sell Django to my management for "real" applications, it would be very helpful to have some kind of road map. We miss the structure and guidance ;) I'll try to explain my feelings: There's no 0.97 version despites all that changes to SVN trunk for months. The documentation clearly advertises the current trunk version, but the book refers to 0.96. The django book project seems to have died in Feb. The site does not explain why the missing chapters where never written/published and what the current state is. (Important) changes to the queryset API or admin UI are not applied in favor to some branched development which seems to be ongoing for months. No word on when it will hit the trunk. No word on when the next Django version will be published. Or what it will contain. Bugs like #2070 are open for more than a year. Of ~800 open tickets, 275 need a design decision, that is need the attention of the core team. There are still 12 tickets from the last sprint (great effort, BTW) left to check-in. The casual observer easily gets the impression that work is sporadic, uncoordinated and not target-oriented, in one word: chaotic. While this is no problem in it self (and please do not feel offended, that's not my intention), it makes it difficult to build products upon that foundation. Is it useful to invest in the old admin UI? Or should we go for the new one? When will the query API be improved (we need aggregations, so I have to patch it)? Will there every be schema evolution? A lot of open source projects switched to a time boxed release scheme because that builds the most trust with users. If the Eclipse foundation (for example) publishes its mile stone road map you can be sure they will meet the date and release on time. IMHO one of the (not so secret) secrets of their enormous success. The counter-example is the trac project which tells everybody that they're now 3 months late with 0.11 and even have missed the next milestone, too. This tells everybody "hey, we're not able to implement a realistic schedule and are not even able to update our web page after we learned that" ;) So, I'd recommend to create a realistic road map. Release every two or three months. 0.96 or 0.97 communicates that it's almost done. That's obviously not the case. Just increment a single number. Tell your users when they can expect larger refactorings. If the problem is lack of time, try to find sponsors. The current "it's done when it's done" state of mind makes it difficult to invest in something we do not know whether, when and how it will evolve. Should I manage to convince my management to continue using Django, I should be able to dedicate one day per month to community work. That's what I can offer in return to using the framework. [As a side note: I actually have to defend Python/Django against Ruby on Rails because that's the "nextgen agil" framework even the management heard about and, frankly, it feels much more mature. This is another reason I'd like to have something more concrete than Django's ticket system. I originally picked Django because teaching and learning Python was much easier than teaching Ruby and the magic of Rails.] One idea I was playing around in my mind was to create some kind of "Django distribution", snapshotting the SVN version every month or so, perhaps adding a few useful 3rd party libraries and creating a ready to use and easily installable milestone version. That would be useful for others too, I hope, but I do not want to fork or split the development. However, I need some patches applied for our own work faster than in the official version. I'd like to know whether others feel the same and would like to see (and discuss) a focused road map or whether it's just me who cannot appreciate the creativity of chaos ;) Thanks for reading my ramblings... -- Stefan Matthias Aust --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
