on 12/18/2000 12:20 AM, "Costin Manolache" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I don't see any need to go beyond 3.3 - and I said
> many times I'll stop doing any major changes in the
> core after 3.3 is done. I'll just fix bugs and develop
> modules - most of them in my private, non-apache space
> ( I'm talking about the servlet 2.3 implementation ).
Ok, so you are going to stop at 3.3 and then what? Abandon things? Hope that
others pick things up? Move to Catalina? What are you going to do?
> As for the future - in many open source projects good
> code does have a future - I hope the same will happen
> with tomcat.
Tomcat 3.x or 4.x? That is the confusion that needs to be cleared up.
> Well, I don't see anything wrong in reusing good ideas
> from tomcat4.x in 3.x - it's in fact the first time I
> hear anyone saying it's bad.
The point being that you are duplicating effort. The code is already in the
future version and now you are back porting it to the past. Why is that
good?
> It was one of the goals of tomcat3.x to be modular and
> allow people to add extensions without affecting the
> core - and almost all of 4.x can be back ported as
> tomcat3.x modules.
Why is that effort good if people will be moving to 4.x anyway?
> If someone is doing that - people who use tomcat 3
> will benefit, and that's good.
When the future is 4.x?
> That's a great compliment for the design of tomcat3
> ( unfortunately I can't take too much credit for this
> either ) - if only a single individual can do that it
> proves ( again ) that tomcat 3 is a great servlet
> container and gives me reason to keep working.
Sure, it is good. I'm not doubting that fact. The reality though is that we
are moving away from Tomcat 3.x to 4.x.
> Better design :-) ? Continuity ?
In your opinion.
> I think tomcat 3.x has most of the features that I
> wanted - I would be happy to see 4.0 using the same
> patterns and design that allow high performance, but I
> don't have the time or wish to do it again.
That you wanted. What about what other people want? What about what is good
for the overall project? Your thinking is very singular.
> It's funny you're telling this as if I'm doing
> something wrong or forking - I strongly agree that
> forking is bad, and so far I did all I could to avoid
> forks ( i.e. I stoped developing the Servlet2.3 module
> as part of tomcat3.3, etc).
Forking isn't bad. I never said that! In fact, I strongly believe in the
ability to fork. Hell, look at the mess that I went through with Velocity!
>> simply fork what you are doing into another project
>> that is hosted somewhere else.
>
> It's the second time an Apache member is asking me to
> go somewhere else. Believe me, right now it's my
> biggest wish - I've had more than enough !
I will repeat myself again, since you didn't get it the first time. Sigh.
My point being that having two tree's is to much for this project and as far
as I can tell, this project has already decided that the current future path
is 4.0 NOT 3.3.
> When 3.3 will be ready you are free to vote whatever
> you want - I just hope your vote will be based on the
> quality of the code and not political interests.
Actually, it has nothing to do with either. Since I'm not involved with
Sun's political crap, I don't care about political interests. I am also not
as concerned with quality of the code because that can always be improved
on, however, that is very important. What I'm most concerned with is things
that are important to the overall project like:
x Core Developer support
x Ability to read the code
x Documentation
x Support for the latest standards
>> What I'm most concerned with here is the overall
>> Tomcat project goals and
>> seeing you duplicating work and effort is really not
>> making me happy.
>
> Reuse != duplication
It is when you have to spend time back porting that code instead of
committing David Rees's documentation patches.
> I know some people prefer the "do what we tell you to
> do or go away " or "we know what is better " attitude.
That is complete bullshit Costin if you are implying that I am giving you
that type of attitude. My original email made it CLEAR that that was not the
case. Go back and read it again.
> I don't want to defend myself , and I'll take it as a
> compliment - I think it's great to be able to think
> for yourself and be able to work when there's an awful
> lot of pressure to go away.
The pressure is to either ask you to fork or to work towards what the
project as a whole is currently working on. I don't think that that is a bad
thing because it helps keep the overall project working together instead of
this split that you like to continually draw on the project.
It appears to me that you simply care about yourself and not about the
overall project. That is bad IMHO.
> My goal is to finish tomcat3.x - after I'm done with
> that I'll continue to support it, but I'll stay far
> away from any future development or 5.0 - again, I've
> had enough.
That convinces me even stronger to not follow down your path. I want to
follow on a line where I know that the primary core developers will stick
around for the long haul and keep the overall project goals in mind.
> And when someone will have a better idea everyone
> should jump and stop working on mod_warp and start
> with mod_warp+1 ? That seems to be what many people
> like.
It is called innovation. Constantly improving the code to be better. Trying
new things to see which one works best. I see absolutely nothing wrong with
that.
No idea is perfect the first time and re-doing things until you get it right
is perfectly acceptable.
> I understand that, spending time to understand what
> other people did and continuing from there is much
> harder - but sometimes you get a lot back. And you may
> know that your code has a chance from beeing continued
> by somebody else.
It has absolutely nothing to do with that. I can see why you are so confused
about this stuff. You just don't seem to get it. :-(
> ( I know, everyone claims everything else is garbage
> and have to be thrown away - and the replacement will
> be perfect - but if you don't learn from mistakes
> you'll just repeat them : look at the code complexity
> in different versions of tomcat 3 and 4 and you may
> understand what I'm saying )
Again, you are totally missing the point. See above.
> As someone who spent almost 1 year cleaning up code I
> should be the first to agree with this development
> style - but I don't. Maybe some code looks bad and has
> no comments, but there is a smart person who wrote
> most of it and there are ideas and lessons behind it.
> That's what tomcat3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 have in common
> - the code has been rewriten few times, but I hope we
> were able to preserve most of the ideas. I hope 4.0
> will be able to duplicate some of them.
I hope so as well. I hope that we have learned from our past mistakes and
are moving on. It is long past the time to do so. Hence the reason why we
need to drop 3.x and move on to 4.0.
> As you know, one of the reasons I'm working on 3.3 is
> that I think forks are bad.
I disagree. I think forks are excellent. However, I think that forks within
the same project are bad.
> I don't know how did you
> got the impression there are 2 forks - tomcat 3.3 is
> the continuation of 3.2 in the same way as 3.2
> continues 3.1, and 4.0 is not a fork either - it had
> almost no code in common with 3.0 - it's a different
> codebase, not a fork.
It is a fork within the overall project, not a fork within the code base.
> As for resources - I think each developer should be
> free to choose to work on what project he believes in.
Sure. But if it is putting a fork in the project, then that is bad!
> If you force me to stop working on jakarta or apache
> projects I don't think you'll have more resources -
> you'll just have one less developer.
We already have lost the developer since you have stated multiple times now
that you are not going to work past 3.3.
Given that I'm one of the people that is going to be left to deal with any
mess you have left behind, I'm going to take responsibility for it now.
> But I think I'm a lost cause for Apache anyway - count
> the number of commits I did for tomcat3.2, 3.1 and now
> 3.3, count the number of emails I sent on this list
> trying to help people - and compare this with the
> feedback I got from Apache people like you and Craig.
Give me a break. Should I cry for you cause you decided to write code and
help people out? Not to sound righteous, but remember who you are talking
to.
My FINAL and MOST IMPORTANT point being that it has been your personal
decision to work on this stuff and I thank you greatly for all of the work
that you have done and I have ALWAYS been appreciative of all contributions
that have been donated.
However, as an overall project, for the future (which is what we are
discussing here), I feel that the entire project has decided to take a
different path. Of course that isn't going to make you happy because you
have your own opinion that doesn't seem to take into consideration anything
to do with the overall project.
I am not asking you to leave the project, I am asking you to follow the path
that the overall project is taking. It is entirely your choice on what to do
next. If you choose to not follow the path, then I would ask you to please
fork to another location because, as I said, supporting 3.x development into
the future is taxing this projects resources and that is what I care about
most.
thanks,
-jon
