on 12/27/2000 10:24 AM, "Kyle F. Downey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I've been following of the TC4.0/TC3.2/TC3.3 threads for a while in
> silence, and wanted to make an observation.
>
> The Tomcat project really has two major types of customers: those who
> want an open source servlet container for their production needs
> ("conservatives"), and those interested in the state-of-the-art
> ("tinkerers"). The project has made the decision--by supporting both 3.x
> and 4.x in parallel--to try to serve both (a good decision, since I think
> there are plenty of people in each user group).
>
> The values of the conservatives are
>
> * stability
> * lack of bugs
> * a seamless install
> * performance
>
> The values of the tinkerers are
>
> * compliance with the latest standards ("100% buzzword compliant")
> * advanced features
> * elegance
Since I'm in your "tinkerer" group because I'm following the Catalina path
(like we agreed on), I will state that everything in your "conservative"
group is just as important to me in the "tinkerer" group.
Therefore, your distinct separation of the groups is illogical and moot.
> These two groups have very little in common, except this: both will
> tolerate change so long as it's in the direction of their values.
> A
> conservative will not argue with you about changing Tomcat 3.2 to 3.3 if
> it's to make it faster, more stable, or less buggy. "More elegant" or
> "more featureful" doesn't cut it, though, which is why I suspect there
> will be little interest in Servlet 2.3 on top of 3.x (thus it's good for
> it to be a "contrib" element, for the few who DO want such a combo).
>
> I think so long as 3.3 is a move--as Costin says it is--toward a
> better-factored, less-buggy version of 3.2, and all the changes taking
> place are just moving around established, tested code, then it's a good
> direction. I have consulting customers who may very well end their project
> lifecycles still on servlet 2.1, old school or not!
>
> So long as we keep in mind who's served by a change, and keep it
> consistent with what that groups wants, I think we can safely move 3.x
> through a fairly long arc.
The rest of this doesn't make any sense because I just stated that your
separation of the groups isn't defined correctly.
Try again.
> There seems to be enough interest in each
> viewpoint to support 3.x and 4.x at once without bogging down the project.
Actually, you are wrong here. The project is totally bogged down because
Craig (why didn't Costin step up to the plate to do this????) is having to
spend time doing releases on Tomcat 3.x stuff instead of working on 4.x
stuff. If you have ever done a real live release of software, you will know
how hard it is and how much time it takes to make sure it is done right.
thanks,
-jon
