I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork. When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for "struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork" yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front, I don't think that is even debatable. Now if we want to talk about technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point. I can't comment on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some experiments first. To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects. The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs Kerry debates are rapidly becoming background noise to me.
On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Niall Pemberton wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Jonathan Revusky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM > > > > > >>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate, > >>well-formulated question. > >> > >>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's > >>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really > >>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo. > > > > > > > > The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one > > perspective) in an earlier thread: > > > > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903 > > > > However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story - > > clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a > > volunteer effort as well. > > Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was an > all-volunteer effort and so on. > > This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork. > > > > > We currently have 22 committers on Struts - > > Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22 > people committed any code in the last... year, let's say. > > > but levels of activity vary > > widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive a > > project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have an > > interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People such > > as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as > > the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate their > > effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti > > Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a > complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit assumption > there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a > complete rewrite? > > > and had the > > offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing the > > fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at > > this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while > > which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess > > this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented > > people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't > > know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web > > framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is > > certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it I > > believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new > > shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether we > > as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem that > > proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks > > because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better". > > Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing ones > > and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question > > though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at the > > door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I believe > > its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are > > helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been > > around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally - then > > you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should > > have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but besides > > them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have an > > explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join. > > Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing their > own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people > just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting. If > somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had showed > up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do so? > > After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do > under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it > would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the > Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you aren't > attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it? > > The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new > collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is a > "power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and > starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing you > know, the guy is a collaborator. > > Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't > operate is rather odd. > > What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community > is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem > completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger. > > For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that Webwork > is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying > exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that > Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic than > the pope? > > Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody > wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I have > nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say > Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already > saying. > > So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know > what's going on. I see a real communications failure. > > If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being > abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on > this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I > just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action 2 > and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I don't > see threads like that, which means to me that you have not communicated > to your rank and file users what is really going on here. > > Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer > communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain > power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it should. > And this would be a factor in the stagnation. > > Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100 people > eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of > active committers. > > That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a > more active, real developer team, is really something to look at. > > Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think that > it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a > misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on here. > > > > > Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated - > > > Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around > completely in circles. > > > we've moved on to > > Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users. > > Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users. > > I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users, > you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale > cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message. > > Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different > paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite odd. > > > Clearly there are > > quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will > > say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an > > offering that supports this". > > Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer > or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the > "Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean, > it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way > and existing apps would need to be refactored. > > > > > At the end of the day though this does seem academic, - since we now have > > two > > offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action > > orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the > > WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the > > talented new blood thats coming into the project. > > Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better project, > you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of innovation > and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should just > step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show. > > If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is going > to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an academic > question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before. > > > > > > So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get back > > to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose? > > Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that > the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to the > presence of this thread. > > You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about this. > You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and said > the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about it > any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my > back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo. > > Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't > taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express now? > > Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has > to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering > technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it? > > Jonathan Revusky > -- > lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/ > > > > > Niall > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
