Nice response, Gerald. I think you've done a fantastic job with EmbPerl. We can't expect you to be the only developer, only source of documentation, and the primary marketing force.
Since we don't have an O'Reilly book, why don't we make our own? The community could start a Wikki. The Wikki would cover EmbPerl documentation and application, specific installation instructions, FAQ, mod_perl and even perl itself (as they relate to EmbPerl). Regards, Philippe Hall -----Original Message----- From: Gerald Richter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 12:00 AM To: embperl@perl.apache.org Subject: RE: Some philosophical questions Hi, A lot of these things have something to do with the man power we have. For example maintaining backwards compatibilty: My test scripts tests Embperl against about 25 different Apache/mod_perl/perl versions/combination/linkage styles (only on Linux, not regarding Windows, xxxBSD, etc.). Everytime I make a change, I have a good chance that it breaks one of these combinations. Also I try to keep all this stuff working, because I know people outside still using it (and I use it too; One of my production server still has Perl 5.005 and it works :-), at some point I decide to drop support for some old stuff, because I just don't have the time to handle it... I thinks it's necessary to have a break sometime (like going from Apache 1 to Apache 2), because otherwise you don't have any chance to have any progress. Sometimes it's necessary to make incompatible changes, because for example you made an error in the design of the old version and you want to correct it. Also I tried hard to get all this stuff that works with Embperl 1 working on Embperl 2, there are some features that have changed slightly, either because the original implementation was in a way that did not have proven as good over time or it simply does not work together with the way how Embperl 2 works internaly. That's always a trade off... Back to advocacy, the problem is, that it is a lot of work additionaly to createing the software itself. You have to create nice webpages, documentation, FAQ you need to write articles (also outside of the Perl community) etc. and here is the problem: Most of us have a daily job, not much time left and everything is working as it should, why to spend time for createing these things? Somebody mentioned that there are more activities on Mason and TT. Part of the problem is the community around them. As more people are engaging themself the chance grows that the project becomes more visble (inside the Perl community and outside the Perl community). Since Embperl is written in C, it might be more difficult to supply patches, but enhanceing documentation, writing articles etc. could be done by everybody. For example I tried to get somebody who is maintaing a FAQ for Embperl. It would be enought to just write down the answered questions from the mailing list, but we don't have a Embperl 2 FAQ so far... Or the article at http://perl.apache.org/docs/tutorials/tmpl/comparison/comparison.html#HTML__ Embperl needs to be updated to discuss Embperl::Object and other new and important features. This is an outstanding issue for a long time, but nobody cared so far... Anyway this discussion is not new and there is a mod_perl advocacy mailing list and a document about it: http://perl.apache.org/advocacy/issues.html Advocacy and marketing are very necessary things, but it must be done and it takes time! Gerald --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gerald Richter ecos electronic communication services gmbh IT-Securitylösungen * Webapplikationen mit Apache/Perl/mod_perl/Embperl Post: Tulpenstrasse 5 D-55276 Dienheim b. Mainz E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: +49 6133 939-122 WWW: http://www.ecos.de/ Fax: +49 6133 939-333 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ECOS BB-5000 Firewall- und IT-Security Appliance: www.bb-5000.info --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
