Freedom is not being removed. Let get that strait. Assume for the purpose of this discourse that a framework is released without "remove". It is simply the ratraction of an abstact operation that cannot be supported at the framework's level. Nothing more - nothing less. I'm not promoting or opposing that position here - what I am doing is directly challenging the the assumptions you are implying about A4 and its evolution. In reality, this email is a fake parade that argues for the value of something we don't have.
Please - please - please - lets keep the discussion grounded. Cheers, Steve. Berin Loritsch wrote: >In my experiences with computing, the company's motto that impressed me >the most was Be, Inc. Jean Louis Gasse' (sp?) was a genious for >promoting >the mindset of "Under Promise, Over Deliver". For a commercial company >it really hampers the marketing department, but for an OSS project it is >the only mindset to have. > >There are some key obstacles that seem to be in our way of achieving >this goal: > >1) Over design, under simplification >2) Big ego, small content > >The big ego, small content has already been hammered on, so we will try >to keep the signal to noise ratio down. > >So far the most productive thread we have had was the "Fresh >Perspective", >as I finally got what Stephen and Peter were pushing (although at first >it was just Stephen). There is a lot to like in it. > >Our biggest problem is Over Design, Under Simplification. The job of a >*usable* framework is to enable things to be done that otherwise could >not be done. Avalon 4 does this quite well. There are some things that >does not sit well with me in the track we are on for A5. They are >listed >below: > >1) The container specification is becoming quite complex. The >complexity > is hoped to be made up for by a "ContainerKit", but if someone wanted > to discard the container kit and create their own container from >scratch > it is approaching the level of needing a company to finance the > proposition. This is not good. > >2) We are pushing *more* of the burden of design, thread safety issues, > etc. on the component developer. This is a *bad* choice. ColdFusion > 4 tried to automatically handle the locking of CF script variables, > but did a poor job of it. Their solution was to offload that > responsibility to the page developers. By CF 4.5, we had a product >that > needed to be revamped to explicitly handle locking of variables. We > are making the same mistake regarding pooling of components. > >3) If anything, we want to make it *easier* to use. Even better we want > to make it *easier* to use correctly. While it is a design goal to > encourage good practices and discourage bad practices, we can't all > do that at the interface level. People follow examples, good or bad. > >Now documentation and examples are something we can do in A4. However >it >is the type of examples that need to make sense. We need to demonstrate >*why* something is bad (performance, maintenance, scalability, etc.), >and >how to correct it *easily*. Something like the J2EE BluePrint document >would be best. We need to demonstrate how certain designs just work >better, >and aren't that much more difficult to do. > >Some things are difficult to do. Pooling components is a valid >proposition. >You could have fewer instances of components than threads of execution >(as >opposed to the more common case in Cocoon where there are multiple >instances per thread of execution). However, removing the release() >method >has incredible consequences on existing code for only a little ease in >the container. > >As Benjamin Franklin said, "They that give up essential liberty to >obtain a >little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." While >it has more to do with patriotism than with development, it still >applies. > >Unless we provide a fundamentally *better* approach that does not tax >our >users, the proposed approach is flawed. It is like when England raised >taxes on American soil without giving them representation in parliament. >The Americans eventually revolted, casting all things English aside. It >wasn't until much later that America and England could stand each other >enough to resume trade relations. > >This is *not* what we want for Avalon. Any freedom we remove *must* >be replaced with something better. > > >-- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > -- Stephen J. McConnell OSM SARL digital products for a global economy mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.osm.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
