Sorry - I should have expanded more on what I meant. What I think would
work out good is having the actual storage and execution of views
handled by the core. Then the GUI to edit/create views could be offered
as a contrib module. Storing things like "blog" as just a view would be
a great step forward in flexibility IMHO. If someone doesn't like how
the "blog" displays, then they could download the contrib "views-gui"
and alter that view.
My thinking is more or less in future upgrades. For example - D8 has
this built in, then D9 comes out. People would still be able to use the
views they built through the D8 views-gui, even if that contrib module
isn't released by the time D9 comes out. There are countless sites that
rely on views, but how often to they actually edit and/or create views?
I know a few that I maintain views has been there, but once the view was
created that was pretty much it. I have had no need to go back and edit
that view.
I'm just spinning this off the top of my head and not entirley sure if
its doable or not, but if it is I can see it having the benefit of a)
having core able to process and utilize views while maintaining a more
conservative code base and b) make maintaining views-contrib more easily
maintained by having to focus mainly on the GUI.
Jamie Holly
http://www.intoxination.net
http://www.hollyit.net
Earl Miles wrote:
Jamie Holly wrote:
> Yeah I agree we really need to keep Drupal lean. I wouldn't want to see
> the entire Views package integrated as-is. I wouldn't mind some of the
> functionality included
This one drives me crazy. There really isn't a 'some'. There is no Views
lite. Stripping out functionality does not make Views lighter, it just
makes it less useful, and that is ultimately harmful. The reason Views
is useful is because it is flexible.
The reason it seems like it is 'heavy' is because it's defining handlers
to deal with a couple dozen core tables, hundreds of core fields, half a
dozen different styles (table, unformatted, node view, rss, etc). It is
replacing a LOT of core functionality. When it goes into core, a lot of
core code just gets thrown away.
Anyway, people who have this attitude are really saying they don't want
Views in core. That's fine, but what that really means is that core
doesn't get the benefit of Views functionality. It degrades the overall
user experience and it creates a lot of dead code in core that mostly is
never used because 90% (or more) of the people using Drupal install
Views anyway. (Right now, statistically, views is on 60% of all
reporting Drupal sites).
Also, one day I may not be able to maintain Views. I don't want to sound
like an asshole...but I am an asshole. Every one who doesn't want Views
in core had better consider the day that I move on from my current
position, and am no longer able to maintain Views more or less full time
on someone else's dime. If it's not in core, it could just become
another unmaintained contrib module. Core is maintained by a large
community. Views is maintained 95% by me and 5% by a handfull of other
people who've gotten into it enough to understand it.
But also, and this is the real reason: Core would be *better* with Views
in it. Views in core is actually part of the #smallcore ideal, IMO,
because it lets us do a better job of reducing core to APIs and building
the Application on top of it, rather than core being half framework and
half application, like it is now.
