It feels like a catch 22 situation. We need someone to champion and shepherd design changes into trunk, but we can't assign such a role to somebody who hasn't met the criteria that each core committer must meet. To quote the Django documentation, any design czar or core designer should have "a long history of contributions to Django's codebase, a solid track record of being polite and helpful on the mailing lists, and a proven desire to dedicate serious time to Django's development."
At the same time, everybody agrees that design by committee simply does not work. But what's stopping people from re-designing the admin outside of django as a standalone app (e.g. grapelli), at least to begin with, and if/when they run into issues that can only be solved by improving or changing Django internals, raise proposals to make those changes? If/when such an application has gained enough momentum and has demonstrated that the people involved are committed to it, invite them to roll those changes into Django trunk, or invite them to suggest changes that can be made to Django internals that will further aid design changes, or offer them a design czar position independent of their standalone app, so that they might encourage others to contribute design changes to Django? I agree that the design czar need not necessarily be a rock star designer who needs to re-design everything himself (or herself). But he or she must have a firm grasp on interface design and be familiar with and to the Django community. I've not noticed many people who fit the bill on the mailing lists, but from the recent discussions it seems to me that Jeff Croft has the interface design experience, is active in the design community and counts as his peers several other great designers, is familiar with and to the Django community, and has been passionate in exposing these issues and trying to improve Django and make designers more welcome and able to contribute. He'd get my vote as a champion of these issues, and I think he'd do a good job of reviewing design contributions, suggesting changes to Django internals that will help increase design contributions, encouraging good interface design rather than bike shed aesthetic contributions, without needing to do the design work himself (which he has indicated he might not be inclined to do). Cheers. Tai. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en.
