Hi. I still read all the DynAPI list mail even though I haven't developed with DynAPI in over a year now. Some comments:
I have to agree with Michael in that there really aren't many compelling reasons to pull NS4 support. Of all the really popular APIs in use, IMO DynAPI is the only one worth its salt that supports NS4. The real problem (which really isn't a problem when you think about it) is that NS4 has outlived it's usefulness as a web application platform. In the past five years, we've beaten the daylights out of that browser -- I'm fairly confident we've exhausted the number of dirty tricks we can make NS4 do. If DynAPI is to move forward (and I don't really know where it can go at this point), most new features will probably have to developed as extensions, without NS4 support. There're also what I feel are some obvious reasons why development of the DynAPI has reached a plateau: 1. It already does a large portion of what we want it to do, so there's no big desire for new features and widgets. 2. DOM/CSS is starting to displace traditional DHTML (see DomLib, DOMAPI, etc.) 3. DynAPI is fairly complicated and thus hard for new developers to contribute meaningfully to the codebase. This is further complicated by the fact that the overall knowlegebase is inconsistent (handful of docs, tutorials, core developers have moved on, etc.) 4. Sad truth: people are busy trying to make a living. Plus, I have to mention that when Dan S. announced his intention to work on Version 3 behind closed doors, the dialogue on this list came to a standstill. That's not meant to be a criticism of Dan or the people on this list; just an observation (and a sad fact that I've seen happen in other developer communities). However, on the flip side of this is another truth: diffusion of responsibility usually gets slow and poor results. The more people working on a project, especially a labor of love like the DynAPI, the less likely you are to see fast gains. On a personal note: I rarely do x-browser anything anymore, focusing instead on DOM/CSS instead of libraries. I've really let the DynAPI get away from me -- I have no meaningful comprehension of the codebase anymore, so I don't feel like I can contribute much. I would have liked to see an IDE, or some other development tools to help adoption, or things like Dreamweaver extensions. Bootstrapping other tech like SOAP, xmljs etc. would have been cool, too. I feel like the DynAPI has reached a point of equilibrium, moving neither forward nor backward. Not a bad thing, just unexciting as far as development goes. best, Scott -- scott andrew lepera [EMAIL PROTECTED] web stuff: www.scottandrew.com music stuff: www.walkingbirds.com _______________________________________________ Dynapi-Dev mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mail-archive.com/dynapi-dev@lists.sourceforge.net/
