On 18/11/10 20:37, Jonathan Lange wrote: > On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Ian Booth <[email protected]> wrote: > ... >> I guess from my perspective, based on my exposure to date to Launchpad >> UI development, it's the lack of standardisation that is perhaps one of >> the biggest barriers to effectively and efficiently jumping on board and >> getting stuff done. This tends to happen on many large projects. > > Lack of standardization is a serious problem. > > What should we do about it? >
My 2c is as follows. It's hard to have standards until the problem being solved is well understood and there exists an accepted solution which fits the usual criteria - fit for purpose, extensible, well defined programming model etc etc. Often what's needed is several attempts to get it right, but once The One True Way has been found, it needs to be documented, evangelised, communicated and enforced. Of course, the "best" way to do things almost always evolves over time as technology changes and/or the product requirements churn. It takes considerable collective effort also to control fragmentation to prevent various different approaches being used across parts of the product. What's also critical is good tooling and library support so that's it becomes a no brainer to do things the "right" way. Too often bespoke or "non standard" approaches are adopted because the current standard tools/libraries/patterns etc don't fit what's required. So are we at the point where such a standard for Launchpad gui work using ajax/js/yui etc can be defined? It seems like there are enough experts out there who can provide the necessary subject matter expertise; there are widgets and libraries available via lazr-js etc (but I'm sure more are needed); there is an accepted framework in yui. Perhaps what's missing are the standard reference implementations and design patterns people can use when they want to do something (or perhaps they're there and I haven't seen them). Above all though is the need for some entity (an individual or small team) to own and drive development and adoption of the standard. It also needs the collective mindset of the development population to not do point solutions to problems where the standard approach doesn't fit - better to improve the standard so as to create a legacy that benefits all. Anyway, these are my thoughts on it. _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~launchpad-dev Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~launchpad-dev More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
