> The code is not > what worries me, it's the community not paying enough attention. As > far as I'm concerned getting the community involved is the area where > other frameworks are outcompeting Prototype at the moment.
I'll second that. And more and more I think it's up to us in the community to solve it, not the Core team. This discussion group is a good example of what happens when we in the community take the lead: The old group[1] wasn't getting moderated and started filling up with spam, so we took charge and created this new one -- with the blessing of, and help from, members of Core (in particular Tobie and Andrew). We handle the day-to-day running of it. Although Core members are on the list of moderators and they do read this group, the vast majority of moderation and content here comes from **us**, the users of the frameworks. [1] http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-spinoffs In other words, this is a community group. Perhaps it's time we created a community website as well. Something that said very clearly that it was NOT an official site for the frameworks, but a community- run site with unofficial -- but useful -- information. I'm looking at wikidot.com and so far I'm liking what I'm seeing. We could run a wiki (there, or elsewhere) where the opening page looked something like this: * * * * This wiki is a set of **unofficial** documentation, how to pages, and other discussion related to the Prototype and script.aculo.us frameworks. The official Prototype site is http://prototypejs.org The official script.aculo.us site is http://script.aculo.us The official end-users' discussion group for Prototype & script.aculo.us is this Google group (linked to http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous) This site is not affiliated with the Prototype Core team or Thomas Fuchs. They are not responsible for its content. **You** are. If you use and benefit from Prototype or script.aculo.us, give back by helping make the information provided here as accurate and complete as possible. * * * * Something like that. One of the things I'm liking about wikidot is that we can have pages that have both locked content only moderators can edit and unlocked content any member can edit -- in the same page. (I think most wikis can do this one way or another.) So we could have a page for (say) stopObserving with a moderated description plus community content, a bit like this: * * * * Event.stopObserving =================== Official documentation: http://prototypejs.org/api/event/stopObserving Unofficial documentation ------------------------ Event.stopObserving(element, eventName, handler[, useCapture = false]) Unregisters an event handler. (etc. etc. etc.) Community documentation ----------------------- Click here to supplement the above. * * * * Currently, the official documentation for stopObserving is out of date. It doesn't discuss the new features in 1.6.0+ and it references the deprecated unloadCache function. If we had this wiki right now, it would have the correct documentation in the moderated section plus any additional material from the community following it. My initial take on it is that we don't pre-moderate the community stuff at all, anyone can join and edit. The moderators would remove inappropriate content and sometimes fold the good stuff into the moderated parts. The rest of the site could have not-moderated-in-advance pages for tips, tricks, how tos, upcoming events, etc. We could host that community-edited FAQ we've talked about a couple of times; the one that kangax and I wrote a while back has never quite made it onto prototypejs.org, because the Core guys have been too busy to do that. Why have a two-tiered community site? Two main reasons: Vandalism, and keeping on message about being unofficial. But if I'm out on a limb there, we could try not having locked pages. I'd be happy to be one of a team running and moderating such a thing on some appropriate free service if people think it would be useful. On spec, I've grabbed a useful name on wikidot (proto- scripty.wikidot.com, but I've just got it closed off right now). Anyone else thing it'd be good to have something like this? Anyone else willing to help run it with me? -- T.J. Crowder tj / crowder software / com On Sep 27, 2:34 am, Nick Stakenburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Andrew, great to hear 1.6.0.3 is coming soon, I'm sure 1.6.1 is going > to be great. There are great ideas floating around for it, although I > hope that by the time 1.6.1 is released it won't be seen as Prototype > playing catch-up. Maybe that's unavoidable though with funded > frameworks around the corner. > > I just hope the website will get an update as well so it doesn't hold > people back while the code is only getting better. The code is not > what worries me, it's the community not paying enough attention. As > far as I'm concerned getting the community involved is the area where > other frameworks are outcompeting Prototype at the moment. Looking at > job openings these days it saddens me to see people having settled on > some other framework before they even have a Javascript guy on board, > there you have some competition between frameworks Prototype could end > up stronger in. I'm not that great on things that don't involve code > but I'll be looking forward to contributing wherever I can. > > Regards, > Nick > > On 26 sep, 23:58, Andrew Dupont <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Sep 26, 10:30 am, Nick Stakenburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I'm not sure if Prototype has a real future, at the moment it seems to > > > be getting more and more a side project for it's authors. The reason > > > jQuery is so popular is it's community > > > The last few months have been unusual for Prototype Core: most of us > > have been especially busy in our day jobs. Prototype has always been a > > side project, but then most open source projects are; JQuery is in the > > enviable position of having its full-time development fully funded > > (Paul Bakaus's employer pays him to work on jQuery). > > > > What would help is if Prototype focussed more on the community, things > > > like scripteka.com need to be intergrated into prototypejs.org . > > > People tend to go with jQuery because all they want is plugins, jQuery > > > has them right there on the main page, while for prototype hardly > > > anyone knows how to find a plugin so the choice for the average guy to > > > pick a framework then becomes very easy. > > > In truth, I'd agree with most of the suggestions on how we could > > improve our community. We're not lacking in initiative; we're lacking > > in time, and if anyone reading this considers himself/herself good at > > managing mailing lists, evangelizing, organizing documentation, and > > the like, we'd love to have your help. > > > In other words, Prototype won't be like MochiKit, which languished > > because its author lost interest. We just need to find more people > > that are (a) willing to help out in ways that don't involve writing > > code; and (b) able to get stuff done. We've got plenty of A, but not > > much of B, mostly because the people who want to help out are often > > just as busy as we are. > > > > Perhaps 1.6.1 will breath some new life into things, or maybe not. > > > Nick, I take your opinion very seriously, and it unsettles me to know > > you're this pessimistic about the future of Prototype. It means we > > haven't been doing our jobs well lately. We're going to push out > > 1.6.0.3 as soon as we can and then start focusing on 1.6.1 (which I > > guarantee will have some stuff you'll love). > > > Cheers, > > Andrew > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Prototype & script.aculo.us" group. To post to this group, send email to prototype-scriptaculous@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
