MCBastos wrote:
Interviewed by CNN on 21/12/2009 03:32, Rufus told the world:
And I guess that's what I don't get...volunteers are generally more
dedicated and principled than paid hacks. Or at least the ones I've
encountered have been...so I'm not into coddling them.
They are, but since they aren't getting paid, they can't give as many
hours to the project -- they have day jobs. A paid programmer can give 8
hours/day, at least 200 days a year. A volunteer can give MAYBE 2
hours/day. If he's really dedicated and enthusiastic.
Some paid programmer started out as volunteers, and are as enthusiastic
as any volunteer, by the way.
All those programmer man-month add up.
Yes...so they move slower. I don't have any issue with that.1
So I really don't get why they've knuckled under and merely imported TB
and FF code instead of maintaining their own, based on that code...this
is all open source, right? So where did the best of the good stuff go,
just because the paid hacks got paid to drop it? Open = independent, I
thought?
Seamonkey simply does not have nearly as much manpower available as
Firefox -- and, as KaiRo pointed out, the Seamonkey volunteers lack
expertise in some areas that would be essential to splitting out entirely.
...again - slower change, but try not to allow change for the worse
simply in the interest of "change".
The source code to what you call "the good stuff" is still available --
but it's not compatible with the new core in its present form. If
someone with the necessary expertise, willingness and available time
will step up and adapt it to the new core, it can be revived. So far
nobody volunteered.
Requires forethought, a roadmap, and planning. Not sure that it may not
be too late at this point - it has to be a constant, continuing effort
or things get too far behind to recover...or to recover gracefully.
Branch out or die...let SM become it's own project, or we might as well
all just use FF and TB. Otherwise we won't be getting anything more
than FF and TB linked together in one app. That's not much reason to
choose.
Again, it's a matter of manpower. SM *was* going somewhat independently
from Firefox for the last few years, on the 1.1 branch -- and what was
the result? The rendering engine was looking more and more dated every
day, ditto for the Javascript engine and other core stuff. It lacked
several modern security enhancements, it lacked a decent extensions
manager, it lacked a decent upgrade mechanism. Moving to the Firefox
toolkit gave us all of those in a fell swoop.
The under the hood stuff may have looked dated, but the 1.x.x user
interface and functionality provided was the best on the planet, IMO.
The move to the FF toolkit may have fixed stuff I can't see, but what I
CAN see has taken a leap backwards. One more reason to code in a
modular and transportable manner - "toolkit" or not.
And let's not forget the extensions ecosystem. Which, frankly, was dying
on Seamonkey. Lots of extensions weren't available for SM, or had
reduced functionality -- because it was a lot more work for extensions
developers to support SM. That trend is reverting now: more and more
extensions are being brought to SM.
Personally, I don't use extensions - SM has given me what I need and
served my needs right out of the box. So from a personal standpoint I'd
have let extensions die and tried to build the more popular stuff into
the app.
But that likely wouldn't please everyone either - not to mention that
being a fan and proponent of modularity, after consideration I'd
probably have changed my mind.
My take on the move? It's like the old saying, to give one step
backwards to leap two forwards. Yes, some stuff didn't get
moved/recreated immediately -- the forms manager seems to be the most
visible complaint. However, the move will release developers from doing
stuff that was just duplicating efforts from the FF/TB guys, so they can
now concentrate on doing new stuff.
Speaking personally again, I never used the Forms Manager...probably
because I couldn't tell if its information was encrypted when stored.
But if I'd have been able to tell, yeah - I'd be using it.
And that's really what most of my major beefs with the 2.x.x releases
are about - most of my issues have to do with things which are really
under the control of someone building the GUI - like better text
information in dialog boxes, properly sized buttons, etc. Not really
nuts and bolts stuff that I can't see...other than type and application
encryption - and again, a simple dialog box or header could provide me
that information.
Yeah, I can see where someone that used the Forms Manager would be
REALLY annoyed that it's now missing - me, not so much because I didn't
use it. Now that I'm more aware of what a convenience it could be, I'm
becoming more annoyed that it's missing myself. But once again -
information that may have made me more likely to use it was never
presented to me.
You have a boat. It has a wooden hull, it's old and leaky. You have
three guys to work on the boat. They spend all the time plugging leaks.
Then someone offers you a brand-new, fiberglass hull. You move your
engine, bunks, head, kitchen etc. to the new hull. Only, a couple bunks
didn't fit the new hull (despite it being actually a little bigger), so
you had to do without them for the time being. Sure, right now you have
less bunks -- but your three guys have a lot of free time now, so they
can not only build new bunks but even to figure out how to fit a
freaking home theater in the boat.
Very good analogy - been in that sort of sitch professionally more than
once...where I may have actually spec'd the new boat and that when it
arrives it may meet that spec but doesn't come close to being what is
needed from an operating standpoint. So...you start pulling stuff off
the old boat in order to work around it's deficiency, and junk the home
theater because you need/require stuff that works over stuff that looks
good. Because it's the only way you can meet your essential operational
need.
And in the meantime, those three guys are working overtime, and you
really need three more...because there's too much stuff stacked on the
deck of the old boat you just plain can't do without...
...welcome to my world.
--
- Rufus
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