I'm impressed that you actually have the nerve to talk about spin when you're shoveling out shlock like this. Ever considered a career in politics?
- Dan Jonathan Revusky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Daniel Rall wrote: > > Jonathan Revusky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > >>Daniel Rall wrote: > >> > >>>Jonathan Revusky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >>> > >>>>One striking thing about Velocity IMO is how technically unambitious > >>>>it was. > >>> > >>>Isn't it wonderful? One of my favorite aspects. > >> > >>Yeah. Death to excellence! Long live mediocrity! > > How about "death to bloat! Live long and streamline!" > > > Well, the concerns about feature bloat have some basis. However, your > comment makes me uneasy. > > > I mean, there's a question of setting up the right criteria of > evaluation. Suppose a teacher announces that the sole criterion for > grading an exam is the fewer mistakes made, the better. Well, the > clever (but lazy) student will realize that there is a very easy way > of having a perfect exam -- he can turn in a blank examination > booklet. Since that obviously contains no errors, it must logically > receive the highest possible grade. And of course, once one realizes > that one can receive a perfect grade by returning an blank > examination, there is hardly much reason to study or even to attend > class, right? > > > Similarly, if you set up the lack of "feature bloat" as this great > virtue, then it would seem that you can achieve maximal levels of > virtue by simply never adding any features. Or to put it more crudely, > by doing absolutely nothing -- i.e. squat, nichts, nada, zilch. > > > A similar sort of thing occurred in recent dialogue. Recently, various > people were criticizing FreeMarker on the basis of backward > incompatibilities that were introduced (mainly FM 1.x->2.0 and > 2.0->2.1, since then, the 2.2 and 2.3 release cycles, it's been fairly > good on that front) and even contrasting that unfavorably with > Velocity. Well, it's a similar sort of thing: to achieve your perfect > backward compatibility by simply not releasing any new > versions... what kind of achievement is that? > > > Now, it's not that the concerns about feature bloat or backward > incompatibilities are unjustified. In the course of the ongoing > maintenance and development of an open-source project, there is some > danger of indiscriminately giving in to every special-interest feature > suggestion and ending up with something that is bloated and full of > features that nobody uses. However, it often does happen that a user > will point out an idea for a new feature that is really just generally > useful and should be added because it makes the tool better. As > regards backward incompatibilities, sometimes you end up running into > the fact that bad design decisions were made and you have a choice > between kludgy workarounds that maintain backward compatibility or > making some kind of break with the past and imposing some upgrade cost > on people. > > > These are issues that require some fine judgment and there are no easy > answers. But, at least, I have to say that I reject the A-1-A easy > answer, which is that you avoid feature bloat by simply never adding > any features, or that you avoid backward incompatibility by simply > never having a new version. > > > It's too obviously absurd. It sets the bar too low. > > > What color is your soapbox today? (Mine is tan. =) > > > I don't know. Independently of the color of the soapbox you're > standing on, you're in a very weak position defending the current > state of the Velocity project. That that project is in a pretty > disastrous state is pretty much an open secret at this point, and, > basically, to put it crudely, you're not fooling anybody, Daniel. > > > Best Regards, > > Jonathan Revusky --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
