On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 8:05 PM, Anthony Theocharis<[email protected]> wrote: > > Hear Hear. > > I was glad to read your concerns, Derick, and find that they > generally echo my own. As a developer, I'm very interested in the > current state of TG, as well as in growing a thriving community. > > There's been talk around my office of trying to give the TG site a > facelift, but we're swamped with work right now, so it won't be right > away. > by all means, we need content for beta.turbogears.org and I got 2 feature pending for it that will allow us to have a sane "sites running on TG" and "suggestions and fixes". If you are really interested in this please send me and email and I'll get you credentials.
> I've looked at some of the refactoring going on in 2.1, and I'm > pretty impressed with it. Looks cleaner than the 2.0 branch, avoids > some of the confusing situations that lead to bugs. But Derick's > right: there's too much left unpolished in 2.0 right now. > This is the main reason why dispatch was refractored in 2.1, ChrisP made the conclusion that the bugs where based on a bad design and I agree with him, after having to go in there to fix/spot some bugs. > For instance, I've noticed (after spending the last week debugging > issues introduced with 2.0 final) that there are no tests for most of > the Routes features. As a result, two separate patches broke bits of > routing functionality between 2.0RC1 and 2.0. Another recent patch > passed all tests, but caused all tw.forms widgets to render escaped > xhtml. > links? so this means 2.0.1 fixes the things? > Is anybody focused on fixing bugs in the 2.0 branch? > yes, just take a look at 2.0.1 it had several bug fixes that we applied, in fact take a look at the announcement I just made for the bug fix day next saturday (jun-27) please please bring all your bug and patches :) > Is anybody focused on keeping the web site up to date? > yes and no. I volunteered for the architecture, and Jon and Mark where going to get the content but we have all been very busy, right now everything is near 50% complete. > Do we have 'official' repositories for 2.0 and 2.1? (Different posts > link to different tags on the 2.0 svn, and the bitbucket for 2.1 > isn't linked to from turbogears.org.) Official packaged distributions? > We are in the transition from svn to hg (in case you did not know) Currently it goes like this. official 2.0 http://svn.turbogears.org/branches/2.0 official 2.1 http://bitbucket.org/mramm/tg-21 eventually they will all live at hg.turbogears.org > I love TurboGears, but it's hard to explain to newbies why (even > harder than explaining the related delays to clients!). The learning > curve is too steep, right now, with incomplete or out-of-date > documentation, and no official looking / easy to navigate resources. > it is indeed hard to explain to a client that the tool is better, most clients just go for the "most popular" which leaves us with a ton of php apps :( > To be fair, the current documentation is way better than the 1.0 docs > were, but, like Derick said, Django's still got us beat by a long shot. > I'm reallly looking forward for http://groups.google.com/group/sphinx-dev/browse_thread/thread/b88fffe1e6693535 This will imprpove the feedback on the docs the most. Currently the docs are written on a "I need this let me contribute it" matter, and it also has the problem of "advanced users don't know how to think like newbies" > The one thing I would disagree with Derick on is the inclusion of a > Javascript library with our widgets. I don't think TG2 should be tied > to any JS library. I think that adding unobtrusive javascript to a > page using any combination of decent Widget and JavaScript libraries > is a relatively trivial accomplishment for any programmer savvy > enough to know those words mean. I feel like this differs from > including, say, a default Widget set, or default Templating Engine, > in that including a javascript/css file into a template is a much > more transparent process, and easily grokked by a new developer. But > I'm sure this is a discussion that's already been had. > +1 > Anticipating an interesting (and informative?) thread of discussion, > Anthony > > > On 17-Jun-09, at 1:10 PM, Derick Eisenhardt wrote: >> So, TG2 finally has a stable release. However, it's release has sadly >> come out to little fan fare as far as most of the web is concerned. >> I'm worried by the current state of advertising/marketing and >> documentation, that what there is available currently has very little >> appeal to the majority of web developers out there. For TG2 to make >> any real traction it's going to have to appear to be the best of breed >> web development environments. As far as I can tell the only folks >> currently interested are those of us who have previously been using >> TG1, are hard core python fans, or are already sold on the idea of >> distributed/modular development (WSGI). That unfortunately leaves >> Turbogears with a somewhat niche audience. >> >> Django grew it's user base by advertising to people that it was "the >> best, easiest to learn and use web development platform" and "better >> than Ruby on Rails." Their community seems to still be growing at >> rapid rates, while I've seen hardly any difference in new users around >> here since TG2 went final. At the end of the day, the average web >> developer doesn't care what platform they're using, or how it >> works...they just want the quickest and easiest method to get what >> their site running and doing what they want. Currently, TG2 still has >> a good bit of a learning curve. And I'm sorry to burst anyone's >> bubbles, but we DO NOT in any way shape or form have "the best >> documented web development platform." And until it's retardedly easy >> for someone who has never programmed in Python, barely ever used the >> MVC model before, and knows nothing of command lines to jump in and >> make their first TG site in less than an hour, it's going to remain a >> niche audience. >> >> Beyond that our site is a bit of a joke currently. We're not even self >> hosting as far as I can tell. Now I know there's http:// >> beta.turbogears.org >> out there, and I know folks are working on the Pages CMS. But we >> really should have had all that up before 2.0 went final. It's truely >> amazing how much a person will judge you're product simply on the the >> looks of your website alone, especially when the product is a web >> development platform. >> >> Furthermore, ToscaWidgets is dead in the water as far as I can tell >> and it's widget selection is sparse at best. It is absolutely >> imperative that TG have a full-featured widget toolkit built-in by >> default and it be just as well documented as any other aspect of the >> platform. TG1 had fairly good integration with MochiKit, but TG2's >> current stance appears to be you can either use this basic Tosca stuff >> someone threw together and then let stagnate for a year, or go out and >> find a "real" widget library (jQuery, Dojo, etc), but you'll have to >> figure out how to use it by yourself. And that is the exact opposite >> of the position we should be portraying to new users...if people want >> that situation, why not just use plain ol' Pylons? >> >> I hope I have not offended anyone here today, I'm just trying to tell >> it like it is. I implore you to not spend so much time on adding new >> features to 2.1 and focus on getting these core problems taken care of >> first and foremost. Please please please make 2.1 all about polish. >> I'd really love to talk to fellow developers and when I say I use >> Turbogears, they don't respond with a "huh? what's that?" > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TurboGears Trunk" group. 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