On Monday, June 16, 2003, at 03:47 AM, Ilkka Priha wrote:
Jonathan, I don't see that your argumentation and attitude would lead to any positive reactions or development either for Velocity or for FreeMarker. There is room for more than one template engine, at least as long as JSP is what it is today.
I disagree. To me, Jonathan comes across as a fine, if somewhat explosive, rhetorician. He is as passionate and articulate about his ideas as the Velocity developers are. Exchange of ideas and points of view, and never turf wars, is what Open Source is about. In order for Velocity (and FreeMarker) to progress, we must critically examine the boundary and decide in which ways it is productive to push it. Let's not be wary of debate but of obstinacy.
[snip]
So why not let Velocity and FreeMarker to follow their own design philosophies and people will have alternatives to choose from based on their different demands?
Because this would be tantamount to letting Velocity and FreeMarker be contenders in a Darwinian tournament whose outcome is solely determined by market force. As long as FreeMarker is more flexible in meeting the challenges the environment poses, it is slated to be the favorite champion. In this setting, Velocity simply cannot choose to stand still, defending its high moral ground: it is stagnation and oblivion.
I apologize for my florid verbiage, but I want to stress the fact that to me the debate is not technical but philosophical, and one that must be fully argued through.
Mat�as,
I appreciate your defense of me above. However, I still don't understand how this debate is really philosophical in nature. It would be one thing if the Velocity developers had simply been extremely conservative about adding new functionality -- constantly weighing the arguments and debating before accepting that something should be added to the core.
However, we're talking about a situation in which *nothing* has happened in over a year, not even an nth-order bug-fix. I do not see how this can be justified in terms of "philosophical differences" or characterized as the "high moral ground". Unless the "philosophy" in question is simply some kind of totally Luddite thing, and thus, not advancing the technology is a virtue in and of itself.
But I somehow cannot believe that anybody here really sincerely thinks like that.
Best Regards,
Jonathan Revusky -- lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/ FreeMarker-Velocity comparison page, http://freemarker.org/fmVsVel.html
Best regards, Mat�as.
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