Sounds like there are some issues here that may need untangling. I'm pinging Erik. He's probably aware of this but I would like to hear his POV. Mobile is high on WMF's priority stack and it's high on my list of personal interests.
Pine On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Ryan Kaldari <[email protected]> wrote: > What you're saying, Trevor, makes sense, and I agree that we shouldn't have > a "code purgatory". I won't presume to speak for Jon, but I imagine his > somewhat provocative presentation of Mantle is due, at least in part, to > frustration. About a year ago, the mobile web team was gung-ho to start > moving parts of MobileFrontend into core. The first step in this process > was to convert MobileFrontend into a skin, which we did. The second part > was to move our template system into core, since most of the other parts > depend on it and there's no MVC framework in core, especially not for > client-side use. We put together an RfC on this,[1] and pushed it at the > architecture summit. No consensus was reached on moving forward, and > instead we reluctantly agreed to hold off on doing anything until Gabriel > had a chance to implement an alternate solution for comparison. We recently > tested Gabriel's implementation,[2] but are not totally satisfied with it > or convinced that it is the best way forward (although Gabriel is still in > the process of improving it). > > After having lost most of our momentum, we recently pushed to prioritize > core infrastructure work during mobile web's planning for the upcoming > fiscal year, and even talked about breaking off part of the mobile web team > into a "skin and infrastructure team". This too was basically shut down in > favor of continuing work on mobile features. Then after suffering both of > these setbacks we learn that there is yet another nascent proposal for a > new core UI skinning infrastructure and even though it doesn't have a > single line of code yet, you have been granted 80% of your time to work on > it (rather than working on either of other two systems that have already > been started). While it's great that you have invited the mobile web team > to participate in this effort, I hope you can understand how this entire > experience has been extremely demoralizing and frustrating for the mobile > web team. Personally, I can't blame Jon for losing patience in the process > and (purposefully or not) causing a stink about it. > > That said, I hope we (the mobile web team) can put aside some of our > feelings of being snubbed and outmaneuvered and work (yet again) towards > reaching some sort of consensus on moving forward. > > 1. > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/HTML_templating_library > 2. > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/HTML_templating_library/Knockoff_-_Tassembly/Mobile_spike > > > Ryan Kaldari > > > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Trevor Parscal <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Indeed, this thread is a bit silly. > > > > If someone wants to make an extension that provides a feature, and > someone > > else wants to use it, there's nothing wrong with that. But why would > such a > > thing need proposing? > > > > If the point of Mantle is only to provide a way to bring templates to the > > client, then sell it that way. Look at the code in Mantle, and the way > it's > > been pitched online and in person. It includes other things too, and has > > been repeatedly advertised as a general place where any code that is > > experimental can be put, while also simultaneously pushing for others to > > depend on it. > > > > I have no problem with adding useful functionality to ResourceLoader, > even > > doing so in an extension. I have a problem with trying to develop, what > Jon > > himself call, a code "purgatory". > > > > I'm happy to talk in person as well. > > > > - Trevor > > > > > > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Ryan Kaldari <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > > This whole thread seems a bit silly to me. We put stuff that should be > in > > > core into extensions all the time (for lots of different reasons). For > > > example: WikiEditor, VisualEditor, Echo, MobileFrontend, JsonConfig, > etc. > > > So why is Mantle such a bad idea? There's no consensus on implementing > > > templating in core yet, so it seems like a pretty cool idea to have an > > > extension that other extensions can utilize for that technology in the > > > meantime (instead of writing separate code for the same purpose). The > > > JsonConfig and EventLogging extensions are basically the same idea, > > right? > > > I think if Jon had named the extension "TemplateDooDad" (and hadn't > > > emphasized the fact that he was avoiding putting the code into core), > it > > > wouldn't have raised anyone's hackles. > > > > > > Ryan Kaldari > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Jon Robson <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > Trevor, > > > > That email you quote was about totally different code and a proposal > > > > to put it into Mantle and is off topic for this discussion.\T > > > > Trevor, please grab me in real life, so we can quell this > > > > misunderstanding asap, I feel for whatever reason I am not > effectively > > > > communicating to you and possibly others and I would like to work out > > > > why and avoid future misunderstandings. I had hoped to grab you > > > > yesterday but I didn't get time because of the Flow release, hence my > > > > lack of reply to that thread. > > > > > > > > The main problem Mantle currently solves is: > > > > "... we both had a need to pass templates from the server to the > > > > client via ResourceLoader. Mobile has been doing this for a year, and > > > > rather than another big project like Flow reinventing the wheel, we > > > > decided it was time to share code." > > > > > > > > To put it this way: > > > > * it would be irresponsible to put code for 2 templating languages > > > > (Hogan, Handlebars) into core > > > > * it would be irresponsible to put code to serve templates with no > > > > templating library whilst the RFC about templating is still > > > > unresolved. > > > > * it would be irresponsible for two teams to write exactly the same > > > > code to serve templates to the client in 2 different extensions. > > > > > > > > Your own team member Timo was strongly against me putting this code > in > > > > core in current form and I agreed with him. > > > > > > > > "We are paid, as professional software engineers, to write code that > > > > provides complete solutions, is stable, is clear how to use, doesn't > > > > break anything and meets MediaWiki's coding conventions" > > > > > > > > This particularly offends me by the way. This is a no brainer and of > > > > course any code Flow or the mobile team is writing will meet coding > > > > standards and be stable. I'm not going to post bad code to Wikimedia > > > > servers just as I'm not going to post non-generic non-standardised > > > > code to core. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > > [email protected] > > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
