RE: why...

[Mark Slee <ms...@facebook.com>]

I just wanted to try to bring some closure to this thread since it seems
like there were a lot of different ideas in it, with both disagreement
and agreement, and no clear resolution.

Torsten -- we're happy to have you interested in Thrift, and you've
brought up a number of places for improvement. I think some of your
specific questions have touched upon specific values of the Thrift
project that aren't necessarily obvious from the outset -- such as
simplicity and consistency. We're really trying to ensure that Thrift is
a project that does a few clear things and does them very clearly and
very well. This leads to pushback on a lot of niche feature additions
that we don't believe will benefit the project in the long run. Please
don't interpret this pushback as a disinterest in building community,
rather we're all just viewing the project from different angles and with
different communication styles.

Two issues you raised that I think are very well-aligned with the values
and mission of the project were making object composition (or maybe
inheritance if it can be made portable) easier, and more clearly
delineating abstracting data serialization from services/RPC (though
they are currently separate, it's not obvious to new users that Thrift
might be a good choice just for data serialization needs, or where
exactly this boundary lies).

Cheers,
mcslee

-----Original Message-----
From: Torsten Curdt [mailto:tcurdt@apache.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:29 PM
To: thrift-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: why...

Kevin

> If you really feel strongly about it, write it. If it isn't accepted 
> into mainline, that's how it goes, but I'm move convinced by code than

> talk. Show me that the features you propose are useful, and won't 
> cause usability and performance problems, and you'll have my vote.

I fear the usefulness rather depends on the use case and therefor might
not necessarily convince anyone if you don't see the need for it just
because the code is in place.

> In the meantime, I feel like neither side is going to agree with the 
> other outright. It's open source. Scratch your own itch, and maybe 
> others will want the same thing. Until something exists, we're arguing

> about imaginary code, and the implications of such.

Well, usually it's a good idea to communicate and sync up with the
developer community first and not just throw code at them. At least
that's how it usually is known to work at the ASF. And Thrift is still
in incubation. That means community should be priority number one. If
were giving a rat's ass about this I wouldn't be on the list but rather
just had made the changes myself without this thread.

cheers
--
Torsten

RE: why...

[Aditya Agarwal <ad...@facebook.com>]

Well said.

It might also be worth calling out the core principles and guidelines in
the front page of the new wiki page. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Slee [mailto:mslee@facebook.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 4:11 PM
> To: thrift-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Subject: RE: why...
> 
> I just wanted to try to bring some closure to this thread since it
> seems
> like there were a lot of different ideas in it, with both disagreement
> and agreement, and no clear resolution.
> 
> Torsten -- we're happy to have you interested in Thrift, and you've
> brought up a number of places for improvement. I think some of your
> specific questions have touched upon specific values of the Thrift
> project that aren't necessarily obvious from the outset -- such as
> simplicity and consistency. We're really trying to ensure that Thrift
> is
> a project that does a few clear things and does them very clearly and
> very well. This leads to pushback on a lot of niche feature additions
> that we don't believe will benefit the project in the long run. Please
> don't interpret this pushback as a disinterest in building community,
> rather we're all just viewing the project from different angles and
> with
> different communication styles.
> 
> Two issues you raised that I think are very well-aligned with the
> values
> and mission of the project were making object composition (or maybe
> inheritance if it can be made portable) easier, and more clearly
> delineating abstracting data serialization from services/RPC (though
> they are currently separate, it's not obvious to new users that Thrift
> might be a good choice just for data serialization needs, or where
> exactly this boundary lies).
> 
> Cheers,
> mcslee
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Torsten Curdt [mailto:tcurdt@apache.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:29 PM
> To: thrift-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Subject: Re: why...
> 
> Kevin
> 
> > If you really feel strongly about it, write it. If it isn't accepted
> > into mainline, that's how it goes, but I'm move convinced by code
> than
> 
> > talk. Show me that the features you propose are useful, and won't
> > cause usability and performance problems, and you'll have my vote.
> 
> I fear the usefulness rather depends on the use case and therefor
might
> not necessarily convince anyone if you don't see the need for it just
> because the code is in place.
> 
> > In the meantime, I feel like neither side is going to agree with the
> > other outright. It's open source. Scratch your own itch, and maybe
> > others will want the same thing. Until something exists, we're
> arguing
> 
> > about imaginary code, and the implications of such.
> 
> Well, usually it's a good idea to communicate and sync up with the
> developer community first and not just throw code at them. At least
> that's how it usually is known to work at the ASF. And Thrift is still
> in incubation. That means community should be priority number one. If
> were giving a rat's ass about this I wouldn't be on the list but
rather
> just had made the changes myself without this thread.
> 
> cheers
> --
> Torsten