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Posted to user@velocity.apache.org by Demetrios Kyriakis <de...@yahoo.com> on 2006/05/06 12:48:48 UTC
A 1.5 release date?
Hi,
Is there a planned release date for 1.5?
At least an approximate one?
I would like to know this (and I suppose many Velocity users), because:
- the 1.4 seems to be released a very log time ago
- 1.4 doesn't seem to be optimal, as many projects still use 1.3.1
- many projects migrated to freemarker from 1.3.1 cause there was not
better alternative (in their opinion)
- more uncertainty will drive more projects away from Velocity :(.
Thank you very much,
D.
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Nathan Bubna <nb...@gmail.com>.
On 5/7/06, Peter Harrison <pe...@nbn.co.nz> wrote:
> Will Glass-Husain wrote:
> >
> > We've discussed this on the list before. My take -- Velocity is a
> > mature product, with a released version in use lots of places. For 1.5
> > we focused on bug fixes (and improvements in error reporting,
> > integration, etc) and it's pretty stable. There's really no important
> > bugs left that haven't been solved-- Look at JIRA and look at the wiki
> > -- there's only a handful of trivial (if subtle) syntax bugs left.
> > (there's an irritating problem with including macros in parsed files
> > too, but it's arguable whether that's a bug or design issue).
>
> It is interesting that key infrastructure such as Velocity suffers from
> a lack of resource. My feeling is that I would prefer to pay for
> Velocity if it meant that a key piece of development infrastructure
> would get more resource.
>
> This is quite common really - people have day jobs that come before
> their OSS projects. I am not saying take it closed source (obviously),
> just that developers/companies who use velocity could perhaps find go
> some way to funding its development.
>
> Velocity is mission critical for me - as is several other OSS projects.
> I can't necessarily contribute to them all in terms of code, as I am
> President of the New Zealand Open Source Society - so my free time is
> kinda sparse. However, I can make a business case for contributing to a
> project that is helping deliver end user software.
This is how i've found/made time to do 60-80% of the open source work
that i've done. I'm a bit of a hacker and do take some interest in
these things, but primarily i'm here for practical and, more often
than not, business purposes.
> > User support is pretty good -- the lists have far more activity than a
> > classic "dormant" project. And developers are still around. (Myself,
> > Nathan, Henning are often present on the lists). The major frustration
> > continues to be release - understandably many users expect a released
> > version and we haven't delivered it in a timely manner.
>
> From a commercial point of view it is unsettling when we see
> functionality like the set null issue remain in the released code base
> for years. I am on the lists, so I know there is activity and discussion
> going on; as you say, it the lack of a release since 1.4 that means
> visibility of progress is low. Even a beta 1.5 would be good.
hmm. something i haven't really considered... i may be able to find
a day or two in June to roll a beta release. i haven't released the
core Velocity engine before, but it can't be too much harder than
VelocityTools, especially as a beta.
> > Regardless of
> > this fact, there's many users using version 1.4 and some using
> > pre-release 1.5. The software hasn't decayed, it's only gotten better.
> > I don't feel competitive. Everyone has to make their own decisions
> > about whether and how to use Velocity.
>
> True. I'm a very keen supporter of Velocity, and I really do appreciate
> what the team on Velocity have done. I'm really just talking from a
> devils advocate point of view - that from a new users point of view
> having no release since 1.4 looks like its a dead project.
>
> > Like Nathan, I also feel bad about the lack of a release. A week of
> > work and it would be done. But when I have my entire year's salary
> > hanging onto the delivery of a consulting project in May and June, it's
> > hard to set that time aside. The other committers also have significant
> > work and family committments. (what's with all this family stuff,
> > anyway?) I'm reluctant to say anything about timing in public, since
> > I've been wrong before. But I'm betting that I'll have that week in the
> > summer - maybe when I go on vacation :-)
>
> I don't expect people doing this in their own time to be held to
> anything. I certainly don't expect anyone to feel bad about not having
> the time. Businesses need some certainty though - so perhaps we need a
> wider discussion about how we can allow people to commit some time
> financially speaking (aka find a sponsor who uses this technology).
>
>
> I know of a few off hand :)
ah, a few years ago this idea would've excited me, but i've since
added a house, wife, and kid to the picture. freelance work doesn't
have the security/stability i want right now, and the rest of life
steals the time i'd need to do it on the side. :(
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>
>
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Peter Harrison <pe...@nbn.co.nz>.
Will Glass-Husain wrote:
>
> We've discussed this on the list before. My take -- Velocity is a
> mature product, with a released version in use lots of places. For 1.5
> we focused on bug fixes (and improvements in error reporting,
> integration, etc) and it's pretty stable. There's really no important
> bugs left that haven't been solved-- Look at JIRA and look at the wiki
> -- there's only a handful of trivial (if subtle) syntax bugs left.
> (there's an irritating problem with including macros in parsed files
> too, but it's arguable whether that's a bug or design issue).
It is interesting that key infrastructure such as Velocity suffers from
a lack of resource. My feeling is that I would prefer to pay for
Velocity if it meant that a key piece of development infrastructure
would get more resource.
This is quite common really - people have day jobs that come before
their OSS projects. I am not saying take it closed source (obviously),
just that developers/companies who use velocity could perhaps find go
some way to funding its development.
Velocity is mission critical for me - as is several other OSS projects.
I can't necessarily contribute to them all in terms of code, as I am
President of the New Zealand Open Source Society - so my free time is
kinda sparse. However, I can make a business case for contributing to a
project that is helping deliver end user software.
> User support is pretty good -- the lists have far more activity than a
> classic "dormant" project. And developers are still around. (Myself,
> Nathan, Henning are often present on the lists). The major frustration
> continues to be release - understandably many users expect a released
> version and we haven't delivered it in a timely manner.
From a commercial point of view it is unsettling when we see
functionality like the set null issue remain in the released code base
for years. I am on the lists, so I know there is activity and discussion
going on; as you say, it the lack of a release since 1.4 that means
visibility of progress is low. Even a beta 1.5 would be good.
> Regardless of
> this fact, there's many users using version 1.4 and some using
> pre-release 1.5. The software hasn't decayed, it's only gotten better.
> I don't feel competitive. Everyone has to make their own decisions
> about whether and how to use Velocity.
True. I'm a very keen supporter of Velocity, and I really do appreciate
what the team on Velocity have done. I'm really just talking from a
devils advocate point of view - that from a new users point of view
having no release since 1.4 looks like its a dead project.
> Like Nathan, I also feel bad about the lack of a release. A week of
> work and it would be done. But when I have my entire year's salary
> hanging onto the delivery of a consulting project in May and June, it's
> hard to set that time aside. The other committers also have significant
> work and family committments. (what's with all this family stuff,
> anyway?) I'm reluctant to say anything about timing in public, since
> I've been wrong before. But I'm betting that I'll have that week in the
> summer - maybe when I go on vacation :-)
I don't expect people doing this in their own time to be held to
anything. I certainly don't expect anyone to feel bad about not having
the time. Businesses need some certainty though - so perhaps we need a
wider discussion about how we can allow people to commit some time
financially speaking (aka find a sponsor who uses this technology).
I know of a few off hand :)
Regards,
Peter
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Will Glass-Husain <wg...@forio.com>.
Hi Peter,
I'll just weigh in with a quick comment or two as I'm working through
the weekend to deliver a big project next week. I may not be able to
respond later as my email access is limited.
We've discussed this on the list before. My take -- Velocity is a
mature product, with a released version in use lots of places. For 1.5
we focused on bug fixes (and improvements in error reporting,
integration, etc) and it's pretty stable. There's really no important
bugs left that haven't been solved-- Look at JIRA and look at the wiki
-- there's only a handful of trivial (if subtle) syntax bugs left.
(there's an irritating problem with including macros in parsed files
too, but it's arguable whether that's a bug or design issue).
User support is pretty good -- the lists have far more activity than a
classic "dormant" project. And developers are still around. (Myself,
Nathan, Henning are often present on the lists). The major frustration
continues to be release - understandably many users expect a released
version and we haven't delivered it in a timely manner. Regardless of
this fact, there's many users using version 1.4 and some using
pre-release 1.5. The software hasn't decayed, it's only gotten better.
I don't feel competitive. Everyone has to make their own decisions
about whether and how to use Velocity.
Like Nathan, I also feel bad about the lack of a release. A week of
work and it would be done. But when I have my entire year's salary
hanging onto the delivery of a consulting project in May and June, it's
hard to set that time aside. The other committers also have significant
work and family committments. (what's with all this family stuff,
anyway?) I'm reluctant to say anything about timing in public, since
I've been wrong before. But I'm betting that I'll have that week in the
summer - maybe when I go on vacation :-)
best,
WILL
Peter Harrison wrote:
> Velocity continues to be one of the primary technologies I use, but
> there are a few annoying bugs that have been "planned" for future
> releases and never made.
>
> The point is that without a tight release cycle a open source project
> will stagnate. The primary problem I see is that any work done in
> Velocity will not make a release version anytime soon. If I thought that
> improvements would make it into a release I would have fixed them by now
> in the original codebase.
>
> There are two major "bugs" I know of:
>
> 1. Setting a value to Null is ignored. Yes, I know its in the docs, its
> been discussed to death here, but has not seen a fix in years, eben
> though its a consensus that this should not be the right behaviour.
> .
> 2. Having a Null in the first object within a list will cause the method
> cache to fail, and that column will have empty values for every column.
>
> There is a nasty work around code in every view for these issues. I am
> not a newbie, have used Velocity for years, and continue to believe it
> is better than JSP. However, I would like to see active development, and
> I am prepared to help so long as I know that the work will actually be
> released.
>
> I'm not being critical for its own sake - I believe in Velocity, and my
> work depends on it. I would like to see it improved. I would like to
> take part in that improvement. But I need to know that those who control
> the process will release my work in a timely manner.
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>
>
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>
>
--
Forio Business Simulations
Will Glass-Husain
phone (415) 440-7500 x89
mobile (415) 235-4293
wglass@forio.com
www.forio.com
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Nathan Bubna <nb...@gmail.com>.
On 5/6/06, Peter Harrison <pe...@nbn.co.nz> wrote:
> Velocity continues to be one of the primary technologies I use, but
> there are a few annoying bugs that have been "planned" for future
> releases and never made.
>
> The point is that without a tight release cycle a open source project
> will stagnate.
well, we can release 1.5 with known issues. if that's really what
most people prefer, i'm willing to consider it. in my opinion, 1.4
was released that way. i'm not convinced it means more work will
actually be done. i'd personally rather spend my time fixing things
that bother me and adding nice features than regularly rolling and
publishing releases. but again, if that will get you guys to help get
things done rather than go on about nothing getting done... that
would be motivating to me. i can't speak for the other committers
though.
> The primary problem I see is that any work done in
> Velocity will not make a release version anytime soon. If I thought that
> improvements would make it into a release I would have fixed them by now
> in the original codebase.
and if things were fixed, then we'd feel like releasing sooner. catch-22! :)
> There are two major "bugs" I know of:
>
> 1. Setting a value to Null is ignored. Yes, I know its in the docs, its
> been discussed to death here, but has not seen a fix in years, eben
> though its a consensus that this should not be the right behaviour.
this behavior is configurable in 1.5-dev and has been for a while.
there was still debate over the default setting though, so for now it
is still false. you will need to set:
directive.set.null.allowed = true
> 2. Having a Null in the first object within a list will cause the method
> cache to fail, and that column will have empty values for every column.
AFAIK, 1 & 2 are basically the same thing in the underlying code. if
the above property does not do both, let us know. i haven't had need
to use this myself yet, so i'm unsure.
> There is a nasty work around code in every view for these issues.
not in mine. look, i know this bugged many people for years, and i've
always been in favor of changing it. but i've also never been bitten
by it and understand why some of the early developers resisted it and
made it that way in the first place. now that the change is in, let's
move on.
> I am not a newbie, have used Velocity for years, and continue to believe it
> is better than JSP. However, I would like to see active development, and
> I am prepared to help so long as I know that the work will actually be
> released.
Are you asking if we'll *ever* release the code or if we'll put the
particular work you do in? The answer to the first is yes, of course.
The second, of course, depends on the work.
> I'm not being critical for its own sake - I believe in Velocity, and my
> work depends on it. I would like to see it improved. I would like to
> take part in that improvement. But I need to know that those who control
> the process will release my work in a timely manner.
look, this is an open source project. you are free to fix issues.
you are free to update the wiki and contribute patches to the docs.
you are free to call for a release and start a vote thread when you
feel the dev trunk is ready. you are even free to build and test the
release.
yes, you'd need one of us (i'd happily volunteer) to review, test, and
commit your patches, and for the release you'd need three binding
+1's. but i think you'll find us all quite willing to help in that
small way (at least me), and if you started doing much of that at all,
then you would soon be one of those who control the process.
it's not as if we don't want a 1.5 release or even a tighter release
cycle in general. that'd be great. i don't say these things so much
as though i prefer it this way. this is just my explanation of the
reality of the situation. my time is limited (and i'm sure that goes
for Will, Henning, Daniel, and Geir too). i do what i can. if that
is not enough to please everyone, then all i can offer is an apology.
my priorities and responsibilities are what they are. i haven't the
free time i used to (funny how a pregnant wife and a mortgage can
change things!). :)
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>
>
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Peter Harrison <pe...@nbn.co.nz>.
Velocity continues to be one of the primary technologies I use, but
there are a few annoying bugs that have been "planned" for future
releases and never made.
The point is that without a tight release cycle a open source project
will stagnate. The primary problem I see is that any work done in
Velocity will not make a release version anytime soon. If I thought that
improvements would make it into a release I would have fixed them by now
in the original codebase.
There are two major "bugs" I know of:
1. Setting a value to Null is ignored. Yes, I know its in the docs, its
been discussed to death here, but has not seen a fix in years, eben
though its a consensus that this should not be the right behaviour.
2. Having a Null in the first object within a list will cause the method
cache to fail, and that column will have empty values for every column.
There is a nasty work around code in every view for these issues. I am
not a newbie, have used Velocity for years, and continue to believe it
is better than JSP. However, I would like to see active development, and
I am prepared to help so long as I know that the work will actually be
released.
I'm not being critical for its own sake - I believe in Velocity, and my
work depends on it. I would like to see it improved. I would like to
take part in that improvement. But I need to know that those who control
the process will release my work in a timely manner.
Regards,
Peter
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Nathan Bubna <nb...@gmail.com>.
On 5/6/06, Demetrios Kyriakis <de...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Nathan thank you very much for the insights of the Apache (esp.
> Velocity) way of work. See my comments below, but please don't put too
> my weight on my newbie option :):
:)
> > In the many years i have been using and developing Velocity, there has
> > never been a planned release date.
> My logic doesn't say this is the best thing :) - I mean just because it
> was always done so is not a reason enough for me :) - as a newbie I
> might be totally wrong, I know :).
my logic doesn't say it's best either. in fact, i'm not even saying
it's the best thing. i'm just saying it's the way it's been done. :)
it's been done that way for two reasons: 1) it's hard to predict who
will have time/motivation to do the work, since no one gets paid for
this. 2) we want our releases to be ready for release, rather than
just release because it's "time to release"
that may not be best, but without paying developers or lowering
quality standards, it is hard to do it any other way. insights and
suggestions are welcome though.
> > Occasionally one of the developers
> > will put out a rough target timeline that may include a goal for a
> > release (usually no more specific than a month or a quarter), but
> > those are notoriously unreliable.
> I see, your point. However to know that 1.5 will come out in summer 2006,
> or Christmas 2006 or just summer 2007 (or not at all) would be
> interesting for everybody - I think.
yep. having that info would be helpful to me too! unfortunately, i
don't have it, nor do i have a reliable way to generate it. we could
start a discussion on the dev list and pick a goal (wouldn't be the
first time, and has been useful at times), but there's no way to
guarantee that we'll make it.
> > The current plan is to release Velocity 1.5 once a specific set of
> > issues in our bugtracker have been resolved. I'm sorry if that is
> > unsatisfying, but the situation is currently such that everyone seems
> > to have higher priorities at the moment. Velocity is very stable and
> > useable. Our personal lives, other projects, and paid work are the
> > squeaky wheels at the moment. I personally find 1.5 to be greatly
> > improved from 1.3.1 or 1.4. It doesn't have an official release yet,
> > because we hope to fix a few more old bugs first.
> > But it is quite
> > stable at this point. I would not fear beginning to use it already.
>
> The main problem is that in many projects a "dev" version is not really
> accepted,
> and even worse, if that "dev" version doesn't even have an approximate
> release date( it might remain "dev" forever), than everybody laughs if
> one is trying to propose the use of such a library.
agreed, and even those of us with some freedom to use dev versions
like to have releases that we can count on. if you just want to keep
people from laughing, then i'll make up an "estimated release date"
for you. of course, it's likely to be about as reliable as
Microsoft's release schedule for Vista. ;-)
> > If you really want to push us to get a 1.5 release out the door, then
> > you should be able to push it yourself quite effectively.
> No I can't :(. I'm a newbie in this domain and if I have to do this
> myself too, than it's much simpler for me to implement myself what I
> need - since I can master my own library/code much better.
we all have to start somewhere. i didn't say it was easy. most of
the bugs we're holding back 1.5 for are tricky corner cases. trivial
in that they don't really cause much trouble, but the work to find and
fix them is not so trivial. if they were easy, i would just put what
little time i have this quarter into those rather than offer it to
help others go after them. the point is that the option is there.
those that aren't happy with 1.3.1 or 1.4 or 1.5-dev *are welcome to
contribute* to push toward a 1.5 release.
> Also, if the project manager asks, I can't evaluate the risk and the
> effort for an unknown external library - not so for my own code. Well at
> least that's my feeling after being burned with other external libraries :).
yeah, that's a challenge for me too. so i can't put company time into
these bugs that don't bother us right now, and i don't currently have
free personal time for them. oh well. if they need to be done,
they'll eventually get done. if they don't, then we may sometime just
release 1.5 and list these cases as known issues. right now, unless
Will, Daniel, or Henning find the time, i don't have the time to even
manage a release (that's a lot more work than you'd think). And once
i get that time, i'm liable to release VelocityTools 1.3 first. :)
> Thank you very much,
>
> D.
>
>
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Demetrios Kyriakis <de...@yahoo.com>.
Nathan thank you very much for the insights of the Apache (esp.
Velocity) way of work. See my comments below, but please don't put too
my weight on my newbie option :):
> In the many years i have been using and developing Velocity, there has
> never been a planned release date.
My logic doesn't say this is the best thing :) - I mean just because it
was always done so is not a reason enough for me :) - as a newbie I
might be totally wrong, I know :).
> Occasionally one of the developers
> will put out a rough target timeline that may include a goal for a
> release (usually no more specific than a month or a quarter), but
> those are notoriously unreliable.
I see, your point. However to know that 1.5 will come out in summer 2006,
or Christmas 2006 or just summer 2007 (or not at all) would be
interesting for everybody - I think.
> The current plan is to release Velocity 1.5 once a specific set of
> issues in our bugtracker have been resolved. I'm sorry if that is
> unsatisfying, but the situation is currently such that everyone seems
> to have higher priorities at the moment. Velocity is very stable and
> useable. Our personal lives, other projects, and paid work are the
> squeaky wheels at the moment. I personally find 1.5 to be greatly
> improved from 1.3.1 or 1.4. It doesn't have an official release yet,
> because we hope to fix a few more old bugs first.
> But it is quite
> stable at this point. I would not fear beginning to use it already.
The main problem is that in many projects a "dev" version is not really
accepted,
and even worse, if that "dev" version doesn't even have an approximate
release date( it might remain "dev" forever), than everybody laughs if
one is trying to propose the use of such a library.
> If you really want to push us to get a 1.5 release out the door, then
> you should be able to push it yourself quite effectively.
No I can't :(. I'm a newbie in this domain and if I have to do this
myself too, than it's much simpler for me to implement myself what I
need - since I can master my own library/code much better.
Also, if the project manager asks, I can't evaluate the risk and the
effort for an unknown external library - not so for my own code. Well at
least that's my feeling after being burned with other external libraries :).
Thank you very much,
D.
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>.
Daniel Dekany wrote:
> Sunday, May 7, 2006, 2:53:33 PM, Jonathan Revusky wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>of FreeMarker of several years ago. That is how far behind the state of
>>the art this project is technically. In that vein, the 1.5 release date,
>>while important, is still too little, too late. Even a stable 1.5
>>release will not be remotely competitive with production/stable versions
>>of FreeMarker of three or even four years ago.
>
>
> The question is, how do you measure if how competitive a project is.
I was only referring to the technical considerations. Velocity is not
currently competitive with FreeMarker technically. I mean they've got a
blue skies wish list for a hypothetical 2.0 version of Velocity that
does not contain anything that has not already been in FreeMarker for
several years.
> If you measure it by how successful (nearly means, popular, widely
> respected, famous) a project is, then it has little to do with the
> technical qualities of the project. OK, a certain level of technical
> quality must be reached, but after that... what matters is marketing,
> i.e. the manipulation of what the mass thinks. Now, unlike Velocity,
> FreeMarker is weak on the marketing field, and probably it always will
> be.
Well, it isn't actually that Velocity has any "marketing". It simply
benefits from an "Apache effect". A very large number of people out
there place an amazingly high value on the "Apache brand".
I don't know exactly why this is so and I've wondered a lot about this.
People perceive the Apache brand as meaning something, and it inspires
some degree of confidence. OTOH, as far as I can see, there is no basis
whatsoever for having any particularly greater degree of confidence in
something from ASF than anything else throws at the wall to see if it
sticks. Just from observing what one sees here, for example, why would
anybody think that something being under the Apache umbrella is a
guarantee of anything at all? When asked about when much-needed
bug-fixes will be generally available in a release, the people
responsible for the project simply point out (correctly) that they are
unpaid volunteers and so on. Fair enough, but this is just the same
situation that you'd have with any fairly dormant project on
sourceforge. Why should anybody attribute any value to the "Apache brand"?
My thinking on this leads me to the idea that this has to do with a kind
of herding instinct. It's the idea that there is safety in numbers. And
that, actually, is rationally based to some extent (though not
absolutely, of course.) The thing is that the animals in the herd need
some point of reference to herd around, even a completely arbitrary
point of reference, and it seems that apache.org has evolved as such a
focal point.
> Thus, to be competitive, let me mind you, that you (or... we)
> should invest a *lot* into fixing all the design mistakes of
> FreeMarker, and improve it's quality in general.
We should do that, but not specifically in order to compete with
Velocity. There is, currently, no technical competition with Velocity
going on.
> Thus debating too
> much on this list may not be a good way of using your time. You are
> the main developer there after all.
Well, you, Daniel, originally became aware of FreeMarker because of
discussion on this list that I was involved in.
>
> [snip]
>
>>Well, the thing is that these projects under a Jakarta/ASF umbrella get
>>a lot more attention and usage than they would otherwise, and surely,
>>this is precisely because people think that these projects are more
>>likely to be actively maintained and developed than other open source
>>projects. I think it's important that people should open their eyes and
>>realize that this is not particularly the case.
>
> [snip]
>
> Sure. For the sake of fullness, however, it should be mentioned that
> FreeMarker also had and has problems with development inactivity.
That is definitely true. OTOH, our record, though far from perfect, is
far far better than the Velocity project. Bugs just sit around for years
here, even ones that look like they should be trivial to fix. For
example, one improvement (bug-fix really) in the latest version of
Velocity is that you can now write directives on multiple lines, i.e.
#set (
$x = $y
)
Clearly, VTL is a language that skips whitespace in directives and the
above should have worked. That bug was there for years, people were
aware of it, and Will, I think, finally fixed it a few months ago.
But this was just a glitch in the lexical specification in the grammar.
I mean, if something like this slipped in and was brought to our
attention, we would probably fix it on a same-day basis, and put out a
release maybe the next day with the fix. Again, if there is a bug of
this order in FreeMarker, it's less effort for me to just fix it than to
engage in any mailing list discussion....
> It's
> not better then Velocity if we ask how much is the maintenance
> guaranteed.
Well, this is the thing. In neither case is there any mechanism that
guarantees the continuity, i.e. the future development and maintenance
of the project.
Of course, once you realize that you can only judge by track record, our
record has been much better on this.
> Still, it has developed faster than Velocity... Why is
> that? I think, that at the end of the day, it because of the mentality
> of the main contributors. They really love to improve the stuff
> (instead of seeking *excuses* if why a new feature goes against the
> philosophy of the project, so they have to do nothing, or admit any
> past mistakes). Just for the pure sake of joy. Some people there, are
> genuinely interested in the template engine topic (yeah, there are
> such perverts... :)), even if it they can seldom find time to lift
> some heavy weight. It's that good-old hacker mentality (I don't mean
> cracker here; nowadays hacker is often used as a synonym of that, who
> knows why...), that was maybe there when the whole OS/FSF stuff have
> started.
Well, I have been aware for some times that the ASF brand-name
projection has the perverse effect that people may want to get involved
with ASF projects for questionable reasons. I don't know exactly, but I
can't help but suspect that people think that getting involved with ASF
will further their careers somehow or other, provide something appealing
to put on their resumes....
I can only speculate about this, but the motive of many people is not
principally to hack code. That much seems clear.
> Maybe I'm wrong, but I have the feeling that this mentality
> is less and less significant at ASF (or maybe it never was
> significant).
My sense of things is that in the early days, things were more loose and
informal and some things really could happen. Now, it's just so bogged
down in process and politics and so on that it looks impossible. I think
that projects get into ASF and just get bogged down in all this stuff.
Just look at what is happening with Webwork now that it is "merging"
with Struts. Amazing...
> I feel it rather shows similarity to some kind of
> business concern. (Jonathan had a good blog entry about this:
> http://freemarker.blogspot.com/2006/02/some-comments-on-joining-jakarta-or.html)
> If I'm right with my feelings, then I think that for most of the young
> ASF fan people this thing is bad.
Well, I am convinced that the net effect of all of this on the "open
source ecology", as it were, it pretty negative.
> They are in most cases not the part
> of the group who has benefits from this. <sarcasm>Unless, of course,
> they win a plasma TV by trying Geronimo.</sarcasm>
>
<LOL>
Well, I think that Geronimo is a flop basically, regardless of how many
plasma TV's they gave away.
Regards,
Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
FreeMarker group blog, http://freemarker.blogspot.com/
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Daniel Dekany <dd...@freemail.hu>.
Sunday, May 7, 2006, 2:53:33 PM, Jonathan Revusky wrote:
[snip]
> of FreeMarker of several years ago. That is how far behind the state of
> the art this project is technically. In that vein, the 1.5 release date,
> while important, is still too little, too late. Even a stable 1.5
> release will not be remotely competitive with production/stable versions
> of FreeMarker of three or even four years ago.
The question is, how do you measure if how competitive a project is.
If you measure it by how successful (nearly means, popular, widely
respected, famous) a project is, then it has little to do with the
technical qualities of the project. OK, a certain level of technical
quality must be reached, but after that... what matters is marketing,
i.e. the manipulation of what the mass thinks. Now, unlike Velocity,
FreeMarker is weak on the marketing field, and probably it always will
be. Thus, to be competitive, let me mind you, that you (or... we)
should invest a *lot* into fixing all the design mistakes of
FreeMarker, and improve it's quality in general. Thus debating too
much on this list may not be a good way of using your time. You are
the main developer there after all.
[snip]
> Well, the thing is that these projects under a Jakarta/ASF umbrella get
> a lot more attention and usage than they would otherwise, and surely,
> this is precisely because people think that these projects are more
> likely to be actively maintained and developed than other open source
> projects. I think it's important that people should open their eyes and
> realize that this is not particularly the case.
[snip]
Sure. For the sake of fullness, however, it should be mentioned that
FreeMarker also had and has problems with development inactivity. It's
not better then Velocity if we ask how much is the maintenance
guaranteed. Still, it has developed faster than Velocity... Why is
that? I think, that at the end of the day, it because of the mentality
of the main contributors. They really love to improve the stuff
(instead of seeking *excuses* if why a new feature goes against the
philosophy of the project, so they have to do nothing, or admit any
past mistakes). Just for the pure sake of joy. Some people there, are
genuinely interested in the template engine topic (yeah, there are
such perverts... :)), even if it they can seldom find time to lift
some heavy weight. It's that good-old hacker mentality (I don't mean
cracker here; nowadays hacker is often used as a synonym of that, who
knows why...), that was maybe there when the whole OS/FSF stuff have
started. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have the feeling that this mentality
is less and less significant at ASF (or maybe it never was
significant). I feel it rather shows similarity to some kind of
business concern. (Jonathan had a good blog entry about this:
http://freemarker.blogspot.com/2006/02/some-comments-on-joining-jakarta-or.html)
If I'm right with my feelings, then I think that for most of the young
ASF fan people this thing is bad. They are in most cases not the part
of the group who has benefits from this. <sarcasm>Unless, of course,
they win a plasma TV by trying Geronimo.</sarcasm>
--
Best regards,
Daniel Dekany
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>.
Ahmed Mohombe wrote:
>> I just can't
>> currently prioritize the time to investigate and solve them myself.
>
> Than if none of the Velocity developers has time for the project, IMHO
> it would
> be fair to say and state that, so that everybody knows Velocity is "de
> facto abandoned" (or "dormant" in Apache language if I'm not wrong).
There are actually 2 basic problems here. The first problem is the one
you mention, which is that development is basically stagnant. The other
related problem is that the Velocity committers are less than 100%
forthright when asked about the status of the project.
There is a complete electronic record of all the code that has been
committed in this project. If you were to scan this from 2002 to
present, you would probably see entire years in which basically no code
was committed. Nonetheless, last fall, Henning responded to one of these
questions about the status of the project, by saying that the project
was being actively developed and always had been. I don't like using the
'L' word, but it is my considered opinion that Henning was knowingly
telling a falsehood. At other times, Will Glass-Husain has made comments
about the status of the project that seem intentionally designed to
mislead the reader about the true state of the project.
Now, I would grant that some things have been done over the last few
years. However, I would also conjecture that a cold-blooded analysis of
all the forward movement in Velocity over the last 4 years would show
that it is an amount of work that a single motivated person could have
done in a matter of a few weeks, if that. Even taking into account that
the people involved are volunteers and so on, what has been achieved
over a time period of 4 years or more is incredibly thin.
Just consider how long it has taken for basic things to happen. Decimal
arithmetic in templates was introduced at some point. However, the
initial patch for this was contributed by Peter Romianowski in 2002. It
literally took years (!) of sterile debate to finally introduce this.
Somebody offered a patch for map literals around the same time. I
believe this is one of the new features in the as-yet unreleased
Velocity 1.5. Yes, a patch offered nearly 4 years ago, that was just
sitting there in the bug tracker.
Velocity's deficiencies in whitespace handling have been well known for
many years. A proposal was hashed out at some point in 2001. (This
proposal is approximately the way FreeMarker handles the issue.) To my
knowledge, there has been absolutely no work done in terms of
implementing said proposal.
The deficiencies in Velocimacros are well known and I won't detail them
all here because the message is already too long... Again, to the best
of my knowledge, there is no ongoing work to address Velocity's
deficient macro system.
I have looked at the Velolcity 2.0 RoadMap wiki page, and it is my
impression, that if all the features in that roadmap for a 2.0 version
were implemented, Velocity might be close to catching up with the state
of FreeMarker of several years ago. That is how far behind the state of
the art this project is technically. In that vein, the 1.5 release date,
while important, is still too little, too late. Even a stable 1.5
release will not be remotely competitive with production/stable versions
of FreeMarker of three or even four years ago.
> Asking from newbies to "fix themselfs" is not OK IMHO and not the right
> signal IMHO.
> I can imagine that this is one of the most important but "not spoken
> because of netiquette" reason
> so many moved to FreeMarker.
Well, I don't know of any rule of netiquette which should prevent people
from pointing out that an open source project is inactive. (OTOH, when
people claim that an inactive project is active and "always has been",
it may breach netiquette to point out that the people in question are
lying. Though, then again, telling falsehoods should also be considered
a breach of netiquette, IMO....)
Actually, the lack of ongoing development on Velocity has been a reason
frequently cited for people switching to FreeMarker. Other reasons vary
across the board. The better error reporting in FreeMarker was quite
important for both Webwork and Hibernate-tools. The Webwork people were
quite enamored of FreeMarker's support for JSP taglibs.
Other people mention the whitespace handling, the more powerful macro
system, built-in support for internationalization, serious XML
processing capabilities....
But it all boils down to a basic fact: Velocity development has
stagnated, and as a result, the product has fallen further and further
behind the state of the art.
>
> If a user has to fix for himself every library is depending on than it
> simply makes no sense to use
> those libraries at all.
Well, the thing is that these projects under a Jakarta/ASF umbrella get
a lot more attention and usage than they would otherwise, and surely,
this is precisely because people think that these projects are more
likely to be actively maintained and developed than other open source
projects. I think it's important that people should open their eyes and
realize that this is not particularly the case. By overvaluing the
apache "brand", people often end up wasting a lot of time with inferior,
unmaintained tools -- when far better alternatives are available.
Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>
> Ahmed.
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>.
Nathan Bubna wrote:
> On 5/6/06, Ahmed Mohombe <am...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> > I just can't
>> > currently prioritize the time to investigate and solve them myself.
>> Than if none of the Velocity developers has time for the project, IMHO
>> it would
>> be fair to say and state that, so that everybody knows Velocity is "de
>> facto abandoned" (or
>> "dormant" in Apache language if I'm not wrong).
>
>
> Uh... no. not at all.
>
> First, did i not just offer time for the project?
Well, you did, but then qualified it by saying you don't have much time,
and again, the objective progress (lack thereof) of the last few years
has not been good.
> Am i not putting in time right now?
I guess you are, but in a completely sterile manner. Trying to BS people
about the state of the project is not helpful.
> Just because i don't have time to do all the work to
> fix the trivial bugs left in 1.5 myself *right now* doesn't mean that
> don't have time for the project. That's nonsense.
People should judge by the objective results.
>
> Second, whether or not the developers have time for a project at a
> given point absolutely does not mean that we have abandoned it. Unless
> your definition of abandoned means "uses the latest version,
> participates in the community around the code, and fully intends to
> work more in the future". If that is your definition of "de facto
> abandoned", then you are completely correct!! Isn't that great?
Well, anybody can see just how stagnant things have been. Isn't it
senseless to try to flame people for just calling a spade a spade?
>
>> Asking from newbies to "fix themselfs" is not OK IMHO and not the
>> right signal IMHO.
>
>
> I didn't ask him to fix it himself. Quite the contrary. I said he
> could push things forward if he wanted, and that i would happily help
> him as i am able!
Well, you have a history here of people contributing patches, like the
map literal patch, and nobody doing anything with it for years. Like 3
years or more!
Did the guy who offered that patch ever show up again and offer more
patches?
The way things are structured in these ASF projects is that the only way
anybody can push things forward is by getting the attention of an
existing committer. So you have a situation where people contribute code
and nothing is done with it. Or if it is, it takes literally years.
Unless there is some very serious commitment from you guys to improve on
your track record on this, it strikes me as kind of silly (or possibly
something worse) to encourage people to contribute -- when the most
likely thing is that the contributions will be ignored.
> If you are not getting the right signal, it is
> because you have preconcieved conclusions and are letting them
> interfere with your ability to read.
>
>> I can imagine that this is one of the most important but "not spoken
>> because of netiquette" reason
>> so many moved to FreeMarker.
>
>
> If Freemarker fits your needs better, please go use it and don't waste
> my time with politics.
Nathan, this remark was not directed at me, but I find it offensive. It
takes a certain shamelessness, a certain unmitigated gall, does it not,
to accuse others of wasting *your* time, when you are the one
encouraging people to contribute code to a project, when said
contributions will almost certainly be ignored.
Precisely because the project is basically dormant.
It is simply irresponsible to encourage people to waste their time like
that. In general, it is irresponsible to misrepresent the state of an
open source project, and this continually happens here, to an extent
that goes beyond a point where one can give people the benefit of the doubt.
>
>> If a user has to fix for himself every library is depending on than it
>> simply makes no sense to use
>> those libraries at all.
>
>
> Funny, and i thought that was what open source was all about... it's
> certainly how i got into this. You could also check out WebMacro.
> There's actually a company behind that.
Nathan, as a committer in the Velocity project, you really ought to be
better informed about what is going on in the space. I do not believe it
is accurate to say that there is any company behind WebMacro. The
original author, Justin Wells, who has since left the project, had a
consulting company called Semiotek or something, and the code is
copyrighted to that entity. But there is really no company behind
WebMacro, not in the sense that people are getting paid to hack WebMacro.
> Seems like it would fit your
> paradigm better than Freemarker or Velocity
In fact, WebMacro is also basically a dead project.
Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>
>> Ahmed.
>>
>>
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Nathan Bubna <nb...@gmail.com>.
On 5/6/06, Ahmed Mohombe <am...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I just can't
> > currently prioritize the time to investigate and solve them myself.
> Than if none of the Velocity developers has time for the project, IMHO it would
> be fair to say and state that, so that everybody knows Velocity is "de facto abandoned" (or
> "dormant" in Apache language if I'm not wrong).
Uh... no. not at all.
First, did i not just offer time for the project? Am i not putting in
time right now? Just because i don't have time to do all the work to
fix the trivial bugs left in 1.5 myself *right now* doesn't mean that
don't have time for the project. That's nonsense.
Second, whether or not the developers have time for a project at a
given point absolutely does not mean that we have abandoned it.
Unless your definition of abandoned means "uses the latest version,
participates in the community around the code, and fully intends to
work more in the future". If that is your definition of "de facto
abandoned", then you are completely correct!! Isn't that great?
> Asking from newbies to "fix themselfs" is not OK IMHO and not the right signal IMHO.
I didn't ask him to fix it himself. Quite the contrary. I said he
could push things forward if he wanted, and that i would happily help
him as i am able! If you are not getting the right signal, it is
because you have preconcieved conclusions and are letting them
interfere with your ability to read.
> I can imagine that this is one of the most important but "not spoken because of netiquette" reason
> so many moved to FreeMarker.
If Freemarker fits your needs better, please go use it and don't waste
my time with politics.
> If a user has to fix for himself every library is depending on than it simply makes no sense to use
> those libraries at all.
Funny, and i thought that was what open source was all about... it's
certainly how i got into this. You could also check out WebMacro.
There's actually a company behind that. Seems like it would fit your
paradigm better than Freemarker or Velocity.
> Ahmed.
>
>
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Ahmed Mohombe <am...@yahoo.com>.
> I just can't
> currently prioritize the time to investigate and solve them myself.
Than if none of the Velocity developers has time for the project, IMHO it would
be fair to say and state that, so that everybody knows Velocity is "de facto abandoned" (or
"dormant" in Apache language if I'm not wrong).
Asking from newbies to "fix themselfs" is not OK IMHO and not the right signal IMHO.
I can imagine that this is one of the most important but "not spoken because of netiquette" reason
so many moved to FreeMarker.
If a user has to fix for himself every library is depending on than it simply makes no sense to use
those libraries at all.
Ahmed.
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Re: A 1.5 release date?
Posted by Nathan Bubna <nb...@gmail.com>.
Hi Demetrios,
In the many years i have been using and developing Velocity, there has
never been a planned release date. Occasionally one of the developers
will put out a rough target timeline that may include a goal for a
release (usually no more specific than a month or a quarter), but
those are notoriously unreliable.
The current plan is to release Velocity 1.5 once a specific set of
issues in our bugtracker have been resolved. I'm sorry if that is
unsatisfying, but the situation is currently such that everyone seems
to have higher priorities at the moment. Velocity is very stable and
useable. Our personal lives, other projects, and paid work are the
squeaky wheels at the moment. I personally find 1.5 to be greatly
improved from 1.3.1 or 1.4. It doesn't have an official release yet,
because we hope to fix a few more old bugs first. But it is quite
stable at this point. I would not fear beginning to use it already.
If you really want to push us to get a 1.5 release out the door, then
you should be able to push it yourself quite effectively. The issues
targeted for resolution in 1.5 are publicly viewable in our JIRA
instance, so anyone can offer up patches and solutions for them. I
will also happily assist anyone working on those as much as i am able
and then test and commit any patches they create. I just can't
currently prioritize the time to investigate and solve them myself.
-nathan
On 5/6/06, Demetrios Kyriakis <de...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is there a planned release date for 1.5?
> At least an approximate one?
>
> I would like to know this (and I suppose many Velocity users), because:
> - the 1.4 seems to be released a very log time ago
> - 1.4 doesn't seem to be optimal, as many projects still use 1.3.1
> - many projects migrated to freemarker from 1.3.1 cause there was not
> better alternative (in their opinion)
> - more uncertainty will drive more projects away from Velocity :(.
>
> Thank you very much,
>
> D.
>
>
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