Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Craig McClanahan wrote:
> On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
>>Mark Lowe wrote:
>>
>>>Look.. You've been invited to post your thoughts about the way that
>>>apache do stuff, to a more appropiate audience than a bunch of
>>>half-wit struts users like me..
>>
>>Mark, I was involved in a conversation with various people. It so
>>happens that the conversation developed here.
> 
> 
> 
> No matter where the conversation developed, it has gone in directions that
> are off topic on this list.  

Well, I differ with you on this. Before Mark's interruption, I posed 
basically the following question:

If there is no basic problem with your project management practices (as 
you seem to claim) what were the reasons that Struts development 
stagnated, with Struts becoming increasingly uncompetitive with other 
things in its space, such as Webwork?

The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic. It is of interest 
to the Struts community, because seriously considering this question 
would allow you to avoid the same mistakes in the future. It would also 
be useful even to people like me who are managing other open source 
projects. It is always useful to see what other people have done right 
(and wrong) in terms of managing projects.

This is a very complex issue that is worthy of having an open-minded 
exchange of views about. Now, nobody is obliged to partake in this 
exchange of views, I grant that. But it is utterly beyond me why 
somebody who doesn't want to participate in such a discussion should be 
trying to prevent other people from doing so.

Regards,

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
FreeMarker group blog, http://freemarker.blogspot.com/



> Please feel free to continue the conversation,
> but do it somewhere else.
> 
> Craig
> 


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Dakota Jack wrote:
> Unless you had different logic books in school than I did, Craig,
> "including" does not mean "excluding all else".  I am here to communicate
> with other developers that are using STruts for their own applications and
> part of that is the concern about how the development process here has been
> failing.  That is critical to people who use Struts.  I am sorry if it
> implicates that people, like yourself, who were in charge of the failure.
> But, do you really think that learning something at this stage of your
> career is impossible when things don't work out?  I would think that your
> great success would give you more room for criticism than that.

The issue of the question being off-topic to struts-user is a red 
herring. Many of Craig's posts have been off-topic by the same 
criterion. Moreover, Craig has now said clearly that he won't address 
the question on struts-dev either. What is quite amazing is that he 
recognizes that the question is legitimate (I suppose he has to, what is 
illegitimate about it?) but then says that he won't answer it because 
I'm such a bad guy. Blatant recourse to the ad-hominem fallacy.

Initially, I was going to take the next logical step in cornering this 
guy: "If you won't answer the question when I ask it, what about if 
someone else asks the question, will you answer it then?" And so on...

But I think it's over. He has simply admitted that he won't answer the 
question. As for the possibility of somebody else asking the question, 
you can see where this leads, given the culture here:

The mere fact that someone poses this taboo question will tar that 
person as being unworthy, and thus, will absolve Craig of any need to 
answer it. So the question never gets addressed. QED. Of course, 
everybody intuits this so the question not only doesn't get answered, it 
doesn't get asked in the first place, since people don't want to end up 
being pariahs. (I am a special case because I just don't care. :-))

Earlier in this whole discussion, people were trotting out some 
darwinian analogy of survival of the fittest in technologies. The 
problem with this darwinian analogy that technologies do not generally 
compete on a level playing field. Some of them have huge 
placement/visibility advantages. Struts, for example, even though the 
Struts developers themselves accept that Webwork is better technology, 
has more users than Webwork. In general, superior technologies do not 
triumph in the marketplace, but rather "more or less good enough" 
technologies that have placement advantages win out.

If competition did just happen on a level playing field, and we had a 
darwininian situation, a project and community with this culture would 
go the way of the dodo bird. (Probably the mechanism would be that it 
would generate fairly little technically and lots of BS and ultimately 
suffocate in its own excrement.)

I find it disturbing that a dysfunctional community can absorb one that 
has produced cutting edge work (Webwork in this case) and actually be 
"mentoring" them in adopting the so-called "Apache Way".

Without this Webwork merger, people disgusted by what they see here 
could at least go use Webwork, which is something technically superior 
with the same basic approach. But Webwork has now been swallowed by 
Struts in a very anti-darwinian "survival of the lamest" sort of mechanism.

I find this quite troubling.

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
FreeMarker group blog, http://freemarker.blogspot.com/



> 
> On 3/25/06, Craig McClanahan <cr...@apache.org> wrote:
> 
>>On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>
>>>The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic.
>>
>>
>>This interpretation is wildly out of sync with the formal description of
>>this mailing list's purpose[1], quoted below:
>>
>>    Subscribe to this list to communicate with other developers
>>    that are using Struts for their own applications, including
>>    questions about the installation of Struts, and the usage
>>    of particular Struts features.
>>
>>
>>Jonathan Revusky
>>
>>
>>Craig
>>
>>[1] http://struts.apache.org/mail.html
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it float on its back."
> ~Dakota Jack~
> 


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Dakota Jack <da...@gmail.com>]

Unless you had different logic books in school than I did, Craig,
"including" does not mean "excluding all else".  I am here to communicate
with other developers that are using STruts for their own applications and
part of that is the concern about how the development process here has been
failing.  That is critical to people who use Struts.  I am sorry if it
implicates that people, like yourself, who were in charge of the failure.
But, do you really think that learning something at this stage of your
career is impossible when things don't work out?  I would think that your
great success would give you more room for criticism than that.

On 3/25/06, Craig McClanahan <cr...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >
> > The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic.
>
>
> This interpretation is wildly out of sync with the formal description of
> this mailing list's purpose[1], quoted below:
>
>     Subscribe to this list to communicate with other developers
>     that are using Struts for their own applications, including
>     questions about the installation of Struts, and the usage
>     of particular Struts features.
>
>
> Jonathan Revusky
>
>
> Craig
>
> [1] http://struts.apache.org/mail.html
>
>


--
"You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it float on its back."
~Dakota Jack~

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Vinny <xa...@gmail.com>]

Yes, I am "that" old. 38 and still kicking!

On 3/29/06, Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> > Vinny wrote:
> > > I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
> > > When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
> > > "struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
> > > yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front
> > > ...
> > > The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs Kerry
> > > debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
> ...
> > Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
> > Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically better.
> > If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the position
> > of being more catholic than the pope.
>
> Nice comparison you brought, Vinny. Are you *that* old? ;-) Betamax vs
> VHS is not a background noise, it is a marketing classic. But for a
> person who uses recordable DVDs, it does not really matter who won
> twenty years ago, VHS or Beta.
>
> Michael.
>
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--
Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com

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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com>]

On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> Vinny wrote:
> > I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
> > When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
> > "struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
> > yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front
> > ...
> > The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs Kerry
> > debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
...
> Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
> Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically better.
> If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the position
> of being more catholic than the pope.

Nice comparison you brought, Vinny. Are you *that* old? ;-) Betamax vs
VHS is not a background noise, it is a marketing classic. But for a
person who uses recordable DVDs, it does not really matter who won
twenty years ago, VHS or Beta.

Michael.

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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Dakota Jack <da...@gmail.com>]

What a breath of fresh air.  THANK YOU, Niall.  I hoped that if we stuck to
our guns someone would come forward and begin a real discussion.  I don't
have time to consider your points in detail now but will later.  Again, this
is a positive thing.  A beginning.

On 3/29/06, Niall Pemberton <ni...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
> Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
>
> > It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
> > well-formulated question.
> >
> > Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> > off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
> > is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
>
>
> The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one
> perspective) in an earlier thread:
>
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
>
> However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
> clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
> volunteer effort as well.
>
> We currently have 22 committers on Struts - but levels of activity vary
> widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive
> a
> project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have
> an
> interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People
> such
> as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as
> the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate
> their
> effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti and had the
> offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing
> the
> fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
> this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while
> which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess
> this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
> people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
> know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
> framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
> certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it
> I
> believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
> shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether
> we
> as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem
> that
> proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks
> because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
> Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing
> ones
> and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
> though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at
> the
> door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I
> believe
> its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
> helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been
> around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally -
> then
> you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
> have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but
> besides
> them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have
> an
> explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
>
> Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated - we've moved on to
> Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users. Clearly there are
> quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will
> say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an
> offering that supports this".
>
> At the end of the day though this does seem academic - since we now have
> two
> offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
> orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
> WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the
> talented new blood thats coming into the project.
>
> So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get
> back
> to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
>
> Niall
>
>
>
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>


--
"You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it float on its back."
~Dakota Jack~

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Dakota Jack <da...@gmail.com>]

Given the question, how to avoid a duplication of the past failure of Struts
to keep up with technological innovations, I would say it should be:

"People in grass houses should not stow thrones."


<snip>
On 3/26/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>
> Craig McClanahan wrote:
>


As regards this throwaway ad-hominem stuff about my rude and obnoxious
> behavior, people in glass houses really should not throw stones.

</snip>


--
"You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it float on its back."
~Dakota Jack~

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Craig McClanahan wrote:
> On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
>>Craig McClanahan wrote:
>>
>>>On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>This interpretation is wildly out of sync with the formal description of
>>>this mailing list's purpose[1], quoted below:
>>>
>>>    Subscribe to this list to communicate with other developers
>>>    that are using Struts for their own applications, including
>>>    questions about the installation of Struts, and the usage
>>>    of particular Struts features.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>So where should such a question be asked, Craig? On rec.automotive? On
>>alt.politics.libertarian?
>>
>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
>>well-formulated question.
>>
>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
> 
> 
> 
> What does the mailing list description for the dev list say?
> 
>     Subscribe to this mailing list to communicate with other
>     developers interested in expanding and improving the
>     functionality supported by Struts itself.


Well, you know, one thing about this just occurred ot me. You, Craig, 
have, during the time I have been here, made various posts to this list 
that are off-topic by the narrow definition above. Let's consider this one:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/123252

How was this post of yours remotely on topic to this list? At least 
given the description you post above.

How about this one?

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/123253

It is obvious that you yourself do not follow that strictly the supposed 
rule above as to what is on-topic here. So this is basically red herring.

Besides, let us consider the following conceptual experiment. Suppose 
this thread contained nothing but unctuous praise and flattery for the 
Struts team, as in: "I just want to thank Craig and the rest of the team 
for doing such a great job". By the definition of the list given above, 
such posts would be just as off-topic. Does anybody here think you would 
be trying to shut down such a thread?

It really should be quite obvious to anybody that you want to shut down 
the thread because people are saying things that you don't like, not 
because of any real issue of it being off-topic. And that is simply not 
legitimate.

> 
> So I guess it depends on your goals :-).

> 
> So, cutting to the chase, if I pose the same question on struts-dev, you
> 
>>and the others would answer it?
> 
> 
> 
> It wouldn't get rejected as off topic, but your rude and obnoxious behavior
> has made me, speaking for myself, totally uninterested in whether you ever
> receive closure on it.  So I'll most likely just ignore you there as well as
> here.

Okay, so you won't answer the question there either. So this is further 
proof that the issue of it being off-topic for struts-user was a 
dishonest pretext.

Well, that's it then. I guess this conversation is over. You have 
completely discredited yourself. Congratulations.

I just have a couple more points.

As regards this throwaway ad-hominem stuff about my rude and obnoxious 
behavior, people in glass houses really should not throw stones. My own 
sense of things is that people have been incredibly rude and obnoxious 
to me. I'm not talking just about yahoos jumping out of the woodwork 
screaming at me to shut up. This includes people who you'd think should 
be on their best behavior here, since they are Struts PMC members, like 
James Mitchell, say. There was no sign, for example, that you 
disapproved of James Mitchell insulting me as a result of my offering 
honest feedback on your website.

I think that, in this discussion, people willing to have a good-faithed 
discussion with me have found that, while I am a hard debater, I debate 
fair and square and I maintain a civil tone. In the cases where my tone 
becomes rude, I think you'll find it was because other people were rude 
first.

I am actually rather inured to the rudeness issues, it's just that you 
brought this up. What bothers me far more in this community is the level 
of bad faith on display. For example, just here, the bad faith evident 
in your claim that you want to stop the thread because it is off-topic, 
rather than because the discussion is taking a turn that you don't like.

The more important point I want to make in closing though is that you 
don't get it on some basic level. The reason to address the question of 
why Struts stagnated has nothing to do with making *me* happy. You have 
to address the question for your own benefit and that of your community.

Well, of course, this whole idea that you won't answer this question 
because *I* am such a rude person is just a ridiculous attempt to weasel 
out. The question has to be addressed and my personality has absolutely 
nothing to do with it.

> 
> PS:  Lest you think I'm an arrogant jerk that deigns to answer only
> questions from "worthy" people, two notes of interest:
> 
> * If you count the number of questions that I've answered on
>   this list alone (let alone all the other lists I participate in),
>   it's in the many thousands.

Maybe so, but can that be taken as proof that you aren't behaving like 
an "arrogant jerk" in this instance?

> 
> * Adding you to my internal ignore list just doubled its size.
>   This is the first time there has ever been more than one.
> 

Human behavior is quite compartmentalized. You may well be a nice guy in 
other contexts. I can only judge from what I see here. I find your 
attitude and behavior deplorable.

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Craig McClanahan <cr...@apache.org>]

On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>
> Craig McClanahan wrote:
> > On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >
> >>The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic.
> >
> >
> >
> > This interpretation is wildly out of sync with the formal description of
> > this mailing list's purpose[1], quoted below:
> >
> >     Subscribe to this list to communicate with other developers
> >     that are using Struts for their own applications, including
> >     questions about the installation of Struts, and the usage
> >     of particular Struts features.
> >
> >
>
> So where should such a question be asked, Craig? On rec.automotive? On
> alt.politics.libertarian?
>
> It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
> well-formulated question.
>
> Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
> is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.


What does the mailing list description for the dev list say?

    Subscribe to this mailing list to communicate with other
    developers interested in expanding and improving the
    functionality supported by Struts itself.

So I guess it depends on your goals :-).

So, cutting to the chase, if I pose the same question on struts-dev, you
> and the others would answer it?


It wouldn't get rejected as off topic, but your rude and obnoxious behavior
has made me, speaking for myself, totally uninterested in whether you ever
receive closure on it.  So I'll most likely just ignore you there as well as
here.


Jonathan Revusky


Craig


PS:  Lest you think I'm an arrogant jerk that deigns to answer only
questions from "worthy" people, two notes of interest:

* If you count the number of questions that I've answered on
  this list alone (let alone all the other lists I participate in),
  it's in the many thousands.

* Adding you to my internal ignore list just doubled its size.
  This is the first time there has ever been more than one.

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Dion Gillard wrote:
> On 3/30/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
>>Dion Gillard wrote:
>>
>>>Jonathan,
>>>
>>>do you have a list of things that are technically wrong with Struts 1.x?
>>
>>Dion, there is a Struts/Webwork merger afoot whereby the Webwork
>>codebase is being donated to ASF to be the basis of the next version of
>>Struts, Struts Action Framework 2 or whatever.
> 
> Yep, already know that.

I figured that likely. However, I try not to assume too much prior 
knowledge in posts. I originally assumed that everybody here on this 
list knew basic stuff like that and it later became apparent that a lot 
of people don't.

> 
> The fact that the Webwork codebase is being used as the basis of the
> 
>>next version of the framework by the Struts people rather than Struts
>>itself basically leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the Struts
>>developers themselves consider Webwork to be better technology.
> 
> Not necessarily. 

Well, Shale is a separate matter AFAICS, since it is a completely 
different approach paradigmatically. As regards an action framework with 
roughly the same approach, the fact that the Struts people don't want to 
use their own code as the basis for that does IMO lead to certain 
inescapable conclusions.

> There may be many reasons. And as I understand it, the
> 'next version of the framework by the Struts people' could also be
> considered Apache Struts Shale. Quoting Ted H: "The reason Shale is not
> Struts 2.x is because there was so much concern about doing things better,
> that we ended up with no easy way to pour our old wine into the new bottle.
> Many of us can't afford to recode the many large and mature Struts
> applications now in production. There has to be a clear and simple way to
> get there from here."

The attempt to relabel Webwork as Struts XXX and also Shale as Struts 
XXX strikes me as extremely problematic because it would tend to create 
great confusion (and maybe even anxiety) among existing Struts users as 
to what they are supposed to do now.

However, that is just my opinion. I consider that I am free to express 
it, of course, but it is up to Struts people to sort this stuff out.

It also seems to me that the majority of existing Struts users are quite 
confused or just uninformed about all this.

> 
> It's also quite possible that it is easier to use Don's work with Struts Ti,
> and combine WebWork than it is to make the same sorts of changes to Struts
> 1.x. Why reinvent the wheel?

Well, I don't think Webwork is really being combined with anything. It's 
just the same Webwork. It's getting relabelled as Struts something or other.

> 
> Also, based on your reasoning, the Webwork developers themselves must
> consider Struts a more widely adopted, better marketed technology, with far
> more developer acceptance and corporate penetration.

The above is not a matter of debate AFAICS. If it weren't for this 
mechanism, there would be no reason for the Webwork people to want to 
become part of this community. That is fairly obvious.

> As far as the exact technicalities, I can only do what you can do, which
> 
>>is look in google for discussions about this. A google search on:
>>
>>struts webwork comparisons
>>
>>yields a lot of hits, but the first result is this one:
>>
>>http://wiki.opensymphony.com/display/WW/Comparison+to+Struts
>>
>>Obviously, not totally objective, since it is by the WW people, but
>>probably factual enough. You get various blog entries and you can ask
>>these people, who surely know a lot more than I do.
>>
>>The truth is out there (somewhere).
> 
> Truth being subjective opinion, yes.
> 
> "Is WebWork better' technology?" is a subjective question with people on
> both sides of the fence.

It appears that the Struts people are conceding that Webwork is the 
better technology -- vis-a-vis Struts 1.x, I don't mean Shale, which is 
almost orthogonal. (You see how confusing this gets...)

But to basically relabel the current version of Webwork as Struts Action 
2 is basically to concede that Webwork is more advanced technology.

> 
> What the merger brings us as users is the ability to pick up some of the
> better features of WebWork without necessarily taking the hit/cost of
> 'switching'. 

Well, this is only the case if they provide some compatibility layer or 
migration/conversion tools. All of that, for the moment (correct me, 
someone, if I'm wrong) is just vaporware. I have also been surprised by 
the seeming lack of migration-related threads on the struts-user list.

But, for the moment anyway, switching from using Struts 1.x to Struts 
Action 2 is the same work as switching to Webwork would have been.

> There's been much talk about bridging SAF1 and 2, and I expect
> with such a huge install base, this will be a big deal to the Struts
> developers.

Well, it remains to be seen what will happen. I have expressed general 
concerns that what this represents is negative in terms of open source 
ecology in general, since you have the team that failed to innovate 
absorbing, and imposing their culture and project management practices 
on the team that did innovate. (Like... does this really make sense???)

In a messages a few messages before in this thread, I think Al Erdani 
characterized fairly well how this flamey thread came about.

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
FreeMarker group blog, http://freemarker.blogspot.com/

> 
> I hope that helps.
> 
>>Jonathan Revusky
>>--
>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>
>>
>>
>>>On 3/30/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Vinny wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>There have been many time in history when an individual
>>>>>catholic _has_ been more catholic than the Pope.
>>>>>I am simply giving my opinion.
>>>>
>>>>Well, that's true, I guess. You've got a point there, Vinny.
>>>>
>>>>So, yeah, feel free. Be more catholic than the pope. Keep maintaining
>>>>that Struts 1.x is great stuff after the Struts developers themselves
>>>>have abandoned it in favor of Webwork.
>>>>
>>>>Jonathan Revusky
>>>>--
>>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Vinny wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
>>>>>>>When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
>>>>>>>"struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
>>>>>>>yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>That's a different question entirely. The question posed up top here
>>
>>in
>>
>>>>>>the subject line is: "Why did Struts development stagnate?"
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Actually, you could append to that question, given this above data --
>>>>>>"Why did Struts development stagnate -- *despite* having such a huge
>>>>>>user community and so on and so forth.... as documented above...."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I don't think that is even debatable.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, I don't either. That's why that is not the subject of the
>>
>>debate.
>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Now if we want to talk about
>>>>>>>technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>It was about technical prowess. "Struts development" -- the fact that
>>>>>>the Struts developers have abandoned the 1.x codebase decided to base
>>>>>>"Struts Action 2" on the Webwork codebase.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I can't comment
>>>>>>>on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
>>>>>>>experiments first.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
>>>>>>Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically
>>
>>better.
>>
>>>>>>If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the
>>
>>position
>>
>>>>>>of being more catholic than the pope.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jonathan Revusky
>>>>>>--
>>>>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
>>>>>>>The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs
>>>>
>>>>Kerry
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Niall Pemberton wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>>>>>>>From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
>>>>>>>>>Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a
>>
>>legitimate,
>>
>>>>>>>>>>well-formulated question.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
>>>>>>>>>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question
>>>>
>>>>really
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and
>>>>
>>>>offered one
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>perspective) in an earlier thread:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole
>>
>>story
>>
>>>>-
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were
>>
>>a
>>
>>>>>>>>>volunteer effort as well.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was
>>>>
>>>>an
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>all-volunteer effort and so on.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these
>>
>>22
>>
>>>>>>>>people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>but levels of activity vary
>>>>>>>>>widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to
>>>>
>>>>drive a
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no
>>
>>longer
>>
>>>>have an
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons.
>>>>
>>>>People such
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see
>>>>
>>>>that as
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>the future for web development and that is where they now
>>
>>concentrate
>>
>>>>their
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was
>>
>>a
>>
>>>>>>>>complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit
>>>>
>>>>assumption
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
>>>>>>>>complete rewrite?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>and had the
>>>>>>>>>offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be
>>>>
>>>>seeing the
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing
>>
>>"stagnation"
>>
>>>>at
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for
>>
>>a
>>
>>>>while
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So
>>
>>I
>>
>>>>guess
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new
>>>>
>>>>talented
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I
>>>>
>>>>don't
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
>>>>>>>>>framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that
>>>>
>>>>is
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and
>>
>>some
>>
>>>>of it I
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a
>>
>>brand
>>
>>>>new
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility.
>>>>
>>>>Whether we
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never
>>>>
>>>>seem that
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like
>>
>>"Struts
>>
>>>>sucks
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it
>>>>
>>>>better".
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at
>>>>
>>>>existing ones
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people"
>>>>
>>>>question
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people
>>
>>knocking
>>
>>>>at the
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I
>>>>
>>>>believe
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code,
>>>>
>>>>are
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user
>>
>>list),
>>
>>>>been
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people
>>
>>personally
>>
>>>>- then
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they
>>>>
>>>>should
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point -
>>
>>but
>>
>>>>besides
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I
>>
>>don't
>>
>>>>have an
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing
>>>>
>>>>their
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these
>>
>>people
>>
>>>>>>>>just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting.
>>>>
>>>>If
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had
>>>>
>>>>showed
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do
>>>>
>>>>so?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they
>>
>>do
>>
>>>>>>>>under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than
>>
>>it
>>
>>>>>>>>would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that
>>
>>the
>>
>>>>>>>>Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you
>>>>
>>>>aren't
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
>>>>>>>>collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone
>>
>>is
>>
>>>>a
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
>>>>>>>>starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing
>>>>
>>>>you
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>know, the guy is a collaborator.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
>>>>>>>>operate is rather odd.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>What I have noticed is that the communication with your user
>>
>>community
>>
>>>>>>>>is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users
>>
>>seem
>>
>>>>>>>>completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that
>>>>
>>>>Webwork
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am
>>
>>saying
>>
>>>>>>>>exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted
>>
>>that
>>
>>>>>>>>Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic
>>>>
>>>>than
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>the pope?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer.
>>
>>Somebody
>>
>>>>>>>>wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I
>>>>
>>>>have
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
>>>>>>>>Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are
>>
>>already
>>
>>>>>>>>saying.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
>>>>>>>>what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
>>>>>>>>abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
>>>>>>>>this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and
>>
>>I
>>
>>>>>>>>just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts
>>
>>Action
>>
>>>>2
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I
>>>>
>>>>don't
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>see threads like that, which means to me that you have not
>>>>
>>>>communicated
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
>>>>>>>>communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
>>>>>>>>power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it
>>>>
>>>>should.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100
>>>>
>>>>people
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot
>>
>>of
>>
>>>>>>>>active committers.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
>>>>>>>>more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think
>>>>
>>>>that
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
>>>>>>>>misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going
>>
>>on
>>
>>>>here.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
>>>>>>>>completely in circles.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>we've moved on to
>>>>>>>>>Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your
>>
>>users.
>>
>>>>>>>>I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your
>>
>>users,
>>
>>>>>>>>you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
>>>>>>>>cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
>>>>>>>>paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite
>>>>
>>>>odd.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Clearly there are
>>>>>>>>>quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot
>>
>>that
>>
>>>>will
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project
>>>>
>>>>has an
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>offering that supports this".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility
>>
>>layer
>>
>>>>>>>>or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
>>>>>>>>"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I
>>
>>mean,
>>
>>>>>>>>it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either
>>
>>way
>>
>>>>>>>>and existing apps would need to be refactored.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we
>>
>>now
>>
>>>>have two
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or
>>>>
>>>>action
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about
>>
>>the
>>
>>>>>>>>>WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but
>>
>>also
>>
>>>>the
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>talented new blood thats coming into the project.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better
>>>>
>>>>project,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of
>>>>
>>>>innovation
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should
>>>>
>>>>just
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is
>>>>
>>>>going
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an
>>>>
>>>>academic
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list
>>>>
>>>>get back
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>to helping and answering user questions - which is its main
>>
>>purpose?
>>
>>>>>>>>Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign
>>
>>that
>>
>>>>>>>>the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to
>>>>
>>>>the
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>presence of this thread.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about
>>>>
>>>>this.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and
>>>>
>>>>said
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk
>>
>>about
>>
>>>>it
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
>>>>>>>>back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
>>>>>>>>taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express
>>>>
>>>>now?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list
>>
>>has
>>
>>>>>>>>to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
>>>>>>>>technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Jonathan Revusky
>>>>>>>>--
>>>>>>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Niall
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>>>>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>--
>>>>>>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>http://www.multitask.com.au/people/dion/
>>>Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is
>>
>>afraid
>>
>>>of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris
>>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> http://www.multitask.com.au/people/dion/
> Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid
> of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris
> 


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Dion Gillard <di...@gmail.com>]

On 3/30/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>
> Dion Gillard wrote:
> > Jonathan,
> >
> > do you have a list of things that are technically wrong with Struts 1.x?
>
> Dion, there is a Struts/Webwork merger afoot whereby the Webwork
> codebase is being donated to ASF to be the basis of the next version of
> Struts, Struts Action Framework 2 or whatever.


Yep, already know that.

The fact that the Webwork codebase is being used as the basis of the
> next version of the framework by the Struts people rather than Struts
> itself basically leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the Struts
> developers themselves consider Webwork to be better technology.


Not necessarily. There may be many reasons. And as I understand it, the
'next version of the framework by the Struts people' could also be
considered Apache Struts Shale. Quoting Ted H: "The reason Shale is not
Struts 2.x is because there was so much concern about doing things better,
that we ended up with no easy way to pour our old wine into the new bottle.
Many of us can't afford to recode the many large and mature Struts
applications now in production. There has to be a clear and simple way to
get there from here."

It's also quite possible that it is easier to use Don's work with Struts Ti,
and combine WebWork than it is to make the same sorts of changes to Struts
1.x. Why reinvent the wheel?

Also, based on your reasoning, the Webwork developers themselves must
consider Struts a more widely adopted, better marketed technology, with far
more developer acceptance and corporate penetration.

As far as the exact technicalities, I can only do what you can do, which
> is look in google for discussions about this. A google search on:
>
> struts webwork comparisons
>
> yields a lot of hits, but the first result is this one:
>
> http://wiki.opensymphony.com/display/WW/Comparison+to+Struts
>
> Obviously, not totally objective, since it is by the WW people, but
> probably factual enough. You get various blog entries and you can ask
> these people, who surely know a lot more than I do.
>
> The truth is out there (somewhere).


Truth being subjective opinion, yes.

"Is WebWork better' technology?" is a subjective question with people on
both sides of the fence.

What the merger brings us as users is the ability to pick up some of the
better features of WebWork without necessarily taking the hit/cost of
'switching'. There's been much talk about bridging SAF1 and 2, and I expect
with such a huge install base, this will be a big deal to the Struts
developers.

I hope that helps.
>
> Jonathan Revusky
> --
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>
>
> >
> > On 3/30/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >
> >>Vinny wrote:
> >>
> >>>There have been many time in history when an individual
> >>>catholic _has_ been more catholic than the Pope.
> >>>I am simply giving my opinion.
> >>
> >>Well, that's true, I guess. You've got a point there, Vinny.
> >>
> >>So, yeah, feel free. Be more catholic than the pope. Keep maintaining
> >>that Struts 1.x is great stuff after the Struts developers themselves
> >>have abandoned it in favor of Webwork.
> >>
> >>Jonathan Revusky
> >>--
> >>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Vinny wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
> >>>>>When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
> >>>>>"struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
> >>>>>yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,
> >>>>
> >>>>That's a different question entirely. The question posed up top here
> in
> >>>>the subject line is: "Why did Struts development stagnate?"
> >>>>
> >>>>Actually, you could append to that question, given this above data --
> >>>>"Why did Struts development stagnate -- *despite* having such a huge
> >>>>user community and so on and so forth.... as documented above...."
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>I don't think that is even debatable.
> >>>>
> >>>>Well, I don't either. That's why that is not the subject of the
> debate.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Now if we want to talk about
> >>>>>technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point.
> >>>>
> >>>>It was about technical prowess. "Struts development" -- the fact that
> >>>>the Struts developers have abandoned the 1.x codebase decided to base
> >>>>"Struts Action 2" on the Webwork codebase.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>I can't comment
> >>>>>on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
> >>>>>experiments first.
> >>>>
> >>>>Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
> >>>>Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically
> better.
> >>>>If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the
> position
> >>>>of being more catholic than the pope.
> >>>>
> >>>>Jonathan Revusky
> >>>>--
> >>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
> >>>>>The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs
> >>
> >>Kerry
> >>
> >>>>>debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>Niall Pemberton wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>----- Original Message -----
> >>>>>>>From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
> >>>>>>>Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a
> legitimate,
> >>>>>>>>well-formulated question.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> >>>>>>>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question
> >>
> >>really
> >>
> >>>>>>>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and
> >>
> >>offered one
> >>
> >>>>>>>perspective) in an earlier thread:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole
> story
> >>
> >>-
> >>
> >>>>>>>clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were
> a
> >>>>>>>volunteer effort as well.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was
> >>
> >>an
> >>
> >>>>>>all-volunteer effort and so on.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these
> 22
> >>>>>>people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>but levels of activity vary
> >>>>>>>widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to
> >>
> >>drive a
> >>
> >>>>>>>project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no
> longer
> >>
> >>have an
> >>
> >>>>>>>interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons.
> >>
> >>People such
> >>
> >>>>>>>as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see
> >>
> >>that as
> >>
> >>>>>>>the future for web development and that is where they now
> concentrate
> >>
> >>their
> >>
> >>>>>>>effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was
> a
> >>>>>>complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit
> >>
> >>assumption
> >>
> >>>>>>there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
> >>>>>>complete rewrite?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>and had the
> >>>>>>>offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be
> >>
> >>seeing the
> >>
> >>>>>>>fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing
> "stagnation"
> >>
> >>at
> >>
> >>>>>>>this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for
> a
> >>
> >>while
> >>
> >>>>>>>which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So
> I
> >>
> >>guess
> >>
> >>>>>>>this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new
> >>
> >>talented
> >>
> >>>>>>>people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I
> >>
> >>don't
> >>
> >>>>>>>know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
> >>>>>>>framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that
> >>
> >>is
> >>
> >>>>>>>certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and
> some
> >>
> >>of it I
> >>
> >>>>>>>believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a
> brand
> >>
> >>new
> >>
> >>>>>>>shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility.
> >>
> >>Whether we
> >>
> >>>>>>>as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never
> >>
> >>seem that
> >>
> >>>>>>>proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like
> "Struts
> >>
> >>sucks
> >>
> >>>>>>>because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it
> >>
> >>better".
> >>
> >>>>>>>Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at
> >>
> >>existing ones
> >>
> >>>>>>>and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people"
> >>
> >>question
> >>
> >>>>>>>though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people
> knocking
> >>
> >>at the
> >>
> >>>>>>>door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I
> >>
> >>believe
> >>
> >>>>>>>its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code,
> >>
> >>are
> >>
> >>>>>>>helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user
> list),
> >>
> >>been
> >>
> >>>>>>>around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people
> personally
> >>
> >>- then
> >>
> >>>>>>>you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they
> >>
> >>should
> >>
> >>>>>>>have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point -
> but
> >>
> >>besides
> >>
> >>>>>>>them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I
> don't
> >>
> >>have an
> >>
> >>>>>>>explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing
> >>
> >>their
> >>
> >>>>>>own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these
> people
> >>>>>>just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting.
> >>
> >>If
> >>
> >>>>>>somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had
> >>
> >>showed
> >>
> >>>>>>up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do
> >>
> >>so?
> >>
> >>>>>>After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they
> do
> >>>>>>under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than
> it
> >>>>>>would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that
> the
> >>>>>>Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you
> >>
> >>aren't
> >>
> >>>>>>attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
> >>>>>>collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone
> is
> >>
> >>a
> >>
> >>>>>>"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
> >>>>>>starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing
> >>
> >>you
> >>
> >>>>>>know, the guy is a collaborator.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
> >>>>>>operate is rather odd.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>What I have noticed is that the communication with your user
> community
> >>>>>>is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users
> seem
> >>>>>>completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that
> >>
> >>Webwork
> >>
> >>>>>>is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am
> saying
> >>>>>>exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted
> that
> >>>>>>Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic
> >>
> >>than
> >>
> >>>>>>the pope?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer.
> Somebody
> >>>>>>wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I
> >>
> >>have
> >>
> >>>>>>nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
> >>>>>>Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are
> already
> >>>>>>saying.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
> >>>>>>what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
> >>>>>>abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
> >>>>>>this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and
> I
> >>>>>>just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts
> Action
> >>
> >>2
> >>
> >>>>>>and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I
> >>
> >>don't
> >>
> >>>>>>see threads like that, which means to me that you have not
> >>
> >>communicated
> >>
> >>>>>>to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
> >>>>>>communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
> >>>>>>power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it
> >>
> >>should.
> >>
> >>>>>>And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100
> >>
> >>people
> >>
> >>>>>>eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot
> of
> >>>>>>active committers.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
> >>>>>>more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think
> >>
> >>that
> >>
> >>>>>>it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
> >>>>>>misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going
> on
> >>
> >>here.
> >>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
> >>>>>>completely in circles.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>we've moved on to
> >>>>>>>Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your
> users.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your
> users,
> >>>>>>you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
> >>>>>>cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
> >>>>>>paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite
> >>
> >>odd.
> >>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>Clearly there are
> >>>>>>>quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot
> that
> >>
> >>will
> >>
> >>>>>>>say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project
> >>
> >>has an
> >>
> >>>>>>>offering that supports this".
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility
> layer
> >>>>>>or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
> >>>>>>"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I
> mean,
> >>>>>>it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either
> way
> >>>>>>and existing apps would need to be refactored.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we
> now
> >>
> >>have two
> >>
> >>>>>>>offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or
> >>
> >>action
> >>
> >>>>>>>orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about
> the
> >>>>>>>WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but
> also
> >>
> >>the
> >>
> >>>>>>>talented new blood thats coming into the project.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better
> >>
> >>project,
> >>
> >>>>>>you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of
> >>
> >>innovation
> >>
> >>>>>>and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should
> >>
> >>just
> >>
> >>>>>>step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is
> >>
> >>going
> >>
> >>>>>>to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an
> >>
> >>academic
> >>
> >>>>>>question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list
> >>
> >>get back
> >>
> >>>>>>>to helping and answering user questions - which is its main
> purpose?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign
> that
> >>>>>>the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to
> >>
> >>the
> >>
> >>>>>>presence of this thread.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about
> >>
> >>this.
> >>
> >>>>>>You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and
> >>
> >>said
> >>
> >>>>>>the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk
> about
> >>
> >>it
> >>
> >>>>>>any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
> >>>>>>back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
> >>>>>>taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express
> >>
> >>now?
> >>
> >>>>>>Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list
> has
> >>>>>>to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
> >>>>>>technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Jonathan Revusky
> >>>>>>--
> >>>>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>Niall
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
>
> >>>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> >>>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>--
> >>>>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> >>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>--
> >>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
> >>
> >>
> >>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> >>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > http://www.multitask.com.au/people/dion/
> > Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is
> afraid
> > of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris
> >
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>
>


--
http://www.multitask.com.au/people/dion/
Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid
of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Dion Gillard wrote:
> Jonathan,
> 
> do you have a list of things that are technically wrong with Struts 1.x?

Dion, there is a Struts/Webwork merger afoot whereby the Webwork 
codebase is being donated to ASF to be the basis of the next version of 
Struts, Struts Action Framework 2 or whatever.

The fact that the Webwork codebase is being used as the basis of the 
next version of the framework by the Struts people rather than Struts 
itself basically leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the Struts 
developers themselves consider Webwork to be better technology.

As far as the exact technicalities, I can only do what you can do, which 
is look in google for discussions about this. A google search on:

struts webwork comparisons

yields a lot of hits, but the first result is this one:

http://wiki.opensymphony.com/display/WW/Comparison+to+Struts

Obviously, not totally objective, since it is by the WW people, but 
probably factual enough. You get various blog entries and you can ask 
these people, who surely know a lot more than I do.

The truth is out there (somewhere).

I hope that helps.

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/


> 
> On 3/30/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
>>Vinny wrote:
>>
>>>There have been many time in history when an individual
>>>catholic _has_ been more catholic than the Pope.
>>>I am simply giving my opinion.
>>
>>Well, that's true, I guess. You've got a point there, Vinny.
>>
>>So, yeah, feel free. Be more catholic than the pope. Keep maintaining
>>that Struts 1.x is great stuff after the Struts developers themselves
>>have abandoned it in favor of Webwork.
>>
>>Jonathan Revusky
>>--
>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Vinny wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
>>>>>When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
>>>>>"struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
>>>>>yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,
>>>>
>>>>That's a different question entirely. The question posed up top here in
>>>>the subject line is: "Why did Struts development stagnate?"
>>>>
>>>>Actually, you could append to that question, given this above data --
>>>>"Why did Struts development stagnate -- *despite* having such a huge
>>>>user community and so on and so forth.... as documented above...."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I don't think that is even debatable.
>>>>
>>>>Well, I don't either. That's why that is not the subject of the debate.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Now if we want to talk about
>>>>>technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point.
>>>>
>>>>It was about technical prowess. "Struts development" -- the fact that
>>>>the Struts developers have abandoned the 1.x codebase decided to base
>>>>"Struts Action 2" on the Webwork codebase.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I can't comment
>>>>>on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
>>>>>experiments first.
>>>>
>>>>Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
>>>>Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically better.
>>>>If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the position
>>>>of being more catholic than the pope.
>>>>
>>>>Jonathan Revusky
>>>>--
>>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
>>>>>The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs
>>
>>Kerry
>>
>>>>>debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
>>>>>
>>>>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Niall Pemberton wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>>>>>From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
>>>>>>>Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
>>>>>>>>well-formulated question.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
>>>>>>>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question
>>
>>really
>>
>>>>>>>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and
>>
>>offered one
>>
>>>>>>>perspective) in an earlier thread:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story
>>
>>-
>>
>>>>>>>clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
>>>>>>>volunteer effort as well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was
>>
>>an
>>
>>>>>>all-volunteer effort and so on.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22
>>>>>>people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>but levels of activity vary
>>>>>>>widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to
>>
>>drive a
>>
>>>>>>>project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer
>>
>>have an
>>
>>>>>>>interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons.
>>
>>People such
>>
>>>>>>>as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see
>>
>>that as
>>
>>>>>>>the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate
>>
>>their
>>
>>>>>>>effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a
>>>>>>complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit
>>
>>assumption
>>
>>>>>>there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
>>>>>>complete rewrite?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>and had the
>>>>>>>offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be
>>
>>seeing the
>>
>>>>>>>fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation"
>>
>>at
>>
>>>>>>>this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a
>>
>>while
>>
>>>>>>>which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I
>>
>>guess
>>
>>>>>>>this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new
>>
>>talented
>>
>>>>>>>people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I
>>
>>don't
>>
>>>>>>>know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
>>>>>>>framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that
>>
>>is
>>
>>>>>>>certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some
>>
>>of it I
>>
>>>>>>>believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand
>>
>>new
>>
>>>>>>>shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility.
>>
>>Whether we
>>
>>>>>>>as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never
>>
>>seem that
>>
>>>>>>>proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts
>>
>>sucks
>>
>>>>>>>because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it
>>
>>better".
>>
>>>>>>>Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at
>>
>>existing ones
>>
>>>>>>>and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people"
>>
>>question
>>
>>>>>>>though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking
>>
>>at the
>>
>>>>>>>door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I
>>
>>believe
>>
>>>>>>>its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code,
>>
>>are
>>
>>>>>>>helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list),
>>
>>been
>>
>>>>>>>around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally
>>
>>- then
>>
>>>>>>>you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they
>>
>>should
>>
>>>>>>>have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but
>>
>>besides
>>
>>>>>>>them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't
>>
>>have an
>>
>>>>>>>explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing
>>
>>their
>>
>>>>>>own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people
>>>>>>just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting.
>>
>>If
>>
>>>>>>somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had
>>
>>showed
>>
>>>>>>up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do
>>
>>so?
>>
>>>>>>After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do
>>>>>>under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it
>>>>>>would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the
>>>>>>Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you
>>
>>aren't
>>
>>>>>>attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
>>>>>>collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is
>>
>>a
>>
>>>>>>"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
>>>>>>starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing
>>
>>you
>>
>>>>>>know, the guy is a collaborator.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
>>>>>>operate is rather odd.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community
>>>>>>is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem
>>>>>>completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that
>>
>>Webwork
>>
>>>>>>is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying
>>>>>>exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that
>>>>>>Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic
>>
>>than
>>
>>>>>>the pope?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody
>>>>>>wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I
>>
>>have
>>
>>>>>>nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
>>>>>>Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already
>>>>>>saying.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
>>>>>>what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
>>>>>>abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
>>>>>>this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I
>>>>>>just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action
>>
>>2
>>
>>>>>>and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I
>>
>>don't
>>
>>>>>>see threads like that, which means to me that you have not
>>
>>communicated
>>
>>>>>>to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
>>>>>>communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
>>>>>>power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it
>>
>>should.
>>
>>>>>>And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100
>>
>>people
>>
>>>>>>eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of
>>>>>>active committers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
>>>>>>more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think
>>
>>that
>>
>>>>>>it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
>>>>>>misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on
>>
>>here.
>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
>>>>>>completely in circles.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>we've moved on to
>>>>>>>Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users,
>>>>>>you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
>>>>>>cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
>>>>>>paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite
>>
>>odd.
>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Clearly there are
>>>>>>>quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that
>>
>>will
>>
>>>>>>>say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project
>>
>>has an
>>
>>>>>>>offering that supports this".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer
>>>>>>or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
>>>>>>"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean,
>>>>>>it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way
>>>>>>and existing apps would need to be refactored.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now
>>
>>have two
>>
>>>>>>>offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or
>>
>>action
>>
>>>>>>>orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
>>>>>>>WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also
>>
>>the
>>
>>>>>>>talented new blood thats coming into the project.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better
>>
>>project,
>>
>>>>>>you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of
>>
>>innovation
>>
>>>>>>and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should
>>
>>just
>>
>>>>>>step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is
>>
>>going
>>
>>>>>>to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an
>>
>>academic
>>
>>>>>>question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list
>>
>>get back
>>
>>>>>>>to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that
>>>>>>the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to
>>
>>the
>>
>>>>>>presence of this thread.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about
>>
>>this.
>>
>>>>>>You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and
>>
>>said
>>
>>>>>>the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about
>>
>>it
>>
>>>>>>any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
>>>>>>back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
>>>>>>taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express
>>
>>now?
>>
>>>>>>Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has
>>>>>>to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
>>>>>>technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jonathan Revusky
>>>>>>--
>>>>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Niall
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> http://www.multitask.com.au/people/dion/
> Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid
> of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris
> 


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Dion Gillard <di...@gmail.com>]

Jonathan,

do you have a list of things that are technically wrong with Struts 1.x?

On 3/30/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>
> Vinny wrote:
> > There have been many time in history when an individual
> > catholic _has_ been more catholic than the Pope.
> > I am simply giving my opinion.
>
> Well, that's true, I guess. You've got a point there, Vinny.
>
> So, yeah, feel free. Be more catholic than the pope. Keep maintaining
> that Struts 1.x is great stuff after the Struts developers themselves
> have abandoned it in favor of Webwork.
>
> Jonathan Revusky
> --
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >
> >>Vinny wrote:
> >>
> >>>I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
> >>>When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
> >>>"struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
> >>>yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,
> >>
> >>That's a different question entirely. The question posed up top here in
> >>the subject line is: "Why did Struts development stagnate?"
> >>
> >>Actually, you could append to that question, given this above data --
> >>"Why did Struts development stagnate -- *despite* having such a huge
> >>user community and so on and so forth.... as documented above...."
> >>
> >>
> >>>I don't think that is even debatable.
> >>
> >>Well, I don't either. That's why that is not the subject of the debate.
> >>
> >>
> >>>Now if we want to talk about
> >>>technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point.
> >>
> >>It was about technical prowess. "Struts development" -- the fact that
> >>the Struts developers have abandoned the 1.x codebase decided to base
> >>"Struts Action 2" on the Webwork codebase.
> >>
> >>
> >>>I can't comment
> >>>on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
> >>>experiments first.
> >>
> >>Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
> >>Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically better.
> >>If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the position
> >>of being more catholic than the pope.
> >>
> >>Jonathan Revusky
> >>--
> >>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> >>
> >>
> >>>To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
> >>>The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs
> Kerry
> >>>debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
> >>>
> >>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Niall Pemberton wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>----- Original Message -----
> >>>>>From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
> >>>>>Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
> >>>>>>well-formulated question.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> >>>>>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question
> really
> >>>>>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and
> offered one
> >>>>>perspective) in an earlier thread:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
> >>>>>
> >>>>>However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story
> -
> >>>>>clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
> >>>>>volunteer effort as well.
> >>>>
> >>>>Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was
> an
> >>>>all-volunteer effort and so on.
> >>>>
> >>>>This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
> >>>>
> >>>>Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22
> >>>>people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>but levels of activity vary
> >>>>>widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to
> drive a
> >>>>>project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer
> have an
> >>>>>interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons.
> People such
> >>>>>as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see
> that as
> >>>>>the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate
> their
> >>>>>effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
> >>>>
> >>>>Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a
> >>>>complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit
> assumption
> >>>>there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
> >>>>complete rewrite?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>and had the
> >>>>>offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be
> seeing the
> >>>>>fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation"
> at
> >>>>>this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a
> while
> >>>>>which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I
> guess
> >>>>>this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new
> talented
> >>>>>people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I
> don't
> >>>>>know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
> >>>>>framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that
> is
> >>>>>certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some
> of it I
> >>>>>believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand
> new
> >>>>>shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility.
> Whether we
> >>>>>as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never
> seem that
> >>>>>proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts
> sucks
> >>>>>because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it
> better".
> >>>>>Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at
> existing ones
> >>>>>and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people"
> question
> >>>>>though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking
> at the
> >>>>>door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I
> believe
> >>>>>its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code,
> are
> >>>>>helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list),
> been
> >>>>>around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally
> - then
> >>>>>you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they
> should
> >>>>>have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but
> besides
> >>>>>them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't
> have an
> >>>>>explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
> >>>>
> >>>>Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing
> their
> >>>>own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people
> >>>>just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting.
> If
> >>>>somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had
> showed
> >>>>up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do
> so?
> >>>>
> >>>>After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do
> >>>>under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it
> >>>>would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the
> >>>>Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you
> aren't
> >>>>attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
> >>>>
> >>>>The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
> >>>>collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is
> a
> >>>>"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
> >>>>starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing
> you
> >>>>know, the guy is a collaborator.
> >>>>
> >>>>Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
> >>>>operate is rather odd.
> >>>>
> >>>>What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community
> >>>>is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem
> >>>>completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
> >>>>
> >>>>For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that
> Webwork
> >>>>is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying
> >>>>exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that
> >>>>Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic
> than
> >>>>the pope?
> >>>>
> >>>>Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody
> >>>>wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I
> have
> >>>>nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
> >>>>Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already
> >>>>saying.
> >>>>
> >>>>So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
> >>>>what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
> >>>>
> >>>>If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
> >>>>abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
> >>>>this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I
> >>>>just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action
> 2
> >>>>and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I
> don't
> >>>>see threads like that, which means to me that you have not
> communicated
> >>>>to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
> >>>>
> >>>>Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
> >>>>communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
> >>>>power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it
> should.
> >>>>And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
> >>>>
> >>>>Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100
> people
> >>>>eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of
> >>>>active committers.
> >>>>
> >>>>That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
> >>>>more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
> >>>>
> >>>>Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think
> that
> >>>>it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
> >>>>misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on
> here.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
> >>>>completely in circles.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>we've moved on to
> >>>>>Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
> >>>>
> >>>>Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.
> >>>>
> >>>>I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users,
> >>>>you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
> >>>>cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
> >>>>
> >>>>Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
> >>>>paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite
> odd.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Clearly there are
> >>>>>quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that
> will
> >>>>>say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project
> has an
> >>>>>offering that supports this".
> >>>>
> >>>>Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer
> >>>>or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
> >>>>"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean,
> >>>>it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way
> >>>>and existing apps would need to be refactored.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now
> have two
> >>>>>offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or
> action
> >>>>>orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
> >>>>>WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also
> the
> >>>>>talented new blood thats coming into the project.
> >>>>
> >>>>Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better
> project,
> >>>>you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of
> innovation
> >>>>and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should
> just
> >>>>step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
> >>>>
> >>>>If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is
> going
> >>>>to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an
> academic
> >>>>question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list
> get back
> >>>>>to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
> >>>>
> >>>>Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that
> >>>>the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to
> the
> >>>>presence of this thread.
> >>>>
> >>>>You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about
> this.
> >>>>You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and
> said
> >>>>the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about
> it
> >>>>any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
> >>>>back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
> >>>>
> >>>>Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
> >>>>taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express
> now?
> >>>>
> >>>>Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has
> >>>>to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
> >>>>technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
> >>>>
> >>>>Jonathan Revusky
> >>>>--
> >>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Niall
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> >>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>--
> >>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
> >>
> >>
> >>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> >>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>
>


--
http://www.multitask.com.au/people/dion/
Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid
of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Vinny wrote:
> There have been many time in history when an individual
> catholic _has_ been more catholic than the Pope.
> I am simply giving my opinion.

Well, that's true, I guess. You've got a point there, Vinny.

So, yeah, feel free. Be more catholic than the pope. Keep maintaining 
that Struts 1.x is great stuff after the Struts developers themselves 
have abandoned it in favor of Webwork.

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/


> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
>>Vinny wrote:
>>
>>>I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
>>>When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
>>>"struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
>>>yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,
>>
>>That's a different question entirely. The question posed up top here in
>>the subject line is: "Why did Struts development stagnate?"
>>
>>Actually, you could append to that question, given this above data --
>>"Why did Struts development stagnate -- *despite* having such a huge
>>user community and so on and so forth.... as documented above...."
>>
>>
>>>I don't think that is even debatable.
>>
>>Well, I don't either. That's why that is not the subject of the debate.
>>
>>
>>>Now if we want to talk about
>>>technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point.
>>
>>It was about technical prowess. "Struts development" -- the fact that
>>the Struts developers have abandoned the 1.x codebase decided to base
>>"Struts Action 2" on the Webwork codebase.
>>
>>
>>>I can't comment
>>>on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
>>>experiments first.
>>
>>Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
>>Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically better.
>>If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the position
>>of being more catholic than the pope.
>>
>>Jonathan Revusky
>>--
>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>
>>
>>>To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
>>>The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs Kerry
>>>debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
>>>
>>>On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Niall Pemberton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>>>From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
>>>>>Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
>>>>>>well-formulated question.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
>>>>>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
>>>>>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one
>>>>>perspective) in an earlier thread:
>>>>>
>>>>>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
>>>>>
>>>>>However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
>>>>>clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
>>>>>volunteer effort as well.
>>>>
>>>>Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was an
>>>>all-volunteer effort and so on.
>>>>
>>>>This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
>>>>
>>>>Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22
>>>>people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>but levels of activity vary
>>>>>widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive a
>>>>>project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have an
>>>>>interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People such
>>>>>as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as
>>>>>the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate their
>>>>>effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
>>>>
>>>>Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a
>>>>complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit assumption
>>>>there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
>>>>complete rewrite?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>and had the
>>>>>offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing the
>>>>>fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
>>>>>this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while
>>>>>which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess
>>>>>this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
>>>>>people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
>>>>>know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
>>>>>framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
>>>>>certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it I
>>>>>believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
>>>>>shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether we
>>>>>as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem that
>>>>>proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks
>>>>>because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
>>>>>Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing ones
>>>>>and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
>>>>>though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at the
>>>>>door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I believe
>>>>>its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
>>>>>helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been
>>>>>around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally - then
>>>>>you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
>>>>>have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but besides
>>>>>them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have an
>>>>>explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
>>>>
>>>>Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing their
>>>>own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people
>>>>just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting. If
>>>>somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had showed
>>>>up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do so?
>>>>
>>>>After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do
>>>>under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it
>>>>would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the
>>>>Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you aren't
>>>>attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
>>>>
>>>>The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
>>>>collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is a
>>>>"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
>>>>starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing you
>>>>know, the guy is a collaborator.
>>>>
>>>>Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
>>>>operate is rather odd.
>>>>
>>>>What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community
>>>>is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem
>>>>completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
>>>>
>>>>For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that Webwork
>>>>is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying
>>>>exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that
>>>>Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic than
>>>>the pope?
>>>>
>>>>Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody
>>>>wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I have
>>>>nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
>>>>Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already
>>>>saying.
>>>>
>>>>So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
>>>>what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
>>>>
>>>>If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
>>>>abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
>>>>this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I
>>>>just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action 2
>>>>and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I don't
>>>>see threads like that, which means to me that you have not communicated
>>>>to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
>>>>
>>>>Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
>>>>communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
>>>>power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it should.
>>>>And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
>>>>
>>>>Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100 people
>>>>eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of
>>>>active committers.
>>>>
>>>>That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
>>>>more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
>>>>
>>>>Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think that
>>>>it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
>>>>misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on here.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
>>>>completely in circles.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>we've moved on to
>>>>>Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
>>>>
>>>>Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.
>>>>
>>>>I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users,
>>>>you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
>>>>cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
>>>>
>>>>Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
>>>>paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite odd.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Clearly there are
>>>>>quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will
>>>>>say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an
>>>>>offering that supports this".
>>>>
>>>>Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer
>>>>or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
>>>>"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean,
>>>>it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way
>>>>and existing apps would need to be refactored.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now have two
>>>>>offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
>>>>>orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
>>>>>WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the
>>>>>talented new blood thats coming into the project.
>>>>
>>>>Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better project,
>>>>you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of innovation
>>>>and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should just
>>>>step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
>>>>
>>>>If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is going
>>>>to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an academic
>>>>question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get back
>>>>>to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
>>>>
>>>>Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that
>>>>the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to the
>>>>presence of this thread.
>>>>
>>>>You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about this.
>>>>You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and said
>>>>the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about it
>>>>any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
>>>>back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
>>>>
>>>>Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
>>>>taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express now?
>>>>
>>>>Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has
>>>>to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
>>>>technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
>>>>
>>>>Jonathan Revusky
>>>>--
>>>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Niall
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Vinny <xa...@gmail.com>]

There have been many time in history when an individual
catholic _has_ been more catholic than the Pope.
I am simply giving my opinion.




On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> Vinny wrote:
> > I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
> > When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
> > "struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
> > yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,
>
> That's a different question entirely. The question posed up top here in
> the subject line is: "Why did Struts development stagnate?"
>
> Actually, you could append to that question, given this above data --
> "Why did Struts development stagnate -- *despite* having such a huge
> user community and so on and so forth.... as documented above...."
>
> > I don't think that is even debatable.
>
> Well, I don't either. That's why that is not the subject of the debate.
>
> > Now if we want to talk about
> > technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point.
>
> It was about technical prowess. "Struts development" -- the fact that
> the Struts developers have abandoned the 1.x codebase decided to base
> "Struts Action 2" on the Webwork codebase.
>
> > I can't comment
> > on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
> > experiments first.
>
> Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base
> Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically better.
> If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the position
> of being more catholic than the pope.
>
> Jonathan Revusky
> --
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>
> > To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
> > The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs Kerry
> > debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
> >
> > On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> >
> >>Niall Pemberton wrote:
> >>
> >>>----- Original Message -----
> >>>From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
> >>>Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
> >>>>well-formulated question.
> >>>>
> >>>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> >>>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
> >>>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one
> >>>perspective) in an earlier thread:
> >>>
> >>>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
> >>>
> >>>However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
> >>>clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
> >>>volunteer effort as well.
> >>
> >>Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was an
> >>all-volunteer effort and so on.
> >>
> >>This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
> >>
> >>
> >>>We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
> >>
> >>Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22
> >>people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
> >>
> >>
> >>>but levels of activity vary
> >>>widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive a
> >>>project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have an
> >>>interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People such
> >>>as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as
> >>>the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate their
> >>>effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
> >>
> >>Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a
> >>complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit assumption
> >>there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
> >>complete rewrite?
> >>
> >>
> >>>and had the
> >>>offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing the
> >>>fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
> >>>this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while
> >>>which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess
> >>>this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
> >>>people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
> >>>know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
> >>>framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
> >>>certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it I
> >>>believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
> >>>shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether we
> >>>as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem that
> >>>proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks
> >>>because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
> >>>Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing ones
> >>>and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
> >>>though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at the
> >>>door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I believe
> >>>its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
> >>>helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been
> >>>around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally - then
> >>>you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
> >>>have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but besides
> >>>them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have an
> >>>explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
> >>
> >>Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing their
> >>own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people
> >>just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting. If
> >>somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had showed
> >>up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do so?
> >>
> >>After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do
> >>under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it
> >>would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the
> >>Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you aren't
> >>attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
> >>
> >>The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
> >>collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is a
> >>"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
> >>starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing you
> >>know, the guy is a collaborator.
> >>
> >>Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
> >>operate is rather odd.
> >>
> >>What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community
> >>is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem
> >>completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
> >>
> >>For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that Webwork
> >>is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying
> >>exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that
> >>Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic than
> >>the pope?
> >>
> >>Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody
> >>wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I have
> >>nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
> >>Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already
> >>saying.
> >>
> >>So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
> >>what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
> >>
> >>If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
> >>abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
> >>this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I
> >>just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action 2
> >>and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I don't
> >>see threads like that, which means to me that you have not communicated
> >>to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
> >>
> >>Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
> >>communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
> >>power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it should.
> >>And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
> >>
> >>Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100 people
> >>eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of
> >>active committers.
> >>
> >>That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
> >>more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
> >>
> >>Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think that
> >>it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
> >>misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on here.
> >>
> >>
> >>>Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
> >>
> >>
> >>Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
> >>completely in circles.
> >>
> >>
> >>>we've moved on to
> >>>Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
> >>
> >>Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.
> >>
> >>I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users,
> >>you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
> >>cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
> >>
> >>Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
> >>paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite odd.
> >>
> >>
> >>>Clearly there are
> >>>quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will
> >>>say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an
> >>>offering that supports this".
> >>
> >>Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer
> >>or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
> >>"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean,
> >>it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way
> >>and existing apps would need to be refactored.
> >>
> >>
> >>>At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now have two
> >>>offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
> >>>orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
> >>>WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the
> >>>talented new blood thats coming into the project.
> >>
> >>Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better project,
> >>you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of innovation
> >>and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should just
> >>step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
> >>
> >>If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is going
> >>to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an academic
> >>question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get back
> >>>to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
> >>
> >>Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that
> >>the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to the
> >>presence of this thread.
> >>
> >>You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about this.
> >>You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and said
> >>the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about it
> >>any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
> >>back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
> >>
> >>Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
> >>taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express now?
> >>
> >>Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has
> >>to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
> >>technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
> >>
> >>Jonathan Revusky
> >>--
> >>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> >>
> >>
> >>>Niall
> >>
> >>
> >>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> >>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>
>


--
Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Vinny wrote:
> I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
> When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
> "struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
> yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,

That's a different question entirely. The question posed up top here in 
the subject line is: "Why did Struts development stagnate?"

Actually, you could append to that question, given this above data -- 
"Why did Struts development stagnate -- *despite* having such a huge 
user community and so on and so forth.... as documented above...."

> I don't think that is even debatable.

Well, I don't either. That's why that is not the subject of the debate.

> Now if we want to talk about
> technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point. 

It was about technical prowess. "Struts development" -- the fact that 
the Struts developers have abandoned the 1.x codebase decided to base 
"Struts Action 2" on the Webwork codebase.

> I can't comment
> on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
> experiments first.

Well, look, Vinny, if the Struts developers themselves prefer to base 
Struts 2 on Webwork, they are saying that Webwork is technically better. 
If you want to defend Struts 1.x after that, then you're in the position 
of being more catholic than the pope.

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/

> To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
> The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs Kerry
> debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.
> 
> On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
>>Niall Pemberton wrote:
>>
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
>>>Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
>>>>well-formulated question.
>>>>
>>>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
>>>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
>>>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one
>>>perspective) in an earlier thread:
>>>
>>>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
>>>
>>>However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
>>>clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
>>>volunteer effort as well.
>>
>>Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was an
>>all-volunteer effort and so on.
>>
>>This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
>>
>>
>>>We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
>>
>>Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22
>>people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
>>
>>
>>>but levels of activity vary
>>>widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive a
>>>project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have an
>>>interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People such
>>>as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as
>>>the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate their
>>>effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
>>
>>Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a
>>complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit assumption
>>there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
>>complete rewrite?
>>
>>
>>>and had the
>>>offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing the
>>>fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
>>>this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while
>>>which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess
>>>this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
>>>people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
>>>know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
>>>framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
>>>certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it I
>>>believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
>>>shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether we
>>>as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem that
>>>proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks
>>>because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
>>>Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing ones
>>>and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
>>>though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at the
>>>door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I believe
>>>its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
>>>helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been
>>>around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally - then
>>>you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
>>>have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but besides
>>>them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have an
>>>explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
>>
>>Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing their
>>own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people
>>just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting. If
>>somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had showed
>>up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do so?
>>
>>After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do
>>under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it
>>would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the
>>Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you aren't
>>attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
>>
>>The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
>>collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is a
>>"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
>>starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing you
>>know, the guy is a collaborator.
>>
>>Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
>>operate is rather odd.
>>
>>What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community
>>is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem
>>completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
>>
>>For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that Webwork
>>is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying
>>exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that
>>Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic than
>>the pope?
>>
>>Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody
>>wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I have
>>nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
>>Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already
>>saying.
>>
>>So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
>>what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
>>
>>If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
>>abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
>>this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I
>>just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action 2
>>and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I don't
>>see threads like that, which means to me that you have not communicated
>>to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
>>
>>Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
>>communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
>>power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it should.
>>And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
>>
>>Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100 people
>>eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of
>>active committers.
>>
>>That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
>>more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
>>
>>Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think that
>>it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
>>misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on here.
>>
>>
>>>Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
>>
>>
>>Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
>>completely in circles.
>>
>>
>>>we've moved on to
>>>Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
>>
>>Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.
>>
>>I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users,
>>you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
>>cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
>>
>>Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
>>paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite odd.
>>
>>
>>>Clearly there are
>>>quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will
>>>say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an
>>>offering that supports this".
>>
>>Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer
>>or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
>>"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean,
>>it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way
>>and existing apps would need to be refactored.
>>
>>
>>>At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now have two
>>>offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
>>>orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
>>>WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the
>>>talented new blood thats coming into the project.
>>
>>Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better project,
>>you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of innovation
>>and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should just
>>step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
>>
>>If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is going
>>to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an academic
>>question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
>>
>>
>>
>>>So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get back
>>>to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
>>
>>Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that
>>the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to the
>>presence of this thread.
>>
>>You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about this.
>>You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and said
>>the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about it
>>any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
>>back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
>>
>>Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
>>taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express now?
>>
>>Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has
>>to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
>>technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
>>
>>Jonathan Revusky
>>--
>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>
>>
>>>Niall
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Vinny <xa...@gmail.com>]

I still say that struts 1.x has not "lost" to webwork.
When I do a quick unscientific search on monster.com for
"struts" I get over 1000 jobs listed. The same search for "webwork"
yields 22 jobs. Apparently struts "won" on the business front,
I don't think that is even debatable. Now if we want to talk about
technical prowess then maybe Jonathan might have a point. I can't comment
on it because like a good little scientist I'd like to do some
experiments first.
To me this seems like a nice merger that benefits both projects.
The betamax vs VHS , RISC vs CISC, frameworkC vs frameworkD, Bush vs Kerry
debates are  rapidly becoming background noise to me.

On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> Niall Pemberton wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
> > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
> >
> >
> >>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
> >>well-formulated question.
> >>
> >>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> >>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
> >>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
> >
> >
> >
> > The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one
> > perspective) in an earlier thread:
> >
> > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
> >
> > However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
> > clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
> > volunteer effort as well.
>
> Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was an
> all-volunteer effort and so on.
>
> This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
>
> >
> > We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
>
> Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22
> people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
>
> > but levels of activity vary
> > widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive a
> > project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have an
> > interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People such
> > as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as
> > the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate their
> > effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
>
> Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a
> complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit assumption
> there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
> complete rewrite?
>
> > and had the
> > offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing the
> > fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
> > this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while
> > which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess
> > this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
> > people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
> > know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
> > framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
> > certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it I
> > believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
> > shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether we
> > as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem that
> > proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks
> > because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
> > Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing ones
> > and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
> > though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at the
> > door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I believe
> > its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
> > helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been
> > around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally - then
> > you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
> > have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but besides
> > them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have an
> > explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
>
> Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing their
> own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people
> just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting. If
> somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had showed
> up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do so?
>
> After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do
> under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it
> would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the
> Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you aren't
> attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
>
> The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
> collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is a
> "power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
> starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing you
> know, the guy is a collaborator.
>
> Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
> operate is rather odd.
>
> What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community
> is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem
> completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
>
> For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that Webwork
> is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying
> exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that
> Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic than
> the pope?
>
> Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody
> wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I have
> nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
> Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already
> saying.
>
> So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
> what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
>
> If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
> abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
> this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I
> just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action 2
> and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I don't
> see threads like that, which means to me that you have not communicated
> to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
>
> Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
> communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
> power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it should.
> And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
>
> Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100 people
> eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of
> active committers.
>
> That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
> more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
>
> Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think that
> it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
> misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on here.
>
> >
> > Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
>
>
> Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
> completely in circles.
>
> > we've moved on to
> > Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
>
> Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.
>
> I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users,
> you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
> cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
>
> Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
> paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite odd.
>
> > Clearly there are
> > quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will
> > say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an
> > offering that supports this".
>
> Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer
> or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
> "Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean,
> it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way
> and existing apps would need to be refactored.
>
> >
> > At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now have two
> > offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
> > orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
> > WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the
> > talented new blood thats coming into the project.
>
> Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better project,
> you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of innovation
> and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should just
> step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
>
> If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is going
> to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an academic
> question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
>
>
> >
> > So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get back
> > to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
>
> Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that
> the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to the
> presence of this thread.
>
> You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about this.
> You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and said
> the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about it
> any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
> back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
>
> Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
> taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express now?
>
> Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has
> to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
> technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
>
> Jonathan Revusky
> --
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>
> >
> > Niall
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>
>


--
Ghetto Java: http://www.ghettojava.com

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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Srinivas Jadcharla <jd...@gmail.com>]

Jonathan Revusky is a Sick Man.Guys please don't respond to his posts.Jonathan
if you don't like struts don't use it ...Is any one commenting on your
framework(freemaker)??Its upto the people who manages the Struts Mailing
List to remove him from the List(or block him)


On 3/29/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>
> Niall Pemberton wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
> > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
> >
> >
> >>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
> >>well-formulated question.
> >>
> >>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> >>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
> >>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
> >
> >
> >
> > The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered
> one
> > perspective) in an earlier thread:
> >
> > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
> >
> > However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
> > clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
> > volunteer effort as well.
>
> Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was an
> all-volunteer effort and so on.
>
> This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.
>
> >
> > We currently have 22 committers on Struts -
>
> Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22
> people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.
>
> > but levels of activity vary
> > widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to
> drive a
> > project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer
> have an
> > interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People
> such
> > as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that
> as
> > the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate
> their
> > effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti
>
> Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a
> complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit assumption
> there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a
> complete rewrite?
>
> > and had the
> > offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing
> the
> > fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
> > this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a
> while
> > which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I
> guess
> > this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
> > people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
> > know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
> > framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
> > certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of
> it I
> > believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
> > shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility.
> Whether we
> > as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem
> that
> > proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts
> sucks
> > because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
> > Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing
> ones
> > and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
> > though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at
> the
> > door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I
> believe
> > its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
> > helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list),
> been
> > around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally -
> then
> > you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
> > have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but
> besides
> > them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't
> have an
> > explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.
>
> Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing their
> own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people
> just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting. If
> somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had showed
> up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do so?
>
> After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do
> under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it
> would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the
> Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you aren't
> attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?
>
> The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new
> collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is a
> "power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and
> starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing you
> know, the guy is a collaborator.
>
> Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't
> operate is rather odd.
>
> What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community
> is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem
> completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.
>
> For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that Webwork
> is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying
> exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that
> Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic than
> the pope?
>
> Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody
> wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I have
> nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say
> Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already
> saying.
>
> So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know
> what's going on. I see a real communications failure.
>
> If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being
> abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on
> this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I
> just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action 2
> and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I don't
> see threads like that, which means to me that you have not communicated
> to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.
>
> Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer
> communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain
> power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it should.
> And this would be a factor in the stagnation.
>
> Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100 people
> eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of
> active committers.
>
> That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a
> more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.
>
> Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think that
> it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a
> misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on
> here.
>
> >
> > Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated -
>
>
> Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around
> completely in circles.
>
> > we've moved on to
> > Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users.
>
> Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.
>
> I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users,
> you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale
> cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.
>
> Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different
> paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite odd.
>
> > Clearly there are
> > quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that
> will
> > say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has
> an
> > offering that supports this".
>
> Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer
> or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the
> "Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean,
> it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way
> and existing apps would need to be refactored.
>
> >
> > At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now
> have two
> > offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
> > orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
> > WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also
> the
> > talented new blood thats coming into the project.
>
> Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better project,
> you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of innovation
> and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should just
> step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.
>
> If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is going
> to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an academic
> question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.
>
>
> >
> > So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get
> back
> > to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?
>
> Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that
> the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to the
> presence of this thread.
>
> You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about this.
> You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and said
> the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about it
> any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my
> back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.
>
> Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't
> taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express now?
>
> Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has
> to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering
> technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?
>
> Jonathan Revusky
> --
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>
> >
> > Niall
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>
>


--
Thanks & Regards
Srinivas
732-648-9421(Cell)

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Niall Pemberton wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
> Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM
> 
> 
>>It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
>>well-formulated question.
>>
>>Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
>>off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
>>is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.
> 
> 
> 
> The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one
> perspective) in an earlier thread:
> 
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903
> 
> However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
> clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
> volunteer effort as well.

Yes, the bulk of your explanation there seemed to be that Struts was an 
all-volunteer effort and so on.

This could not possibly be why it fell behind Webwork.

> 
> We currently have 22 committers on Struts - 

Out of curiosity, what is your rough guess as to how many of these 22 
people committed any code in the last... year, let's say.

> but levels of activity vary
> widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive a
> project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have an
> interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People such
> as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as
> the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate their
> effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti 

Well, I was not aware of this. However, you mean that Struts TI was a 
complete rewrite of the framework? I mean, was there a tacit assumption 
there that Struts 1.x could not be evolved forward and required a 
complete rewrite?

> and had the
> offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing the
> fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
> this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while
> which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess
> this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
> people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
> know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
> framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
> certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it I
> believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
> shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether we
> as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem that
> proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks
> because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
> Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing ones
> and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
> though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at the
> door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I believe
> its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
> helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been
> around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally - then
> you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
> have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but besides
> them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have an
> explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.

Well, first of all, on the question of people going off and doing their 
own framework, you have to basically figure that some of these people 
just didn't think that they could apply their ideas in this setting. If 
somebody with a fire in their belly and some innovative ideas had showed 
up here and wanted to work on that, would they have been able to do so?

After all, the fact remains that everybody knows that any work they do 
under the ASF umbrella will get much more attention and usage than it 
would otherwise. This is the main (probably the only) reason that the 
Webwork people have come here. So, a priori, your saying that you aren't 
attracting collaborators is really quite odd, isn't it?

The thing is, Niall, that pretty much all the times you get a new 
collaborator, that person was first a user. Typically that someone is a 
"power user", and is pushing the limits of what the tool can do, and 
starts donating code to make the tool more powerful, and next thing you 
know, the guy is a collaborator.

Now, you've got a lot of users, so that this basic mechanism doesn't 
operate is rather odd.

What I have noticed is that the communication with your user community 
is rather poor. Basically, for all of it, the bulk of your users seem 
completely clued out as to what is going on with the Webwork merger.

For example, you get people flaming me because I am saying that Webwork 
is better than Struts. They say "stop bashing Struts". But I am saying 
exactly what the Struts developers are saying! They have accepted that 
Webwork is better than Struts! So am I supposed to be more catholic than 
the pope?

Also these people assume that I must be a Webwork developer. Somebody 
wrote a spoof of me in which I was praising Webwork to the skies! I have 
nothing to do with Webwork. I have never even used it. When I say 
Webwork is better, I am simply echoing what the Struts PMC are already 
saying.

So, I mean, some of this is just going on because people don't know 
what's going on. I see a real communications failure.

If people really knew that the current Struts 1.x codebase is being 
abandoned, you would think that there would be a lot more threads on 
this list about migration issues. "I've got this Struts 1.x App and I 
just was having a look at Webwork, which is going to be Struts Action 2 
and have various questions about how my app can be migrated...." I don't 
see threads like that, which means to me that you have not communicated 
to  your rank and file users what is really going on here.

Now, if there really is a problem in terms of user<->developer 
communication here, it would explain why the process whereby certain 
power users become collaborators is not happening as often as it should. 
And this would be a factor in the stagnation.

Certainly, given the size of the user community, even if 1 in 100 people 
eventually became committers via that process, you would have a lot of 
active committers.

That a community like webwork with far fewer users nonetheless has a 
more active, real developer team, is really something to look at.

Certainly, in earlier discussions, most people just seemed to think that 
it was really hard to become a commmitters. So if that is a 
misconception, it is a widely held one. There's something odd going on here.

> 
> Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated - 


Stop, Niall, stop. That's not an answer. :-) Let's not go around 
completely in circles.

> we've moved on to
> Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users. 

Well, if that is the case, you haven't communicated it to your users.

I grant that if you are going to communicate something to your users, 
you should probably have a consistent message. The Action/Shale 
cohabitation seems to almost preclude having a consistent message.

Anyway, JSF/Shale is just something completely different 
paradigmatically and the idea of that as "Struts 2" is really quite odd.

> Clearly there are
> quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will
> say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an
> offering that supports this".

Well, unless you are offering migration tools or a compatibility layer 
or something, how does it benefit your users that Shale is under the 
"Struts umbrella" any more than if it was a separate project? I mean, 
it's a paradigmatic shift that you have to get head around either way 
and existing apps would need to be refactored.

> 
> At the end of the day though this does seem academic,  - since we now have two
> offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
> orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
> WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the
> talented new blood thats coming into the project.

Well, if you accept that the Webwork people just ran the better project, 
you guys failed to keep Struts 1.x going at least in terms of innovation 
and development, then by that logic, the current Struts PMC should just 
step down probably and let the Webwork people run the show.

If the same PMC that presided over technical stagnation before is going 
to remain the managers of the project, then I think it isn't an academic 
question. You have to examine the mistakes you made before.


> 
> So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get back
> to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?

Niall, I don't know what you're talking about here. I see no sign that 
the list stopped helping people and answering their questions due to the 
presence of this thread.

You were giving some signs that you now were willing to talk about this. 
You've had a certain say about this now. You've stepped forward and said 
the topic is not taboo. Well, now you're saying, let's not talk about it 
any more, i.e. I broke the taboo temporarily to get this guy off my 
back, but nudge nudge, wink, wink, the topic really is taboo.

Okay, maybe that wasn't your intent, but if not, and the topic isn't 
taboo, how do you know other people don't have opinions to express now?

Again, the idea that this is an either-or proposition and the list has 
to choose between talking about this and helping people by answering 
technical questions is actually absurd, isn't it?

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/

> 
> Niall


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Niall Pemberton <ni...@blueyonder.co.uk>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jonathan Revusky" <re...@wanadoo.es>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:27 PM

> It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate,
> well-formulated question.
>
> Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's
> off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really
> is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.


The question isn't taboo - I posed the same kind of thing (and offered one
perspective) in an earlier thread:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.struts.user/122903

However I don't think what I said in that thread was the whole story -
clearly frameworks such as WebWork succeeded and I assume they were a
volunteer effort as well.

We currently have 22 committers on Struts - but levels of activity vary
widely and I would say that the type of talented people it takes to drive a
project forward (and I don't include myself in that group) no longer have an
interest in doing so on the Action 1 side - for various reasons. People such
as Craig put their effort into developing the JSF standard and see that as
the future for web development and that is where they now concentrate their
effort. Don was doing alot of work inovating with Struts Ti and had the
offer to merge not come along from WebWork - we would probably be seeing the
fruits of his efforts as Action2 and not even discussing "stagnation" at
this point. Ted was AWOL doing C# for a while (hes been "back" for a while
which is good :-), Martin seems focused on javascript etc. etc. So I guess
this leads to the next question "Well why didn't we attract new talented
people into the project that would drive Struts forward?" This I don't
know - seems that lots of people decided to go invent their own web
framework (YAWF) rather than get involved with Struts. Some of that is
certainly their own egos being the "founder of a framework" and some of it I
believe is the compatibility issue - its far easier to write a brand new
shiny web framework when not hampered by backwards compatibility. Whether we
as a community "put them off" I have no knowledge - but I've never seem that
proferred anywhere as a reason. It was always something like "Struts sucks
because of x, y and z and my brand new shiny framework does it better".
Course its far easier to invent a new framework by looking at existing ones
and seeing how you can improve them. Back to the "new people" question
though - its not my perspective that we have lots of people knocking at the
door trying to give us contributions and we're turning them away. I believe
its easy to become a Struts committer - you offer reasonable code, are
helpful in the community (e.g. answering questions on the user list), been
around a while and don't start flame wars or attack people personally - then
you get asked. Theres probably 2/3 people who probably think they should
have been asked, but haven't - they may or may no have a point - but besides
them I don't see it as a case of Struts excluding people and I don't have an
explanation for why there are not hoards of people wanting to join.

Another answer to the question is "it hasn't stagnated - we've moved on to
Shale" and that is the future for existing Struts users. Clearly there are
quite a few people that will disagree with this - but also alot that will
say "great I buy JSF as the future and I'm glad the Struts project has an
offering that supports this".

At the end of the day though this does seem academic - since we now have two
offering for whatever camp you fall into (component orientated or action
orientated) and from my point of view the really good thing about the
WebWork merger is not only the great software were getting - but also the
talented new blood thats coming into the project.

So I've given my answer to the question - now can we let this list get back
to helping and answering user questions - which is its main purpose?

Niall



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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Craig McClanahan wrote:
> On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
>>The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic.
> 
> 
> 
> This interpretation is wildly out of sync with the formal description of
> this mailing list's purpose[1], quoted below:
> 
>     Subscribe to this list to communicate with other developers
>     that are using Struts for their own applications, including
>     questions about the installation of Struts, and the usage
>     of particular Struts features.
> 
> 

So where should such a question be asked, Craig? On rec.automotive? On 
alt.politics.libertarian?

It still seems broadly on-topic to me. It's certainly a legitimate, 
well-formulated question.

Seriously, the only other possibility I see is struts-dev. If it's 
off-topic on both struts-user and struts-dev, then the question really 
is (as I am starting to suppose) basically taboo.

So, cutting to the chase, if I pose the same question on struts-dev, you 
and the others would answer it?

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/


> Jonathan Revusky
> 
> 
> Craig



> 
> [1] http://struts.apache.org/mail.html
> 


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Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Craig McClanahan <cr...@apache.org>]

On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>
> The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic.


This interpretation is wildly out of sync with the formal description of
this mailing list's purpose[1], quoted below:

    Subscribe to this list to communicate with other developers
    that are using Struts for their own applications, including
    questions about the installation of Struts, and the usage
    of particular Struts features.


Jonathan Revusky


Craig

[1] http://struts.apache.org/mail.html

Re: Why did Struts development stagnate?

[Paul Benedict <pa...@yahoo.com>]

I believe the user group is for user questions about Struts;
if I had to pick a place for questions like these, they really
belong on the dev list so the casual user isn't loaded down
with internal disputations and disagreements.

--- Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:

> Craig McClanahan wrote:
> > On 3/25/06, Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> > 
> >>Mark Lowe wrote:
> >>
> >>>Look.. You've been invited to post your thoughts about the way that
> >>>apache do stuff, to a more appropiate audience than a bunch of
> >>>half-wit struts users like me..
> >>
> >>Mark, I was involved in a conversation with various people. It so
> >>happens that the conversation developed here.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > No matter where the conversation developed, it has gone in directions that
> > are off topic on this list.  
> 
> Well, I differ with you on this. Before Mark's interruption, I posed 
> basically the following question:
> 
> If there is no basic problem with your project management practices (as 
> you seem to claim) what were the reasons that Struts development 
> stagnated, with Struts becoming increasingly uncompetitive with other 
> things in its space, such as Webwork?
> 
> The question is, at the very least, broadly on-topic. It is of interest 
> to the Struts community, because seriously considering this question 
> would allow you to avoid the same mistakes in the future. It would also 
> be useful even to people like me who are managing other open source 
> projects. It is always useful to see what other people have done right 
> (and wrong) in terms of managing projects.
> 
> This is a very complex issue that is worthy of having an open-minded 
> exchange of views about. Now, nobody is obliged to partake in this 
> exchange of views, I grant that. But it is utterly beyond me why 
> somebody who doesn't want to participate in such a discussion should be 
> trying to prevent other people from doing so.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Jonathan Revusky
> --
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> FreeMarker group blog, http://freemarker.blogspot.com/
> 
> 
> 
> > Please feel free to continue the conversation,
> > but do it somewhere else.
> > 
> > Craig
> > 
> 
> 
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> 
> 


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