I'd be fine with that, personally. Matt
On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 4:05 PM, James Carman <ja...@carmanconsulting.com>wrote: > How about we just switch to git, Matt? Many projects have already > gone that route. > > > On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Matt Benson <gudnabr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Of the various tasks that are part of keeping Commons going: making > > releases, pushing to the website, etc., I feel like there are maybe a > > couple of people who feel confident to do each task, and they're probably > > not the same people for each task. I think it could be helpful to > > establish a list of what items there are that routinely need doing, and > who > > knows how to do them *and is willing to help others understand a given > > process.* Making releases seems to be a big pain point--can we identify > > what the problems are and improve or fix them? Is there any of us who > > feels super-comfortable with releasing? Maybe that person could help > e.g. > > me over IRC next time I want to cut a release. Hopefully then I'll be > more > > comfortable and can try to help the next person. Similarly, I suspect > that > > some of us are now doing Commons dev using git-svn, and I have the > feeling > > it would be easier to merge github pull requests using git--is there > anyone > > willing and able to help me if I run into trouble experimenting with > this? > > > > I do think that more than one component has had the wind taken out of its > > sails by too much "back seat driving": anyone, committer or not, should > > feel free to voice his opinion on any design decision, but that needs to > be > > tempered with a respect for the process of do-ocracy. If you're not > > willing to actually step up and do the work, and can't convince > > someone-who-is that your concern is important enough that they *want* to > > take care of it, don't be surprised when it doesn't get done. At this > > point we'd be better off releasing imperfect code. Bad code and good > > communities, as they say... don't most of us begin participating in OSS > > because we're using a library that's *almost good enough* if we could > just > > get that one bugfix or feature that we want so badly we write it > ourselves? > > Our obsession with perfection may be killing us in two ways: one, we > > don't release anything, and two, if we ever did, it would be so perfect > > there'd be nothing for a newcomer to contribute! ;) > > > > Matt > > > > > > On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Jean-Louis MONTEIRO <jeano...@gmail.com > >wrote: > > > >> +1, looks like there are plenty of examples. > >> Agree with Phil, how could we make things lighter or easier? > >> > >> I mean to get more release out. > >> > >> Jean-Louis > >> > >> > >> 2013/10/6 Phil Steitz <phil.ste...@gmail.com> > >> > >> > > >> > > >> > > On Oct 6, 2013, at 1:11 PM, Oliver Heger < > oliver.he...@oliver-heger.de > >> > > >> > wrote: > >> > > > >> > > Hi Christian, > >> > > > >> > > Am 06.10.2013 21:44, schrieb Christian Grobmeier: > >> > >> James, > >> > >> > >> > >> thank you. > >> > >> > >> > >> I believe Commons is in a bad shape. > >> > >> > >> > >> Look at Commons Collections. Before 4 years somebody > >> > >> said Guava is more modern, he his answer seems to be widely > accepted. > >> > >> http://stackoverflow.com/a/1444467/690771 > >> > >> This guy said we have no generics. What did we do in the past 4 > years? > >> > >> > >> > > >> > http://search.maven.org/#search%7Cgav%7C1%7Cg%3A%22commons-collections%22%20AND%20a%3A%22commons-collections%22 > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Nothing. At least nothing visible. Its fine we have a beta. I > wonder > >> why > >> > >> we haven't managed > >> > >> to officially release this? The last release is from 2008. > >> > >> > >> > >> I did consider to put my JSON component to Commons. But I didn't. > >> > >> Reason: I really need the component > >> > >> and I calculated how long it would take to release it here. I > thought, > >> > >> it's not helping me > >> > >> to develop it here. I simply don't have the time. > >> > >> > >> > >> I thought a long while about it. > >> > >> > >> > >> We had discussions like: do we really need Generics? It works > without! > >> > >> Do we really drop an outdated JDK? We might have users > >> > >> who run JDK 1.3! And so on. Finally this led us to the situation > where > >> > >> almost all of our users seem to have JDK 1.3 and > >> > >> are not interested in generics - in 2013. The users who want modern > >> > >> features go to Guava. We maintain legacy code. And seriously, a > lot of > >> > >> code works without generics. This is no reason to not include them. > >> > >> > >> > >> We discuss magic strings in the sandbox. Why? We don't need to > discuss > >> > >> that. Before we release we can simply check Sonar. Safe the time to > >> > >> discuss. Fix it or leave it to Sonar to report it. > >> > >> > >> > >> We seem to think perfect documentation is more valuable then quick > >> > >> releases. Is it? > >> > >> > >> > >> We seem to be proud of our build. I am not. It's complex. It's no > fun. > >> > >> Releases should be do-able in a short time, maybe > >> > >> even automated. > >> > >> > >> > >> It is so sad that lot of good features like Collections with > Generics > >> > >> were blocked such a long time or drowning in discussions. > >> > >> > >> > >> I agree we should support old users. But if we don't have the > >> manpower, > >> > >> we can't support them. They need to accept we are moving on. We are > >> > >> blocked with our backwards compatible ideas and innovation is far > >> away. > >> > >> > >> > >> When I spoke to young developers about Commons they asked me if it > >> still > >> > >> exists. Nobody of them is interested in our community. > >> > >> > >> > >> For the mission statement I would wish to see things like that: > >> > >> > >> > >> Commons Components… > >> > >> > >> > >> …are released quickly and often > >> > >> …do use modern JDKs and support old JDKs only as long as they are > >> > >> supported by Oracle > >> > >> …we make use of modern Java features when they are available > >> > >> …can be easily released > >> > >> …can be released without having 100% perfect documentation or > perfect > >> > >> implementations > >> > >> …are build by Community who wants to learn, experiment and create > new > >> > >> features more than by Community which wants to be backwards > compatible > >> > >> for a long time > >> > >> …are allowed to release major versions with api breaks as they want > >> > >> > >> > >> Cheers > >> > >> Christian > >> > > I agree with many of your points. Another example is [csv] which is > >> > > about to be released for ages. Here, I think, the main impediment is > >> > > that we try to come up with a *perfect* API because due to our > rules of > >> > > backwards compatibility it is so difficult to correct any mistakes > >> later. > >> > > > >> > > I still think that backwards compatibility is very important, but we > >> > > really should define a process which allows us to experiment with > new > >> > APIs. > >> > > > >> > > As a suggestion to improve this situation, could we agree on an > alpha > >> > > release process allowing us to push releases with the aim of getting > >> > > community feedback? Where we explicitly state that incompatible > changes > >> > > are possible (and likely)? > >> > > > >> > > We did something similar with [collections] 4, but there were many > >> > > limitations (the release was not allowed to be uploaded to Maven > >> central > >> > > for instance). If we did such experimental releases more often, > there > >> > > would hopefully not be the fear of defining a broken API, and we > would > >> > > see more releases. > >> > > >> > +1 let's agree on how to do alphas. > >> > > >> > Phil > >> > > > >> > > Oliver > >> > > > >> > >> > >> > >>> On 6 Oct 2013, at 20:30, James Carman wrote: > >> > >>> > >> > >>> All, > >> > >>> > >> > >>> The Apache Commons project seems to be languishing as of late and > we > >> > >>> need some rejuvenation. Perhaps we should try to define our > mission > >> > >>> as a project. What are our goals? What do we want to accomplish? > >> > >>> Who are our users/customers? What non-functional qualities do we > >> want > >> > >>> our software to exhibit? How do we want to conduct ourselves? > How > >> > >>> often do we want to do releases? What else? > >> > >>> > >> > >>> Sincerely, > >> > >>> > >> > >>> James > >> > >>> > >> > >>> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> > >>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > >> > >>> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> --- > >> > >> http://www.grobmeier.de > >> > >> @grobmeier > >> > >> GPG: 0xA5CC90DB > >> > >> > >> > >> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> > >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > >> > >> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > >> > > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > >> > > > >> > > >> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > >> > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > >> > > >> > > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Jean-Louis > >> >
