I wish I had time to commit... Apple, fancy sponsoring?!
On 6 Jan 2012, at 19:09, "T.J. Crowder" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > On Jan 6, 12:49 pm, James Hargreaves <[email protected]> > wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I note that the prototype libraries (available on prototypejs.org) >> have not been updated since November 2010. Indeed, nothing much seems >> to have been updated on the site since around then. >> >> Is prototype still an active project? >> >> Thanks >> Jay > > (Caveat: I'm not a member of the Prototype team and don't speak for > them. My view of the project is from the outside, and so may be > flawed. I was a bit involved with the project briefly, doing a fair > bit of missing documentation with an eye toward contributing on the > code front as well, but stepped away from it for various reasons a > couple of years ago.) > >> Is prototype still an active project? > > It depends on your perspective. Unlike some other libraries, Prototype > has no corporate sponsor; no one is paid to work on it. There's been > no visible activity on the project since November 2010 (the last > release, and last blog entry). The previous version was 14 months > earlier (September 2009). There are 105 outstanding bug reports, > including some that are quite straightforward to fix (such as > Prototype overwriting any native implementation of `Array#filter` and > such; issue #317). > > Most of the people who contributed to the project in the past are not > currently doing so; as far as I'm aware, only Andrew Dupont (the > project lead) is even nominally on the Prototype team at this point, > and he's busy with other things. Here's what Andrew had to say the > last time this came up, about three months ago: > http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous/browse_thread/thread/7d434e109c23c306/547c3ed0303b4c78#547c3ed0303b4c78 > > My take-away here is that the project is essentially inactive -- after > all, Andrew can't be expected to do all the work himself! He has a job > and a mortgage and a life like the rest of us. But it could be > reactivated quite quickly, really, if someone with some significant > time available, and the necessary credentials to make Andrew think it > made sense, stepped up and offered to take the reins alongside him. > Ideally, someone or ones working for a company or companies with a > significant Prototype investment that want to see the library continue > and are happy to pay their engineers to work on it a bit rather than > paying them to replace it with something else -- e.g., companies > "giving back" to the project with actual paid developer time. It > wouldn't take much. The project needs one person with a reasonable > time commitment per week (say, 4-8 hours/week) to co-chair with > Andrew, and then if (say) five of the companies that use Prototype > could offer two hours of a developer's time per week triaging bug > reports, fixing bugs, etc., that would make a _massive_ difference to > the project. Hopefully that new co-chair could also look at some of > the longer-term stuff (like using element wrappers rather than DOM > element augmentation, which I know was high on Andrew's to do list). > > Best, > -- > T.J. Crowder > Independent Software Engineer > tj / crowder software / com > www / crowder software / com > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Prototype & script.aculo.us" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Prototype & script.aculo.us" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous?hl=en.
