A big -1 from me. Drupals core must be small, clean and most of all very stable. I beleive Drupal would benefit most from a linux alike idea: kernel and distro;s. A kernel (drupal core) is very conservative, vey well maintained and very strict in what it accepts. Its up to the distros to add modules, themes and pre-configured databases and ship that as their distro. And off course a distro could ship with patches applied to its particular core. For example a DrupalI18N would be a nice distro. But to allow "interim" solutions? naah. I think it will bring down our overall quality a lot. And it will make our porject a lot harder to maintain, since our CVS will be in a constant status of no--really-working. Much more than now. Bèr Op maandag 18 april 2005 20:43, schreef Nedjo Rogers:
I'm thinking we should give more room in Drupal to accepting and applying "interim" solutions: contributions that are clear improvements without necessarily addressing every conceivable objection.
The high threshold we set for accepting changes has definite benefits--it keeps the code clean and functional. Yet, if the bar is too high, it also has significant costs. It discourages developers and wastes development time and expertise on repeated updating. And, equally importantly, it leaves problems unaddressed.
I feel we need to give more weight to the question: what are the costs of doing nothing? Often, these are significant enough to justify implementing a partial or interim solution.
Many problems don't lend themselves to full and immediate solution. Rather, building a solution is an iterative process. Applying more 'first steps' is a spur to the development process. It keeps developers engaged and builds momentum for fixing remaining details.
In sum: let's be a bit less conservative, a bit more open to new ideas as they come in. There's nothing sacred about the code base. It's something we collectively build, fixing problems, opening new possibilities (complete with their own issues and problems), moving beyond the limitations of the inception while staying true to the founding goals and vision.
Nedjo Regards, Bèr -- [ Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com ]