Privatemsg needs a better maintainer
Hi, To cut a long story short, I am not a good maintainer. This module needs much more love than I can give it. For example, the 2.x branch should use subscriptions for its mailing needs but it has not kept up with the ground-up rewrite of subscriptions. Please help. Thanks, Karoly Negyesi
With experience developing privatemsg-like functionality in my pre-drupal days and a desire to be more involved, I would like to take on maintaining this module. Thank you. On 3/26/08 12:42 PM, "Karoly Negyesi" <karoly@negyesi.net> wrote:
Hi,
To cut a long story short, I am not a good maintainer. This module needs much more love than I can give it. For example, the 2.x branch should use subscriptions for its mailing needs but it has not kept up with the ground-up rewrite of subscriptions. Please help.
Thanks,
Karoly Negyesi
litwol took it from me. Awesome. I am happy to be free from contrib as of now -- it's hard enough to get reviewers on a core patch and totally impossible to get them on contrib and I can't work like that. Lack of peer review also makes sloppy code. After this foray into contrib, I can now see this and know that contrib code has the quality it has not because the code writers suck but because there is no review. Ah well.
Karoly Negyesi wrote:
litwol took it from me. Awesome. I am happy to be free from contrib as of now -- it's hard enough to get reviewers on a core patch and totally impossible to get them on contrib and I can't work like that. Lack of peer review also makes sloppy code. After this foray into contrib, I can now see this and know that contrib code has the quality it has not because the code writers suck but because there is no review. Ah well.
Oh yea. There's just too much code in contrib to get proper review, and with some exceptions, contrib just isn't important enough to merit that kind of effort. Without a team dedicated to a project, it just won't happen in contrib.
Note that coupling this observation with the trend towards a leaner, more feature-limited core, makes the value proposition of drupal more problematic: if core unbundles features to contrib in order to obtain a better and more performing core, contrib cannot but remain of lower quality, and the overall value to potential users becomes lower between a small and excellent core, and a haphazard mix of contrib modules, only some of which are of quality comparable with core. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Earl Miles" <merlin@logrus.com> To: <development@drupal.org> Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 6:47 PM Subject: Re: [development] Privatemsg needs a better maintainer
Karoly Negyesi wrote:
litwol took it from me. Awesome. I am happy to be free from contrib as of now -- it's hard enough to get reviewers on a core patch and totally impossible to get them on contrib and I can't work like that. Lack of peer review also makes sloppy code. After this foray into contrib, I can now see this and know that contrib code has the quality it has not because the code writers suck but because there is no review. Ah well.
Oh yea. There's just too much code in contrib to get proper review, and with some exceptions, contrib just isn't important enough to merit that kind of effort. Without a team dedicated to a project, it just won't happen in contrib.
I would phrase it differently; core is trending toward a more engine-centric nature, with implementations built on top of it in contrib. Since the engines are the harder code and usually contain the trickier bugs, that actually works out. The really complex/ugly stuff goes through the core gauntlet, while contrib can, hopefully, get smaller and simpler as it's just ways to piece together or tweak the engines. At least that's what I hope is happening / will happen. :-) On Wednesday 26 March 2008, FGM wrote:
Note that coupling this observation with the trend towards a leaner, more feature-limited core, makes the value proposition of drupal more problematic: if core unbundles features to contrib in order to obtain a better and more performing core, contrib cannot but remain of lower quality, and the overall value to potential users becomes lower between a small and excellent core, and a haphazard mix of contrib modules, only some of which are of quality comparable with core.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Earl Miles" <merlin@logrus.com> To: <development@drupal.org> Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 6:47 PM Subject: Re: [development] Privatemsg needs a better maintainer
Karoly Negyesi wrote:
litwol took it from me. Awesome. I am happy to be free from contrib as of now -- it's hard enough to get reviewers on a core patch and totally impossible to get them on contrib and I can't work like that. Lack of peer review also makes sloppy code. After this foray into contrib, I can now see this and know that contrib code has the quality it has not because the code writers suck but because there is no review. Ah well.
Oh yea. There's just too much code in contrib to get proper review, and with some exceptions, contrib just isn't important enough to merit that kind of effort. Without a team dedicated to a project, it just won't happen in contrib.
-- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
FGM wrote:
Note that coupling this observation with the trend towards a leaner, more feature-limited core, makes the value proposition of drupal more problematic: if core unbundles features to contrib in order to obtain a better and more performing core, contrib cannot but remain of lower quality, and the overall value to potential users becomes lower between a small and excellent core, and a haphazard mix of contrib modules, only some of which are of quality comparable with core.
Well, this depends a lot on the quality and interest of people helping to maintain contrib. With companies like Acquia staking their company reputation on contrib working, *they* are going to put resources into making sure that contrib quality is higher. Hopefully these resources will lead a community charge and get other resources to help as well. Drupal has done a very good job of working core stuff, but those of us who work primarily in contrib have to work a lot harder to produce a quality product. At least some of us do, but it's a good reason to mistrust all of contrib.
Going back to the original topic of privatemsg, is there a plan/roadmap/anything? There seem to be quite a few people waiting for this to be updated, but there does not seem to be any visible movement. If the module is dead, is there another module with the same/similar functionality? (I would help, but most of it is above and beyond my coding ability.) 2008/3/26 Karoly Negyesi <karoly@negyesi.net>:
litwol took it from me. Awesome. I am happy to be free from contrib as of now -- it's hard enough to get reviewers on a core patch and totally impossible to get them on contrib and I can't work like that. Lack of peer review also makes sloppy code. After this foray into contrib, I can now see this and know that contrib code has the quality it has not because the code writers suck but because there is no review. Ah well.
Naheem Zaffar wrote:
Privatemsg needs a better maintainer I would help, but most of it is above and beyond my coding ability. Naheem, this could be a great way to improve your coding ability. Study how other modules do similar things, then adapt it to your needs. There's no such thing as plagiarism when it comes to coding.
Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP
On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Nancy Wichmann <nan_wich@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Naheem Zaffar wrote:
Privatemsg needs a better maintainer I would help, but most of it is above and beyond my coding ability. Naheem, this could be a great way to improve your coding ability. Study how other modules do similar things, then adapt it to your needs. There's no such thing as plagiarism when it comes to coding.
Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP
On Saturday 19 April 2008, Nancy Wichmann wrote:
Naheem Zaffar wrote:
Privatemsg needs a better maintainer I would help, but most of it is above and beyond my coding ability.
Naheem, this could be a great way to improve your coding ability. Study how other modules do similar things, then adapt it to your needs. There's no such thing as plagiarism when it comes to coding.
Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP
Of course there is. If I tried to pass off, say, Panels 2 as something that I wrote, that's plagiarism, dishonest, wrong, and other bad things. If I took time to study Panels 2, learn from it, and then wrote something myself using a lot of the same techniques and ideas because I thought they were good techniques and ideas, that's Open Source working exactly as intended. :-) -- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
The module isn't dead. It works very well already on D5 and has the new maintainer, litwol, working to port it to 6. Michelle On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 12:09 PM, Naheem Zaffar <naheemzaffar@gmail.com> wrote:
Going back to the original topic of privatemsg, is there a plan/roadmap/anything?
There seem to be quite a few people waiting for this to be updated, but there does not seem to be any visible movement.
If the module is dead, is there another module with the same/similar functionality?
(I would help, but most of it is above and beyond my coding ability.)
2008/3/26 Karoly Negyesi <karoly@negyesi.net>:
litwol took it from me. Awesome. I am happy to be free from contrib as of now -- it's hard enough to get reviewers on a core patch and totally impossible to get them on contrib and I can't work like that. Lack of peer review also makes sloppy code. After this foray into contrib, I can now see this and know that contrib code has the quality it has not because the code writers suck but because there is no review. Ah well.
Thanks for the info. (I am using the patch on one of the issue queues (with unneeded/broken features commented out) on a live site, but with little activity for a while, was starting to get a little worried.) I do plan on trying to help out, but there are bits I have no understanding of. (I have looked at the code, helped in a previous patch etc.)
participants (8)
-
Earl Miles -
FGM -
Karoly Negyesi -
Larry Garfield -
Michelle Cox -
Naheem Zaffar -
Nancy Wichmann -
Oleg Terenchuk