In the Views in Drupal 8 thread, Earnie Boyd mentioned something I do not recall having been suggested before (although it may have -- I just don't remember it). Earnie Boyd wrote: "There have been many releases focused on improving the API. The API has become a power horse for developers. What we need to strive for now is someone who wants to install a no fuss minimal configuration blog or wiki or whatever installation profile. I would like to see a focus for the inexperienced or non-technical person so that Drupal can become even more used than it is today. Have a short cycled D8 to make this focus where new or changed API only addresses this need. And if you feel that the only way to do that is put Views in core then fine do it but only if it is required to meet that goal. D9 can add/change the API as much as you like." What if we intentionally alternated Drupal releases like that on an on-going basis? What if the odd-numbered releases (D7, D9) where the long calendar period, major API changes, and the even-numbered releases (D8, D10) were shorter cycles, focusing on user experience (UX) and administrator/site-owner (AX) experience. That is, making it easier to use, fixing bugs, etc. Or alternatively, how about just alternating the length of the development cycles, regardless of the major focus of people's efforts (and interests)? That is, D7 and D9 would be intentionally longer cycles, and D8 and D10 would be intentionally shorter cycles? I think both would provide a variety of benefits. Your thoughts? ..chris
great ideas. however, i suspect that no matter how much we try to plan a road map, real life will take over and development will continue haphazardly in relatively uncontrollable spurts, at least as long as we keep pushing the envelope (which i'm all in favor of). Chris Johnson wrote:
In the Views in Drupal 8 thread, Earnie Boyd mentioned something I do not recall having been suggested before (although it may have -- I just don't remember it). Earnie Boyd wrote:
"There have been many releases focused on improving the API. The API has become a power horse for developers. What we need to strive for now is someone who wants to install a no fuss minimal configuration blog or wiki or whatever installation profile. I would like to see a focus for the inexperienced or non-technical person so that Drupal can become even more used than it is today. Have a short cycled D8 to make this focus where new or changed API only addresses this need. And if you feel that the only way to do that is put Views in core then fine do it but only if it is required to meet that goal. D9 can add/change the API as much as you like."
What if we intentionally alternated Drupal releases like that on an on-going basis? What if the odd-numbered releases (D7, D9) where the long calendar period, major API changes, and the even-numbered releases (D8, D10) were shorter cycles, focusing on user experience (UX) and administrator/site-owner (AX) experience. That is, making it easier to use, fixing bugs, etc.
Or alternatively, how about just alternating the length of the development cycles, regardless of the major focus of people's efforts (and interests)? That is, D7 and D9 would be intentionally longer cycles, and D8 and D10 would be intentionally shorter cycles?
I think both would provide a variety of benefits.
Your thoughts?
..chris
-- Aaron Winborn Advomatic, LLC http://advomatic.com/ Drupal Multimedia available in September! http://www.packtpub.com/create-multimedia-website-with-drupal/book My blog: http://aaronwinborn.com/
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Aaron Winborn<winborn@advomatic.com> wrote:
great ideas. however, i suspect that no matter how much we try to plan a road map, real life will take over and development will continue haphazardly in relatively uncontrollable spurts, at least as long as we keep pushing the envelope (which i'm all in favor of).
Which is why I suggested the second alternative, of intentionally longer and shorter release cycles. Dries generally sets the date for code freeze, and so he could have some control over the cycle length. Influencing developers to focus on API vs. UX is indeed a lot more difficult, and road maps are similarly problematic as Aaron points out. But I, at least, find it conceivable that the development community could be slightly influenced enough to eventually reach a point (in a year or 2, perhaps) where they would actually be thinking "API release" and "UX release" while engaged in those haphazard spurts (alternative 1). And I only mean on the average across the entire development community. The standard deviation is expected to be quite large, and that's ok. :-) I don't intend to tell any developer what to work on.
Op 13 aug 2009, om 21:01 heeft Karoly Negyesi het volgende geschreven:
We can successfully tell developers what NOT to work on.
Funny, I thought that my plan. Do not work on anything thats not Views related :) The buy in was... not overwhelming ;)
Karoly, you know I'm a big admirer of your coding skills and your present work for the drupal community. I admire your statements, your thinking and mostly your skills whenever it is about coding.. So, keep that in mind when reading my e- mail... I'm not an active user of views, although I am sure that the views.module could bring drupal to a higher level. But I do not think it's wise to start that immense amount of work one month before code freeze, no matter the advantages it would bring us. The views.module is great (Compliments to merlinofchaos!), but unfortunatly not very intuitive and easy to use.. It really needs you to fiddle around with it for a bunch of time before things are getting logical and for people that do know zero about databases (that 80% of the users as I understood from d7ux.org) it's almost a no go. (No offense, could not think of an UI that is anything easier than it currently is). I hope I did not offend anybody with my e-mail, although I couldn't resist to share my opinion. Kind regards, Stefan Nagtegaal
Karoly Negyesi wrote:
that immense amount of work one month before code freeze, no matter the advantages it would bring us.
I was thinking Drupal 8 but dont worry it wont happen...
I don't think it's a lost cause. I don't think it'll happen the way you envision it.
Op 13 aug 2009, om 21:17 heeft Karoly Negyesi het volgende geschreven:
that immense amount of work one month before code freeze, no matter the advantages it would bring us.
I was thinking Drupal 8 but dont worry it wont happen...
Ahh, in that case I would be willing to help where I can.. Sorry, I misunderstood the title.. Probably caused by not enough sleep.. Ah well, I do not have to explain that to you, you know what I mean! ;-) Kind regards, Stefan
Stefan Nagtegaal wrote:
it's wise to start that immense amount of work one month before code freeze, no matter the advantages it would bring us.
Err. He's talking about for D8, not D7. That's why the title was "Views in Drupal 8". And it meant really doing all of the work as early as possible in the D8 cycle, which gives us the most eyes and fingers on the code and UI when we have time to do something about it, and a large enough focus that we should be able to get a bunch of people interested in helping. I don't think anything would start on this until the D8 cycle really begins.
participants (5)
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Aaron Winborn -
Chris Johnson -
Earl Miles -
Karoly Negyesi -
Stefan Nagtegaal