[development] One core, many distributions

[Liza Sabater]

On Nov 21 2005, at 11:50, Chris Johnson wrote:

> Liza seems to be saying "yes, Andre is the only one who thinks that  
> way" but perhaps it was just sloppy use of English and she meant  
> "yes, I agree with Andre."

Heh.

No, I did mean the first meaning.

Don't get me wrong, I love most of the time how software developers  
think. It's sexy, but just like a lot of sexy stuff out there, it has  
somewhat to do with reality :)

The way regular, non-software developers use Drupal seems to be very  
different from the way you guys conceive of it. I personally do not  
care about the url BUT the reality is that you will most likely get  
faster indexing of your sites by bots --and better stumble upon  
traffic-- if you have verbose links as opposed to those "node/ 
doohickey/numbers" system. It's not your fault or the users, it's  
just is. So having flexibility on how those links are created, right  
off the bat, is what Drupal ought to be striving for.

Look, someone did a really bad, and I mean, really HORRIDLY BAD call  
when they decided to take out the sessions setting options for the  
4.6 release. It was in 4.5, my site never logged me out and it seemed  
that a lot of people found it useful as well. Not only did y'all take  
it out, but it is nowhere stated in your documentation that this was  
taken out. And not only did you take it out but, guess what, a lot of  
people have grumbled about this on the support list (or so it seems),  
because it was not announced nor was there an option offered to deal  
with potential log-out problems. I had 5 people look at this problem  
on my site and one of them came across this story by diving into your  
support archives. And you did changes to the RSS system as well, and  
not for the good of the user but for the good of your geekatude.

Rule #1 : If it aint broke, dont fix it.

You broke so many rules about market strategy, usability and software  
development, I can't even fathom how you came to the conclusion this  
was a good idea. Then again, yes, I can fathom the logic just by the  
discussion we are having here.

You think about the beauty of the code, the simplicity of your   
logic. That's nice and good. The problem is that it has nothing to do  
with reality. You are not thinking about the users --you are not  
really trying to find real world solutions for the people who are  
actually going to implement the product.

Why does this have to be an either or set-up? Why not add pathauto to  
the core and give it as an option for people to implement during  
installation? It is sloppy thinking to say you know better because  
you are a developer. Earth to geeks : Software development is never  
ending, it is never done. You will never be satisfied ---treat your  
skill as a disease not as a gift. You do not have to release 4.7 ---- 
you are JONESING for a new coding high. And in the process,  
undermining many a vendor, web admin and end user by pushing into  
obsolescence their just installed site.

If you have to release 4.7, go ahead and do it. But make sure that it  
is as flexible and user centric as possible so that you can stop,  
stand back and think of what better ways to implement the product as  
opposed to just talk about code as art. For that, there is always  
bitforms gallery [ www.bitforms.com ] and software and net art lists  
sites like Rhizome [ www.rhizome.org ] and The Thing [www.thing.net ].

Best,
liza, who's been on the software art scene for far too long, sabater