[development] One core, many distributions

[Jose A. Reyero]

Hi Liza, Wow!

This should be a "must read" for developers. No joking.

I won't say I fully agree with all the points, but it's really worth
reading. Actually I'd say your opinions are equally unbalanced, on the
side of the site admins who  only want to keep their site up to date
with a minimum pain. But we need some 'balance' here anyway - I mean in
this devs list. :-)

Thanks,

Jose

Liza Sabater wrote:

> 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
>
>
>