Theme - meta (was Re: [development] Looking for patch love)

[Bèr Kessels]

Op dinsdag 29 augustus 2006 08:46, schreef Dries Buytaert:
> But from the looks, Ber's proposed theme functions are easier ... can  
> we make it exactly like Ber proposed with the new system or would it  
> get crufty?  :-)

On the other hand, I don't really mind (ahum) cleaning up theme functions into 
improved/consistent/easy to use functions either. 

Eaton managed to do quite a few last release cycle, and I have lots of them in 
the issue queue waiting for (me to do) some work. I guess its an uphill 
battle, but I guess its a battle we might finally win. 

I relialized that 
a) developers are not themers. They care about funcitonality, performance, 
good code and features. Not about how easy it is to make their (perfect) baby 
look different. This is good. Lets try to do what we are best at.
b) people who do both coding and *good* theming are so rare that they all 
got "bought" by Bryght last month ... :). Eaton is probably the only person 
who had the time, and spirit to keep up all those theme improvement patches 
up with HEAD towards 4.8, we owe him some fabulous theme improvements.

e) most themers are just a bunch of whining babies. They fail to write proper 
technical patches, in complex code refacturings. So all they do is write a) 
b), c)s up to e)s to be heard. Most of their coding skills are below average, 
so helping out in these complex patches is hard, for them, but writing 
meta-mails is all they can do to get heard when their area seems under 
attack/attention somehow. 

Solution: So far the only reasonable is: Don't mind too much about 
themeability. These patches will slowly make it in, in a next (or next after 
next) release.(Provided Eaton does not leave us soon, that is)

But serious: Kika (Kristjan) proposed this a while ago, in Amsterdam, wrt 
usability, but it can be extended to themeing too: Patches, issues etc should 
be reviewed by a flock of people. People whom mostly cannot read patches. 
People who want to see stuff like screenshots, or example HTML. Stuff 
like 'this was how you themed this function before, this is what you should 
do now'. But other then that -developers putting effort in getting a coloured 
flock of reviewers- we could make this is a little more "official". I have 
brought this up before, and will continue doing so: We have coding guidelines 
telling where a { should go, how many spaces one should put between a  . and 
a $ etc. But we have nothing, probably not even a clue, what a good theme 
function looks like, or what IDs and CLASSES one should use. 

What would it take to get that off the ground? To get some regulation, some 
guidelines on what is themable and what not

Bèr -no, i am not entirely serious-  Kessels
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