[development] Drupal 6 release schedule

[Victor Kane]

As someone who is new to Drupal (maybe I have no business giving my
opinion at all, but I think it should be said in a flameless way) but
not at all to software engineering, and who is just beginning to
architect and author web applications based on Drupal, I would say
that I denote a slight contradiction between some of the thorny issues
being debated on this list (everything is a node vs. don't overload
node hook system; developing an orthogonal API for the various API's,
etc., etc., etc.,), and starting a code freeze in four months. I just
don't see these being resolved in four months.

I sort of perhaps naively assume that it would make no sense making
another major release without dealing with those problems.

Your damned if you do and damned if you don't: if you don't you "fall
behind the web 2 race for splashiness"; if you do, you are painting
yourself into a corner and risking everything drupal stands for:
cleanness, well-thought out stuff, lean and mean...

On the other hand, if "Drupal 6" is drupal 5 debugged and jquery up
front usability gains, etc., then that is ok, would be an advance, no
matter what you call it.

But if the rush to freeze also freezes some stuff that depends on the
thorny points in the middle of the river, so to speak, then that could
cause problems.

Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar

On 1/31/07, Laura Scott <laura at pingv.com> wrote:
> On Jan 31, 2007, at 3:03 PM, Zohar Stolar wrote:
>
> > With regards to that - I feel that from 4.7 to 5 Drupal changed in
> > such a extreme manner, that it will take most of the developers 4
> > months only to get to know Drupal 5 properly...
> > Most of Drupal developers are not core developers, and might be
> > intimidated by rapid, extreme changes. I'm talking about API, not,
> > for example, the CCK integration. Drupal is already reputated to
> > have a slow learning curve, and every time you get to the summit,
> > the mountain becomes higher :-)
> >
> > I can see the need to release a newer, better CMS when possible,
> > certainly in a very competitive surrounding, and maybe that's the
> > right thing to do, ideally. BUT (and here comes the "but"), don't
> > we risk being a bit too fast?
>
> As a Drupal enthusiast since Drupal 4.4 days, I can say that I'm
> delighted and relieved that Drupal is evolving so fast. I remember
> when 4.5 was the bee's knees. Then it was just awful compared with
> 4.6, which was just not good enough once 4.7 came out....
>
> I'm not so sure the world is flat, but time stands still for no one,
> and the web is developing at such a rapid rate that it behooves the
> Drupal community to continue to not only keep apace but even set the
> pace.
>
> Each major release has involved a major learning curve, yes, but this
> amounts to learning one's way around a better cms. I wouldn't go
> backwards on a bet.
>
> I believe your concern about clients who are happy with their
> existing sites is well placed. However, I would suggest that this is
> more on the matter of maintaining support for older systems, and not
> a matter of how rapidly the newest and bestest stuff rolls out.
>
> June 1 -- that's not even summer! That is fabulous!
>
> Laura
>
>