[development] lucid menu & aggregation

[Rob Barreca]

> That brings me to the question that I'm not getting any answer to, why 
> not delete aggregator2 from the repository? If there's some policy I 
> don't know about to NOT do that then I'd like to know about it. 
Agg2 is still being used and at one time was a decent module. It would 
be nice for older users of Agg2 to have an easy update path and to not 
add yet another aggregation module. You could completely rewrite the 
code and add an aggregator2_update_X() in the .install file to wipe the 
data and convert it to your module's schema like was suggested earlier. 
This is what I would prefer as the list of modules is just getting too 
damn big.

Since people are still using Agg2, we shouldn't just delete it and 
discontinuing it will force people to manually port their data to some 
new module instead of having to just run update.php once.

HTH,

Rob Roy Barreca
Founder and COO
Electronic Insight Corporation
http://www.electronicinsight.com
rob at electronicinsight.com



Ashraf Amayreh wrote:
> >So, there was agreement on that being the route to take, but it was not.
>
> Because I later anticipated problems that I hadn't thought of when I 
> had this conversation. Weather these problems were found or not, my 
> knowledge in drupal wasn't "absolute" enough for me to be so sure. So 
> I rightfully chose the safest path as I guess anyone else would. And 
> to avoid calling it aggregator3 as this would, as Boris put it
>
> > reinforces the idea in peoples' minds that they should just rewrite 
> from >scratch rather than collaborating.
>
> I chose aggregation to try my best and conform to your guidelines, so 
> I don't understand why you're acting as if it was an act of mischief. 
> That brings me to the question that I'm not getting any answer to, why 
> not delete aggregator2 from the repository? If there's some policy I 
> don't know about to NOT do that then I'd like to know about it.
>
> On 3/22/07, *Khalid Baheyeldin* <kb at 2bits.com <mailto:kb at 2bits.com>> 
> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 3/20/07, *Ashraf Amayreh* < mistknight at gmail.com
>     <mailto:mistknight at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         >It is trivial to make an update to do this and retain the schema
>         >versions. This is exactly what the update system was designed for.
>
>         >If you want to do it properly, you should keep as much
>         existing data
>         >as is reasonable.
>
>         I really hope it is very clear that I did not want to worry about
>         anything pertaining to aggregator2. It's data included. Using
>         its own
>         update file and building on it would be doing that.
>
>         I could however provide an option for migrating aggregator2
>         data to
>         the Aggregation module, would be quite interesting really.
>         Also, if I
>         used the aggregation2's update file as a base, what would my next
>         update hook do? It would drop the aggregator2 tables and
>         create mine.
>         Just think of what an aggregator2 user would do if he mistakingly
>         downloaded my module and ran the upgrade script! (yes, users
>         do ignore
>         regulations, I've had a number of PHP 4 users install my module
>         although the project page bluntly says not to). Some things are so
>         messy they're better off left alone. If there's a remote risk that
>         data will be lost because I'm using the aggregator2 name, why
>         even
>         risk it? Which reminds me...
>
>         >umm... why not just delete aggregator2 from the repository?
>
>         Is there some reason why we shouldn't just do that?
>
>
>
>     Ashraf
>
>     Here is the email chain from the CVS application, to jog your memory:
>
>     === Boris:
>
>     What about taking over / replacing aggregator2? It's been
>     abandoned in any case....
>
>     I think we really, really don't want something called aggregator3.
>     The feedparser and related modules are going in yet another
>     direction (sort of).
>
>     Either call it aggregator_api or take over/replace aggregator2 --
>     that's my vote.
>
>     === Ashraf:
>
>     Replacing aggregator2 is fine with me, but this will give people
>     the impression that this is an upgraded aggregator2 where it is a
>     complete overhaul. They may also seek help for aggregator2 which I
>     really would rather not get into. Any downside in naming it
>     aggregator3? Sound to me it means the successor of aggregator2,
>     which essentially is what it is.
>
>     === Boris:
>
>     The downside to naming it aggregator3 is that it reinforces the
>     idea in peoples' minds that they should just rewrite from scratch
>     rather than collaborating. It sounds like you've put a lot of work
>     into your module and really done architecting...many other are
>     guilty of just not bothering to try and figure out how to work
>     together, or just slapping some code together.
>
>     So...the downside is that the more serious of developers will not
>     look kindly on somethingsomething3. Yes, naming is important :P
>
>     And, as a "successor" to agg2...I'd rather, as I said, just make
>     it a new release. We've got the new release version in place to
>     facilitate exactly this. We can clear out the issue queue if this
>     is agreed to by all.
>
>     === Ashraf:
>
>     The reason I began this module was to put aggregator2 out of its
>     misery :-) aggregator2 is buggy (anyone who even got it to work on
>     4.7 knows what I mean), it's huge (3000+ code), it's SLOW, and way
>     too messy for a relatively simple job.
>
>     There's no common code between this module and aggregator2, they
>     have radically different table schemas, this one supports images
>     while the older did not, this one can be extended to parse any
>     feed while aggregator2 was made for ATOM and RSS. This one was
>     developed with an eye on performance. I didn't put any effort to
>     map old aggregator2 items to this new module. And I don't want
>     users to get the impression that this is an upgrade to their
>     aggregator2 modules, which would be the case if they found it
>     under the same name, not something they would be too happy about
>     either.
>
>     If there's something I faild to catch then please let me know, but
>     it's my understanding that new releases need to cleanup, migrate,
>     and make things look relatively the same for end users. This was
>     never taken into consideration with this module. If the name is
>     the only issue, then let's just call it "generic_aggregator". Are
>     we ok with that?
>
>     === Khalid:
>
>     A while ago, there was discussion on this list on the various
>     aggregator
>     alternatives and extensions.
>
>     It is archived here:
>     http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2006-October/020060.html
>
>     There is also this wiki page
>     https://svn.bryght.com/dev/wiki/DrupalFeedParsing
>     <https://svn.bryght.com/dev/wiki/DrupalFeedParsing>
>
>     Basically, aggregator2 has been abandoned, and leech news is one of
>     the successors (same author IIRC).
>
>     I think that I agree with Boris for not naming something *3 for
>     the reasons
>     he listed.
>
>     Since aggregator2 is abandoned, we can do this:
>
>     - make you the project owner/maintainer of aggregator2.
>     - get you CVS access.
>     - you rewrite it, with the project page saying that 4.7.x-2.0 is a
>     total rewrite.
>     - no need for backward compatibility, and you clearly say that
>     this is not offered.
>
>     aggregator2 performance sucks, and I spent a lot of time trying to
>     pinpoint the
>     performance bottleneck on the news site, with Shadi and Tamer.
>     Aggregator2
>     was the culprit here.
>
>     By the way, my first contributed Drupal module (feedback) was a
>     total rewrite of
>     an existing abandoned module by the same name. Only the name was
>     shared,
>     and it was abandoned when I rewrote it. Later, Wolfgang Zeigler
>     rewrote my version,
>     and I grant him CVS access to the project.
>
>     This is the beauty of refactoring open source software.
>
>     So, go ahead and try that route.
>
>     === Ashraf:
>
>     Sure, this sounds ok to me
>
>     So, there was agreement on that being the route to take, but it
>     was not.
>
>
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