Nate Cavanaugh 16 年之前 Hi Dave,This is actually pretty funny that you bring this up now. I've been debating with myself on the role of principles vs. practice, not just in the technology sector, but in economics, politics, and philosophical dealings as well.As for the split between core vs. consultant, I actually think it works well, in the same way that the bicameral houses of the US government work.The idea was that you'd have the House of Representatives, who would represent the "common man"s interests, and the Senate, who would sort of be the more "elite" types with more government experience, etc.This isn't to categorize either group in Liferay as elite or "common-folk" but more to stress the idea of having two aspects of the company help us keep each other in check.There are two things I've learned is that a lot of times, consultants (all consultants, not necessarily Liferay ones) will do the quickest thing possible to get something done regardless of scalability or long term maintenance (which is smart, because you want to keep costs down, and get things done as efficiently as possible), and the other thing I've learned is that most types of "standards bodies" or in our case "core developers" can often go off on tangents and create things that have no real usable purpose.The reason why I think we have limited much if not all of that, is that we have checks and balances between the two groups.Consultants help us know what the real useful things are, while the core helps make sure it's sustainable and fits well in the product direction.But yeah, I know you weren't arguing that point, I thought I'd just clarify.As for my thoughts of "standards, standards, standards!", I am a bit of a standardista. But I also fully acknowledge that there are times when the standards don't cut it, or get in the way of doing any real work.As for my feeling about Microsoft's decision, I whole heartedly support it, and not because I want to say "Screw the pragmatists!", but because it's the "right" thing to do in principle, and because it's been foretold for years now.This shouldn't be a surprise, and standards based development has been advocated (and realistically acheivable) since 2002-2003.So the people whose sites are going to break are people who were warned, told to develop the "right" way, for years now, and chose a different path.This is the very thing those of us who preached standards warned about.But the web cannot and should not be held back by the poor decisions of some.I can totally sympathize with developers whose sites will break. But I can't say they weren't warned.(Man that sounds heartless, but it's more or less just me being "pragmatic" ;) 请登录以投票。 以……回复 取消
Nate Cavanaugh 16 年之前 After reading my response above, I think I should clarify.I didn't mean to make it sound like our consultants do crappy work, nor that our core developers make stuff nobody wants, LOL.More that both groups, if left untended can go off in those extremes. I'm looking particularly at the current web development groups, specifically random developers and the W3C.Most developers are in the position they're in now of being upset at Microsoft because they did the hacks needed to "just get it up there".Then you have the W3C which has almost no actual working developers that contribute, and instead is filled with people who have no vested interest in developing or innovating anything of worth, but things that adhere to some arcane and esoteric philosophy.Luckily, in Liferay, while there is a general distinction between consultants and core, we do have passionate folks that communicate frequently about their needs and the best way to develop these types of things.Okay, hopefully that clarifies it a bit 请登录以投票。 以……回复 取消
David Rison 16 年之前 I agree that we are pretty good at maintaining a balance. We do need standards. Anyone who has been developing web applications the last 10 years has felt the shear agony trying to maintain an application that is cross browser compliant, let alone cross platform. Some of our clients will not shift their environment without extensive testing and we have to be prepared to support them, but at the same time we need to be at the forefront of technology, pushing for a better world. It’s especially difficult as you mentioned being onsite as a consultant and finding yourself in an uncomfortable position of not having the answer for the client but we do a pretty good job of maintaining our professionalism and also providing them with answers as we have them. We have a pretty large group of very intelligent people at Liferay which is a great resource. There are still going to be times when we have to solve a new problem that no one has encountered or attempted to solve but a benefit is that we can then in many cases share that with the core.And to 2nd what Nate said, we are very passionate about what we do. These conversations are good. They keep us all honest. 请登录以投票。 以……回复 取消
Peter Shin 16 年之前 Great post - that's a nice article!Pretty interesting read about the history of web browsers and web standards and why we're at the place we are today.Its a good example though of how hard it is to find that delicate balance btwn idealism with pragmatism. I'm glad that the conversations about backward compatibility and integrating exciting new features are happening at Liferay. I think it helps keep that balance and will ultimately help make Liferay the best solution for existing clients and future clients as well. 请登录以投票。 以……回复 取消