Re: [Stripes-users] Stripes Development and its Future... (long)

[Soren P. <spe...@gm...>]

Hi Nikolaos
Thank you for a great mail :)
I have the same thoughts as you, and I  am actually ready to step in to the community, if I could find the way. I must admit though that I wanted to get the feeling of the community at first.
However, I think your mail was the trigger, so: how can I help? Anyone?

Regards

Søren 

Den 01/09/2010 kl. 18.26 skrev Nikolaos Giannopoulos <nik...@br...>:

> Hi,
> 
> <off-topic>
> 
> This week I was looking for a JSP caching solution (something that is 
> right up the alley for Stripes Layout) and discovered that there was a 
> product with excellent features called OSCache whose feature set was in 
> deep alignment with my project's requirements.  I became dismayed when I 
> looked at the last release and it was for 2.4.1 on 07/07/2007.  Yes, 
> that is 3 years ago.  The 1st thing that came to mind is that this 
> project is either a) incredibly mature (wishful thinking) or b) 
> abandoned for some reason.  Looking at benchmarks I discovered that the 
> product throws exceptions on a cache miss... a bad practice... but worse 
> a known bad practice that has been in the product for quite some time.  
> Then I looked at the list of bugs and found 4 blocker bugs and at least 
> 11 critical ones.  I then went to the support forums which were said to 
> be in the process of cut over in Nov of 2009 and the message was still 
> there almost a year later;  worse yet there had been literally no 
> activity on the mailing list in the past few years.  I emailed the admin 
> and my concerns were founded.
> 
> Moreover I looked at other solutions like ehCache, Java Caching, 
> JSPCache, etc... and with the exception of ehCache and found that many 
> were also discontinued.  In fact, even though ehCache appears to be the 
> defacto product it didn't suite my requirements anywhere near how 
> OSCache did (their web caching support is extremely feature poor).  I 
> thought, here is this great product that despite its greatness has 
> fallen.  Before anyone can say well this is nothing new... remember BETA 
> vs. VHS... I'll agree but there are stark differences with Open Source 
> software... as quickly as Open Source projects pop up and gain inertia 
> they can unfortunately fall from grace as equally fast.
> 
> Also, *perception* is huge and moreover *perception* can kill an Open 
> Source project very quickly if the *perception* is that the project 
> isn't being evolved or may soon be on life support.
> 
> </off-topic>
> 
> Why do I go to great lengths to mention the above which has nothing to 
> do with Stripes.  Because I am concerned.  I am concerned because there 
> are *a few* current similarities between Stripes and OSCache but 
> *perception* is key.
> 
> In looking at Stripes development:
> --> 1.5.3 last svn update was December 16 2009
> --> 1.5.4 Snapshot was progressing at a feverish clip until June 10, 
> 2010 w/ a much hoped release that fizzled...
> --> Trunk (1.6.0) has 3 commits in the last year... meaning lots of 
> fixes in 1.5.4 Snapshot still need to be ported to the trunk (which is 
> fine as this can obviously wait until 1.5.4 launches but is a little 
> surprising from an new feature / activity perspective).
> --> Luckily other than a blocker issue in 1.5.4 Snapshot (which isn't 
> even released yet) there do not appear to be any other serious Critical 
> bugs and although there are many Major bugs a lot of them don't appear 
> to be as harmful as OSCache's race condition, synchronization issues, 
> etc... so that is a very good thing.
> 
> In looking at Stripes releases:
> --> Whether you like Maven or not one thing is for certain Maven will 
> *spur* adoption and provides positive *perception* assuming the releases 
> are kept up to date (very negative *perception* if releases are not 
> recent).  Stripes suffers from some negativity in this regard with 1.5.3 
> not being available... some time ago Ben was looking to setup Sonatype 
> repo but that too fizzled...
> --> Although one can setup an Internal Maven repo quite easily... using 
> any web server... it is the negative *perception* that hurts most.  I 
> think at very least this should be setup ASAP and 1.5.3 should be made 
> available via Maven (w/ site + doc links updated).
> 
> In looking at Stripes mailing list there is a trickle in the developer 
> list (if any) in any given month and the user mailing list has low 
> volume.  The good news though is that the community does still respond 
> to questions or calls for help in a very timely manner.
> 
> What spurred this post was *perception*;  *perception* of OSCache, my 
> recent fun with 1.5.4 Snapshot nested Stripes Layouts,  1.6.x future 
> development and finally Grzegorz's post which in part read as follows:
> 
> Grzegorz Krugły wrote:
>> I work with stripes on glassfish a lot, so could be able to fix/text
>> some gf-related bugs for sure. When I have some spare time, I'll also
>> look over the ticket list on Jira, perhaps I could offer my work on some
>> of them.
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> Grzegor
> I think *many* more developers need to step up to the table and start 
> helping with Stripes fixes and ongoing development otherwise I'm afraid 
> this project like many open source projects I have seen over the last 
> few years may end up like OSCache... a wonderful product but one that 
> simply lost its inertia and then most likely fell victim to 
> *perception*.  My *perception* of Stripes is that it is a great product 
> but I think we all can agree that *perception* of its development and 
> future is lacking.  This is not so much a *criticism* as much as it as 
> *observation* as clearly nobody is being paid money to provide their 
> time (of course rewards come in many flavours :-)
> 
> Personally, at this time I have zero spare cycles to assist directly in 
> fixes unless they are show stoppers but hope later this year to offer my 
> services as well.  In the interim, as I continue to leverage Stripes for 
> a large project, I hope that those experiences and incorporation there 
> can help makes Stripes a better product... through reporting issues, 
> testing fixes, providing workarounds, etc... and possibly producing patches.
> 
> What does the community think?  How can we improve things for all?  
> Comments / ideas???
> 
> ASIDE:  One thing that isn't clear (to me at least) is how does someone 
> go about getting involved to directly contribute to Stripes 
> development?  i.e. how can Grzegorz or I get involved when we are 
> available... .
> 
> Regards,
> 
> --Nikolaos
> 
> 
> 
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