Re: What I think we should focus on now

Joachim Werner <[email protected]> wrote:
>I completely agree with your comments. Mainly the part about fragmenting 
>the community ... -- I'd just like to focus on actually getting things 
>done rather than only discussing the problems. If the core developers 
>around Jim get communicated that forward compatibility tools are what 
>we'd like to see, they can focus on that.
>
>I understand the mission of this list as to define what migration tools 
>(and concepts) we need, so that the developers can work on them.

I'm afraid it's not that simple.  What gets coded is what the
developers, core or otherwise, are interested in developing.  To
some extent this is informed by "need" as articulated in a plan for
a complete product, but a "wish list" by itself is not going to be
enough.  There's always more to do than there are people/time to
do it.

Migration tools and back porting are not yet on anybody's radar
screen...no, they are definately on the radar screen, they are just
off there in the distance.  The itches that need scratched right
now are completing out what is needed to get real applications (that
certain core developers are actually working on, ex: SteveA) running
inside Zope3.  Once we have a Zope3 product or two for which someone
then says, "gee, I want to run this on my existing wiz-bang Zope2
site", *then* backward compatability will get worked on by core
developers, IMO.  Nearer term, a Zope2 developer can decide they
want to write some new product they need in a forward compatabile
way.  If they then approach the Z3 developers with specific questions
and problems, again the compatability pieces will get worked on.

A real, *concrete* problem is what is needed to get this process
kick started, not a discussion of what tools we *think* we might want.

(Keep in mind that I'm on the fringes of z3 development myself as
I don't have as much time as I'd like to work on code for it.
So my perception could be off base.  Hopefully other developers
will correct me if I'm wrong.  And hopefully I'll start work on
my own hybrid Zope2/Zope3 application sometime in the next
month, and will get a lot more active.)

So *I* think this list is about developing techniques and (non-software)
tools to *manage the migration process*.  Code tools are in scope
for discussion, but not the primary focus, IMO.

--RDM