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Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 04:21:37 +1100
From: Jeff Turner <jefft@apache.org>
To: forrest-dev@xml.apache.org
Subject: Re: file: prefix, take 2
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On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 05:00:14PM +0100, Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote:
> 
> Jeff, it seems to me that you were pissed off by my veto on your file: 
> prefix system.

Very observant.  I take email composition seriously.  This one took an
hour to write.  Add up the hours, and this has been a significant waste
of life.

> I have tried to explain you what my issues are, and have understood your 
> vision. I have understood some of your points, and you have seen some of 
> mine. This shows IMHO that the commit was really too hasty. But the 
> thread degenerated again, so I want to start anew with it and get to a 
> solution.
> 
> Try to understand that it's very difficult for me to stand behind this 
> veto, it's not a fun ride. Don't think i made it lightly, nor that it's 
> a personal thing.
> Please give me all the time we need to resolve this thing, because it's 
> IMHO important for Forrest.

Yay, a disagreement before we even get to the little -oOo-

We agree on the important part, which is that copying static files and
Javadocs should be done as a CLI optimization.  I'm sure that given
another week's emailing :) I'm sure I could convince you that an Ant copy
is an acceptable hack in the meanwhile.

But all this opposition to whether static links have a 'file:' prefix is
_really_ absurd.

-1 means, "This is an IMPORTANT issue in which I'm SURE I'm right, and am
willing to risk wasting everyone's time and generate lots of negativity
to defend that view".

-1 is NOT synonymous with "I disapprove".

Now, is whether we have a 'file:' prefix important?  If it turns out to
be unnecessary, we tell people to stop doing it, write a 10 line XSLT to
strip the 'file:' for backwards-compat, and by Forrest 0.4 no-one will
have remembered it.  This is *early* in Forrest's development cycle, and
mistakes are allowed.

Then, Are you absolutely positively *sure* you're right?  Can you picture
a world where 95% of URLs start with site:, java:, person:, mail: etc,
and say with complete confidence, "a file: prefix is out of place"?

If I were running Apache, there would be a rule: more than 5 -1s per 6
months and you get dragged before the PMC to explain your actions,
because something is wrong, possibly with the project, but probably with
the committer.  -1s are community destroyers.  From observation here and
on avalon-dev, I think you treat them far too much like candy.

I'll defer replying to the rest of this email till a more civilized hour.


--Jeff