I recently read David''s post on the RoR webblog about tagging. That''s not what concerns me. Its a cool feature, and it definitely deserves recognition, and it may be useful for some. http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/archives/2005/08/27/get-taggable-like-all-the-cool-kids What does concern me is this statement at the end of the post: "It''s pending as a patch too, so it''ll most likely make it into the next version." This has gotten me worried. Why it worries me is because there are reasonable concerns brought up in the blog comments itself about how the particular piece of code is kind of restrictive on what is possible. It might be useful for some people, but I don''t think something like this has any business being in the core. I''m also a bit concernced because I hope this doesn''t show a change in philosophy on Rails. I''d hate for RoR to turn into a bloated framework. Please keep the framework simple and relevant. I apologize if I''ve spoken ignorantly, I just wanted to put my opinion forward.
On Aug 29, 2005, at 1:11 PM, Aaron Lebo wrote:> I recently read David''s post on the RoR webblog about tagging. That''s > not what concerns me. Its a cool feature, and it definitely deserves > recognition, and it may be useful for some. > > http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/archives/2005/08/27/get-taggable-like- > all-the-cool-kids > > What does concern me is this statement at the end of the post: "It''s > pending as a patch too, so it''ll most likely make it into the next > version." > > This has gotten me worried. Why it worries me is because there are > reasonable concerns brought up in the blog comments itself about how > the particular piece of code is kind of restrictive on what is > possible. It might be useful for some people, but I don''t think > something like this has any business being in the core. > > I''m also a bit concernced because I hope this doesn''t show a change in > philosophy on Rails. I''d hate for RoR to turn into a bloated > framework. Please keep the framework simple and relevant. > > I apologize if I''ve spoken ignorantly, I just wanted to put my opinion > forward.We have just been discussing this and your concerns are well founded, thank you for speaking up. Most of what some of the submitted acts do can be done less intrusively as a module (in the Ruby sense). I think there''s a gray area between what is acceptable as a general act and what should be left to modules, and we haven''t specifically defined that criteria, rather we will evaluate acts as they are submitted. In my personal opinion, the more general (domain-wise) the act is, the more likely its acceptance into core. Specific acts like tagging may best be left to third party modules. If that means we need to develop a better system for including and distributing such modules, then we''ll investigate that. Fear not, none of us have any intention of adding unnecessary bloat to Rails proper. -- Scott Barron Lunchbox Software http://lunchboxsoftware.com http://lunchroom.lunchboxsoftware.com
On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Aaron Lebo wrote:> This has gotten me worried. Why it worries me is because there are > reasonable concerns brought up in the blog comments itself about how the > particular piece of code is kind of restrictive on what is possible. It > might be useful for some people, but I don''t think something like this > has any business being in the core.As far as I''m concerned, a candidate patch is exactly that: a candidate. It''s up to the Benevolent Dictator to determine whether this patch goes into Rails or not -- and, if not, what would need to happen in order to make the cut. It''s also possible, given my recollection of Linux''s implementation of USB and the history of Inaky''s proposed solution, that the Benevolent Dictator will like the idea, but not the approach taken -- and so it will be redesigned and/or refactored to fit into the Rails philosophy. The point of concern for me is that of managing expectations, both of one''s self and others. No matter how cool I am and how skilled I am, I can''t expect that any given patch I provide will necessarily make it into the trunk unless I''m the Benevolent Dictator. I think acts_as_taggable is quite cool (and useful). I haven''t yet had a chance to play with it. I can think of three different places I could use this in the schema I''m currently working on (approx. 45 tables), however it may not be as useful without some of the supporting functions Dema mentioned hadn''t been coded yet. -- _Deirdre web / blog: http://deirdre.net/ yarn: http://fuzzyorange.com cat''s blog: http://fuzzyorange.com/vsd/ "Memes are a hoax! Pass it on!"