

Anonymous Open Letter to the Ember.js Core Team - zeppelin
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/5378663

======
stdbrouw
It's scary, but even if you release something as open source, for free and
free for people to modify as they please, you're still in a weird relationship
with the people that use your software. You haven't exactly promised to do
anything for them, and the code as-is is in itself a great gift... but on the
other hand, there's an implicit acknowledgement that "yes, you can build on
this".

(Both the open letter and the response from Tom Dale seem to acknowledge that
there's two sides to this issue, which is refreshing. Usually you get these
really boorish "dude, it's open source, just fix it yourself will ya"
responses.)

It makes me wary of pushing any of my projects. I still open source pretty
much everything I do, but usually with a big fat "for your edification, don't
expect any support or ongoing development" disclaimer.

(Also see fat's "What Is Open Source & Why Do I Feel So Guilty? at
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDb6VBO9os>)

~~~
tlrobinson
Maybe the open source community needs a sort of standard way of
declaring/disclaiming how production-ready a project is, and how much effort
we intend to put into supporting it.

~~~
jamesbritt
People should assume that if there is no affirmative declaration of "This is
production ready" then the code is not production ready.

If there is no affirmative declaration of "I will be actively supporting this
beyond my own personal needs" then assume that the code will not be supported
beyond the personal needs of the project owner.

Or people can just ask, instead complaining (however well-intended) that their
assumptions have turned out false.

This is like people who build a business on some aspect of Twitter or Facebook
then complain that Twitter or Facebook is shutting them out. If you are using
someone else's code or API make sure you get some positive, unambiguous
statement from the owner about what to expect.

Things can still go south, but then you at least have a legitimate gripe.

------
ollysb
Man this rings so true with me. Emberjs has so much promise but it is just so
frustrating to work with. Every time I turn my head something fundamental
seems to have changed (the router and now dependency injection). It does
always seem like a good move but because the docs don't keep up it means
you're suddenly googling solutions that don't work any more. Maybe a
kickstarter would be a good way to get things stabilised? If yehuda etc. don't
have the time maybe someone would like to step up and with some kickstarter
money spend a few months getting up to speed with the project and getting it
stable, docs done etc.

Edit: BTW my money is ready and waiting!

------
niggler
PG: is it possible to configure HN to show the domain as gist.github.com
instead of just github.com?

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
Yes, browsers have this feature where you can hover a link and it reveals the
href.

~~~
fudged71
It's easy to use snark to dismiss someone's problem.

Why show the domain at all if you can hover over the links? For a minimalistic
interface like HN you'd think there would be a reason for it. And if people
are identifying content based on that URL, it's probably best to make it
descriptive when subdomains have very different content.

Plus, many touchscreen devices don't have an easy way to see where a link is
pointing to, even on devices with 'hover' functionality.

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
Because that's not what this discussion/thread is about.

------
manojlds
What is the need to do this anonymously? It seems like the intent is only to
complain and not contribute back to the project itself.

~~~
lukeholder
I suppose there are some developers who are not advanced enough to contribute
to the project, but smart enough to use a framework? I don't know: Tom Dale
did reply to the gist, and mentions there are non-trivial CS problems being
solved.

Ember is actively trying to compete with angular (backed by google) and others
- and I think the people rooting for ember are just people feeling let down
after deciding to move forward on it in production.

edit: Tom's actual quote: "trying to solve are novel computer science
problems"

~~~
manojlds
Contributions are not only in form of code right. The anonymous person can
help in documentation, interact with the core devs on problems through back
and forth communications etc.

~~~
csarva
When there are 50 open pull requests it's clear that people are contributing
but getting nowhere. The anon poster may in fact own several of those..

------
juanbyrge
To the ember.js team: don't worry, people like this are poison to open source.
They demand so much, have such high expectations, and are not willing to
contribute anything. They do not realize people have real lives outside of
open source, and sometimes they need a break.

~~~
Terretta
On the contrary, he's unhappy that contributions (PRs) are ignored.

~~~
juanbyrge
Pull requests can take more time to process than feature requests, because 1)
The code is usually inconsistent with the rest of the project, 2) there are
often merge conflicts that the submitter has to resolve 3) people rarely write
tests or documentation about the feature.

~~~
skore
You make good points, but each of these is solvable:

1) Require the code to be consistent. Tell the submitter how to do this.

2) Merges have to be straight forward, or you don't accept the submission. I
think Linus Torvalds has the same strategy for the kernel - you figure out the
merge, I'll accept it.

3) That depends a lot on how you set up your tests and documentation. If you
make it simple to write both, it's simple to require them. If they're not
simple, you should make them.

------
ctvo
Why is there drama for such a small community? Angular doesn't seem to suffer
from these constant HN threads.

~~~
benatkin
It shows that Ember.js is a community-driven project.

Angular.js OTOH is run by Google, and like everything done by Google is part
of their strategy to collect data and increase advertising revenue.

~~~
defen
This is not even wrong...it's just an absurd statement. Using angular makes it
no easier or more difficult for Google "to collect data and increase
advertising revenue" compared to any other JS framework.

------
skybrian
It's a big issue that any successful open source project faces. It's natural
for the team to want to promote all the great things the product will do. But
the core team doesn't scale as fast as contributors, let alone the userbase,
and there is great risk of over-promising.

I think the approach of something like jQuery works best: do one thing well.
Add polish, not features. Let other people start their own projects that
extend yours.

A way to scale back expectations even more is to provide sample code, not a
drop-in library. If you want to use it, copy and modify it so you know how it
works and can fix the bugs yourself. This ensures that people don't think of
themselves as just users.

------
erikpukinskis
These are great ideas for things to improve in Ember, but I don't understand
how someone could start an Ember project without understanding 1) It's _very_
new, and therefore very raw. And 2) You're gonna have to dig into the Ember
source if you want to do anything beyond what you can see in the tutorials.

If you want a framework that can be used for a large, complex project without
you having to do infrastructure work yourself, then you have to use a
framework where someone has already done that, and there's an established
organization that's in the "fixing little bugs caused by slight variations in
developer use cases" stage. End of story.

~~~
acdha
<http://emberjs.com/> doesn't say anything about being that unstable on the
homepage and the list of users has enough well-known companies that you would
reasonably conclude it's ready for production.

Various posts have made the front page here and I don't recall many (any?)
caveats saying it's only for thrill-seekers, either.

------
swampthing
Not to sidetrack the conversation, but why is Backbone "a joke"? It seems a
bit different in approach from Ember, but I've used it for a pretty big
application and it worked great.

~~~
tlrobinson
IMHO Backbone is in a weird spot between plain old jQuery apps with no
structure, and frameworks like Ember/Cappuccino/Angular/Knockoutthat have
"bindings" constructs that can drastically reduce glue code.

------
kordless
I think it's bullshit someone did this anonymously. Just stand up and say what
you want and own it for crap's sake.

~~~
viseztrance
Things you say on the web have a habit of being preserved for quite some time.

I can easily imagine certain future employers seeing the author because of
this rant / critique as a liability.

------
AshleysBrain
When you choose a framework, surely you have a responsibility to thoroughly
review it to ensure it meets your needs? Your needs might include professional
support. If none was advertised and you still chose it, why bemoan the fact
it's missing?

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
This, back at 0.8.x, I choose Ember (over an array of frameworks), 4 weeks
wasted fighting the framework. Switched to angular in under a day. Using ember
is and continues to be filled with surprises. I don't like surprises in a
framework.

Tom Dale said it himself, ember doesn't have enough manpower. I find it odd,
that Dale & Katz, are unable to raise funds to increase the level of manpower
on it. A simple kickstarter may help.

------
idan
<http://gist.io/5378663> if you like your eyes or you're on a mobile device.

~~~
jcoder
... or you don't want to read the enlightening reply from an Ember core member
:P

