Re: future of LedgerSMB

["Joshua D. Drake" <..hidden..>]

Jeff Gerritsen wrote:
> I believe a healthy discussion on the future of LSMB is needed, although I'm 
> concerned about two issues, one being discussed and one not being discussed!
> 
> The concerns I have are about the one issue being discussed may degenerate 
> into unproductive language and platform wars - although (I believe) a remote 
> possibility). 

No I don't believe that will happen. If you review the previous postings
to this thread, there is no zealotry happening :)


> The second issue not being discussed (at least I haven't seen 
> much written about it) is what are our intended users needs?  Shouldn't these 
> needs be the driving force behind the future direction of LSMB?  Therefore, 
> based upon user needs, can we not make intelligent decisions on the future of 
> LSMB?

Of course.

> 
> While each language has it's strengths and weaknesses, both Perl and Python 
> are mature, fully functional, and have a whole host of toolkits available to 
> them.  Personally Python has a very slight advantage to me due to the syntax 
> style, but that is mostly immaterial compared to user needs.

Well Python has many advantages but so does Perl for that matter. It
really depends on the particular need. If it were up to me, I think we
would probably go to Python with a requirement of 2.5 or above. It is
not up to me. I just get one vote.

I would also have to be convinced that Perl is the wrong way to go, and
that would be a tough argument. I only see two things wrong with Perl in
this instance:

1. Invites lazy and bad programming practices
2. Is not as portable (in my experience as Python)

Number 1 is a matter of just outright not accepting bad code or patches
Number 2 is arguable

Further Perl gives us another item that Python doesn't and that is a
mature and almost feature complete PL language. Python doesn't give us that.


> 
> Have we taken a "holistic" look at LSMB and user needs?  For example, would 
> ecommerce integration be a desired need?  Or integration with a popular CMS?  
> Or is enhanced light manufacturing a need being expressed?  I suggest we 
> first prioritize user needs and let them be the "basic" drivers in a 
> discussion on the future of LSMB.

I believe that users needs are first and foremost a good, solid
accounting application. That has nothing to do with ecommerce or a
popular CMS. We can do that with a well defined API.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake




> 
> Jeff Gerritsen
> 
> On Monday 22 January 2007 08:16, Chris Travers wrote:
>> Every language has the possibility of running into cross-platform
>> issues on some level.  I have found, for example. that Perl has a few
>> Windows issues, but these can be easily worked around.  I would expect
>> that other scripting languages may run into issues with braind-dead
>> Win32 API behavior too (for example the exec() system call behaves...
>> unexpectedly,,, on that platform).
>>
>> The big cross-platform disadvantage for Perl up until recently has
>> been the lack of an alternative to ActivePerl (which is not freely
>> redistributable).  Vanilla Perl (our current approach) is better in
>> many regards.
> 
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