[Framework-Team] Re: Re: Zope 3 widgets in Plone [was: Re: 3.0-alpha1 is out.. and now]

[Sidnei da Silva]

On 12/1/06, Rocky Burt <rocky at serverzen.com> wrote:
> I disagree and I'm not even sorry!  :)
>
> I have an up-until-now silent use case I want to be fulfilled, I want to
> use magnificent (functionality-wise) Archetypes widgets in my pure zope
> 3 applications (zope3.2, whatever).
>
> But besides that, I still think the Plone add-on community should start
> building formlib based widgets and not Archetypes widgets.  Your method
> continues to facilitate writing Archetypes widgets.  But this starts
> coming down simply to differing opinions.

I, too, believe the Plone commnunity should be building formlib-based
widgets. But we have to be careful on our steps. Just saying that we
won't support Archetypes widgets 'because people might keep building
them' is shooting ourselves in the foot.

In the long term, if we do provide clear documentation about building
formlib widgets people *will* do that. If not for the
future-proofness, because building formlib widgets is easier and less
magical (it is easier right? :).

It's not a matter of differing opinions here. We both want to reach
the same goal! The only difference is that you want the
'revolutionary' approach. I want the 'evolutionary' approach. People
are afraid of big changes. If we change too fast we will give people
the impression that Plone is not a stable platform, no matter how cool
it is to use formlib or whatnot.

Even if we did manage to rewrite all the widgets using formlib we
would still have to provide the compatibility for applications until
everyone updates their products. And that's not one or two, the list
of products in the Collective is enormous.

There are existing ways for prodding people into using the cool latest
technology and we've been achieving that by the use of 'deprecation'
mechanisms. There's no reason why widgets should be treated
differently.

In the end I believe our two approaches can and *need* to cohexist
safely. We need to get traction on getting formlib widgets and at the
same time we need to provide a compatibility layer to give everyone a
chance to reach the 'next level'.

-- 
Sidnei da Silva
Enfold Systems                http://enfoldsystems.com
Fax +1 832 201 8856     Office +1 713 942 2377 Ext 214