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My personal opinion is that jumping from number to number has nothing positive in it.
It also definitely doesn't shows the significant improvements, it only shows that the team is not doing, what it was planning to do.

+4 numbers doesn't show progress, it shows that it is not happening what the community expected to happen.

Ivo

Mod note : topice split from http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,24476.0.html

it's only 4/10th of one, ivo! :-) not four WHOLE points. so, technically, it's just .3 more than we expected and a TON more than we hoped for! thanks guys.

Is that a solicitation for a core position ?  (note : wink added upon request  )

_________________
Johan Janssens - Joomla Co-Founder, Lead Developer of Joomla 1.5

http://www.nooku.org - multi-lingual content manager and rapid extension development framework for Joomla 1.5
http://www.joomlatools.eu - training, consulting and extension development

jinx - u keep forgetting the wink. (thanks, jinx...i got you covered.)

Jinx, I just think, that if you are talking during more than 1 year for version 1.1, sorry but it is too confusing for most of the users. And therefore for a person not really involved in day to day activities (reading official forums etc.) is quite confusing this change of version numbering.
Just a question: What do you win from this +4? According to me nothing. It's a stupid swank, IMO!
What do you loose: People get shocked and probable loose trust in the product, because it is not going as it is announced it will.
Ref. http://dev.joomla.org/content/view/23/61/ - people are watching this for more then six months now.

Egads, Ivo! Do we really want to kick our developers when they are pushing that last mile? geesh. What's the point? Faith in the product comes from performance not a number. IMO. Such negativity!

I personally don't care if it will be 1.5, 1.8, 1034.122.134 or whatever, but:

- We are going to loose all forum posts as they will not appear on searching for 1.5 (Talking about our national site)
- I remember how hard was to explain why Mambo is becoming Joomla, so I can imaging that it will be not much easier why 1.1 is skiped and there is from nowhere 1.5
- Update confusion will be the biggest dhrama - people will ask: Should I update first to 1.1 (because they expect it) before updating to 1.5

And some hundreds of other questions like:
- Where can I download 1.1?
- This component is compatible with 1.1 but does it works on 1.5
- Will components working on 1.0 will work on 1.5, as they were supposed to work with 1.1

according to me this was unnecessary. But that's the reallity. It seems that size sometimes matters.

See now, that is much clearer and less personal than "It's a stupid swank, IMO!" which just seems unfriendly! Thanks for clarifying your specific concerns!



Won't even go there.

Thanks, Ivo.

OK, it was probably too much, I apologize about it. Don't want to make it personal, as it is not.

Thanks, Ivo. You are a great guy to say that. MUCH appreciated.

Well for one it more accuratly shows how far along the development really is....
In some ways it was a mistake to start with v1.0 because that "1" didn't actually reflect the maturity of the project.
Joomla is hardly a version 1 project and closer to a version 5 in features and stability..

For anyone who doesn't know the history of the project seeing that 1.0 would suggest that Joomla just started and doesn't do much because it is a newborn.

By renaming 1.1 to 1.5 it shows a bit more of the maturity of the code.

Hindsight is 20/20 and hindsight is showing that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to try to squeeze every proposed system change into two major versioning numbers...

It might be better if the Devs would be less strict and leave more space in between on the roadmap and instead of setting the secondary version number that they should simply make V1 and V2 predictions...
Change the secondary number each time a major overhaul of a specific subsystem (as opposed to the current practice of MANY subsystems)

But as it stands I think going to 1.5 would more accuratly reflect what has happened so far...
Internationalization is a major step and it still leaves 4 more major releases available for things like ACL, Pat Templates, and speration of Logic and Output...all leadeing to V2.0 which is what I think proposed 1.2 should actually be called...I think what is in there falls under the category of MAJOR change to the product!

As it stands the old roadmap (V1.1) had 5 key features listed for it. If all 5 are completed then there would be 5 changes to the 5 different subsystems listed in the roadmap meaning it probably deserves that 1.5 designation....

I agree though that it may be confusing in the short term but in the end I think the devs painted themselves into a corner by setting v1.2 instead of just going for the 2.0 designation...
And it's better to correct that now than it will be later

are you inside my head?

_________________
Development Working Group Coordinator
http://webimagery.net - Consulting
http://jxtended.com - Solutions for Joomla! 1.5
A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.

Not enough room! LOL
I ate a lot this month!

Totally agree with Ivo.

With Joomla! 1.1 release I'm not quite sure that end users would have noticed a big difference regarding code quality and structure, but for sure they would have noticed that Joomla! 's backend interface was finally available in their language (and that the new default template rocks). I will not dig into the code to check if it is cleaner or not, I'm not a coder. For months we'been telling on our forums (joomla.fr) that Joomla! 1.1 release would be a milestone, for months we've been telling that maintenance releases were sometimes buggy, yes, but Joomla! 1.1 would be far better.

Regarding the new version number, I wish the Core Team had some more consideration for our (joomla fan/support portals) work. Our support activities (tutorials and documentations) were delayed over and over beacause of 1.1 not being released as scheduled (do you remenber our mail exchanges jinx in september 05?). Now we we'll have to explain to our users something we don't even understand  "Why jumping to 1.5??, Did I miss 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4??..." and so on.

Those are the reasons why I'm p*ssed off:
- We try to relay Joomla news and dev activity the best we can on our portal..., but we always have to "pull" the information, why not "pushing" it??
- Decision to change the version number is YOUR decision but it directly affects OUR "work". I really appreciate your time and dedication in making Joomla a better product, but please have some more consideration for the time and dedication we spend in "spreading the word".
- As Ivo stated, this is not serious and it does not make sense: 1.1 or 1.5... it is still minor release right?

No wink, no smileys...

_________________
Ivan

http://www.joomla.fr
http://www.lapatagonie.com

There are a lot of good reasons as I've just read... but why not to change the roadmap simply, so 

It's very difficult to understand the right way 

_________________
former Q&T WorkGroup Joomla member - Italian Translation Team Member

There, enough for everyone.

Well the versioning shouldn't really be based on what users will notice should it?
What it should be based on is comparative compatability with the previous versions...and similarity of the code base and structure

The internationalization might not seem like much of a change almost like a maintainence release...
but to get there might have distinctly changed the way Joomla works and where the functions are located.

Ok, let me reword my opinion.

Please consider how huge Joomla has become in such a short time. Please also consider that Joomla community is not only made of english speaking users. IMO, Joomla 1.1 internationalization was a TOP priority. We (joomla french community) have raised this point 6 months ago, right after the split. I had mail exchanges with masterchief and jinx regarding this matter; a Joomla 1.1 internationalized version was almost ready at that time. Now it seems to me that other technical considerations are as much important as the internationalization, if not, what's the point of renumbering 

_________________
Ivan

http://www.joomla.fr
http://www.lapatagonie.com

Well maybe the point is to get to the internationalization it required massive amounts of changes to the rest of the core. Something that may have not been planned for V1.1 but wound up being required to get what was promised into the v1.1 version...

Most excellent, this one I will respond to ;-)



That request from the international community was moved up front, to the very front of the line at the highest priority. We shelved a ton of badly needed features, like database abstraction, enhanced ACL, and many other things.

With the commitment to internationalization, the effort then began in earnest to provide support for unicode (UTF-8). This decision alone required mass hunks of the core to be refactored, and some third party libraries were found to be incapable of supporting the UTF-8 characterset and had to be either customized or replaced.

I applaud Johan and the 1.1 team's efforts to get this done. However it is really important to know that we didn't just finish the 1.1 work in september and decide to get sidetracked on a smorgasboard of additional features. The effort to provide (and test) support for UTF-8 was phenomenal. Look around and see how many other PHP-based complex open source applications are UTF-8 native. This is a very big deal, and IMHO the biggest deal of the release.

WIth that said, there are also a bunch of opportunities, thanks to the refactoring that UTF-8 required, to enhance and clean up some real ugliness that we had inherited over the years. These things have been in the back of our minds for a looooooooong time, but backwards compatibility was the biggest roadblock keeping us from solving those problems. With the refactoring that UTF-8 required, and the fact that we are now Joomla and not Mambo, we agreed that it was a logical time to rationalize the API and make some very badly needed adjustments to the core.

Yes, this has taken longer than expected, and includes a lot more changes than originally expected, but this all came from the implementation of the UTF-8 support and internationalization that this release was based on in the first place! So I suppose we could have shipped a Joomla 1.1 back in September that had better internationalization and supported UTF-8, and it would have been full of broken libraries, and nobody would have been happy at all with the result - including us.

What we originally set out to do has been accomplished in this release, and the refactoring that this required gave us an opportunity to solve some really serious issues under the hood. So please don't think that developers being excited about the new API goodies means that we didn't keep the original goal in mind. Also, when you were speaking with us about our progress, it was not apparent to us how much additional work was required to get the job done correctly. We could have met the original goals, but again the solution was more of a band-aid and not really a correct fix.

The renumbering should not be such a big issue, as it is true that this release (just like Firefox 1.5, which influenced our decision) does merit more than just a 'bump'. You don't expect us to remove all this new stuff so we can release 1.1 for you, do you? LOL

_________________
Bringing on that Spacemonkey goodness:
website -> www.spacemonkeylabs.com
blog -> www.mitchitized.com

Yes. This is what I made up as reason in my non-coder mind too.
But: this has not been communicated early enough, clearly enough, in in enough detail to allow forecasting
a/ that this would take so much longer (remember, we're still waiting for the next BETA!) and
b/ the changes would be so important that renumbering could / would / was being considered..

You know, I am patient (libra..), but only up to a certain point, and then, sorry but I will speak my mind and if I feel something is wrong, I'll say, no matter to whom (ask my boss..).
There's nothing wrong in the release being delayed, in the version number changing, in anything affecting lots and lots of users and or support teams, but there is something seriously wrong in not communicating early and openly about this, so everyone can adjust and keep supporting these decisions.. no?
Back in September '05, when we had contacte with Andrew (masterchief; aka Joomla Project leader) because the Forge project to port the Mambo adminlanguage hack (which btw always worked great) to J! had been refused!, we had been told that There's some follow-up on this, but the whole ddiscussion then would be too long to quote here, very enlightening though..
That would've been end of October. It never happened, and we lost -so far- 1/2 a year where this hack could've benefited all international users...
If this doesn't make it clear what this is all about, I don't know.. It's not only about this renumbering thing (has it been announced yet?), it's about communication with the international support communities, at least about topics that clearly affect them, more and better. Same old problem, if you've been around for a while.
I am *not* criticising the coders, and their decisions to clean and refactor the code, just that this is done without regular official "communiqués" the support teams of the various countries could forward to their communities.. push, as hornos says, not having to pull... I am *not* talking about announcements here either, but about something that was suggested 6 months back..
Most of our users are not around here, many don't speak english, so yes, they will shoot the messenger! You know, we get about a mail a day asking us some question about a business or individual wanting to use "our" CMS! Many french users might, as far as they're concerned, not even know this site here exists! Can a German, Italian, Spanish or other team member confirm or invalidate this, just so it doesn't seem to be an isolated point of view?
Sorry, got a bit carried away here.. Please read and understand where this is coming from before you answer, ok? (compulsory wink added for everyones convenience..)

Before I post this, spacemonkey, just read your reply.. Good explanation as to the why, but all I wrote is still valid, no matter how much of an improvement 1.whatever will bring, someday.. sigh.. we are wasting time over a number, only because nothing has changed in the communication channels..

_________________
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. AE
http://joomla15.blog spot.com for J! 1.5 screenshots
http://www.eyezberg.com

We are now wasting time over prioritization then, correct? To be blunt, this is just one thing among an infinite list of things that needs to be done. And these are things we plan on doing, but there are only so many hours in the day. Development, funding, expos, legal duties, time with the kids... We're human beings too, please remember that 

We had to completely uproot the entire project, people, projects, resources, websites, the whole shebang when we rebranded to Joomla. The reason I state the obvious here is that everyone has their own agenda of what needs to be solved, but I don't think a lot of folks take the time to consider what we have accomplished - or still have remaining that needs to be accomplished.

There are many fundamental issues that must be addressed before "communications" can be remedied, as those organizational efforts directly affect how we communicate - both internally and to the community. One thing at a time.

_________________
Bringing on that Spacemonkey goodness:
website -> www.spacemonkeylabs.com
blog -> www.mitchitized.com

You guys are all so amazing. This is not easy. You all come with so much history. It's an international, decentralized, open source project that has broken away from it's roots and it's NOT EVEN A YEAR, YET.

Look what you guys have done! You guys are right - its all about this shared vision and passion - and most importantly the communication. Keep using your voices and listening. Thanks for bringing Joomla to us. You guys are amazing. Honestly.

Ok prioritization then.. how do you expect people to gain an understanding about YOUR infinite list of things remaining to be done, and the "fundamental issues" at hand, if you don't tell them? Please tell me?
How is anyone able to have a clue about what is going on in the background if there's no communication about it?
How often was this same answer "we've got so much to do, but only so much time" offered during the last 2 years?
It has gotten better, slightly, there is now communication about the CODE, but that's it.
Nothing about anything more indepth, about future plans, what all this code is aiming for, the goal of this whole project etc etc..
I asked this many times before, so I've gotten used to never getting an answer, which does not mean I'll change my mind about this. 'nuff said, I'll answer some more posts instead..

_________________
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. AE
http://joomla15.blog spot.com for J! 1.5 screenshots
http://www.eyezberg.com

Joe -

This is just a "fresh pair of eyes" observation --this sounds backwards to me.

Shouldn't the community be organizing lists of needs / desires and prioritizing these for the core?  Now, I have absolutely no idea how you do that in a productive, reliable way for an international project, but, it seems like Joomla! will be more and more successful if the community is helping to shape its future.

I think the core team has their own vision for their tool and I am certain that much of that is shared -- and even BEYOND THE WILDEST DREAMS of the community, but these views need to be meshed together and organized into releases. So how does the community voice weigh in?

I wonder if it makes more sense to think about process -- for the future -- rather than 1.1 or 1.5 or what's next?

Thanks...Amy

This has been proposed, even with the offer to coordonate and organize collab between the communities. It is not a priority on the infinite list...

_________________
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. AE
http://joomla15.blog spot.com for J! 1.5 screenshots
http://www.eyezberg.com

But, see, that kind of my point. Why does that require sign off or organization or time from the core? Isn't that something that the end-user community should be intiatiing independently? Is it time for that? Lead on!

I do not wish to post about this, sorry, I prefer to forget the comments answered when this was suggested. As you may or not know, there are no *official* international Joomla sites, only ackowledged "translation partners" who are kindly allowed to provide international language files. There is no communication happening anywhere between communities/ core. There is more behind this than I want to duscuss, it got boring some time ago.. Let's just forget I ever mentioned this, ok?

_________________
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. AE
http://joomla15.blog spot.com for J! 1.5 screenshots
http://www.eyezberg.com

@eyezberg: No it is not OK, I think it is something that should be discussed, it is  just probably not the right place (forum).

I have some interesting statistics about internationalization, especially for Bulgaria

Oh Spacemonkey, that is so wrong!

J! is going to be fab - but what's the point if no-one knows? Or if you alienate your existing consumer base?

There are development cycles for the code... why not see if you can co-opt a professional communicator? A PR professional who can develop a strategy, write the blogs and releases that the coding teams don't have time for and act as a conduit between the stakeholders (i.e. us)?

No - I'm not volunteering. I already do PR as a day job and as a voluntary (unpaid) job too.

Gary