[erlang-questions] Misultin EOL

[Michael Truog]

On 02/17/2012 07:06 AM, Steve Vinoski wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 3:59 AM, Ulf Wiger <ulf@REDACTED> wrote:
>> On 17 Feb 2012, at 00:06, Michael Truog wrote:
>>
>> With yaws the concern seems to be more about the code being regarded as
>> legacy, not actively developed, and not modular (and whatever other reasons
>> that seemed to make mochiweb
>> appear necessary).
>>
>>
>> I think this is no longer true. My impression is that yaws development has
>> picked up again, Looking at the change log for the releases in the past year
>> or two [1], it is obvious that it is being actively maintained. This is also
>> apparent from the github stats [2]. And yaws now comes with generic support
>> for the various forms of JSON RPC (1.1 and 2.0), HAXE, SOAP, and even
>> WebSockets. One of the few things I miss is WebMachine support. :)
>>
>> [1] http://yaws.hyber.org/
>> [2] https://github.com/klacke/yaws/contributors
> Very true, Ulf. And we'll get you that webmachine support soon.
>
> And Michael, another way anyone can see how active yaws development is
> is to simply look at the commits:
>
> https://github.com/klacke/yaws/commits/master
>
> This approach would seem vastly preferable to spreading inaccurate and
> irresponsible rumors on this mailing list about yaws not being
> actively developed. I've been using yaws for the past 5 years, much of
> it in a production embedded system, and it's been actively developed
> for all 5 of those years. Yaws is now in its 11th year of active
> development.
>
> Regarding yaws modularity, I keep hearing this rumor that it lacks in
> that regard, yet nobody has yet pointed out any specifics. If someone
> were to point out things they think are too intertwined, then Klacke,
> Christopher Faulet, or I -- those with commit rights to the yaws repo
> -- could at least consider fixing them, as could anyone else with an
> interest in providing a patch. But in the absence of anything
> concrete, it's hard to take action.
>
> Note that the production embedded system I mentioned earlier doesn't
> use SOAP or haxe or websockets or numerous other yaws features, and in
> fact doesn't even include them, plus it runs embedded within a larger
> application, not as a stand-alone server. If it truly lacked
> modularity, or if it weren't usable in a library-like fashion, none of
> that would be possible.
>
> Earlier in this thread we have this gem from Loïc:
>> I'm sad to see Misultin go, this was in my opinion the only other project that had enough
>> momentum to introduce innovation in Erlang web servers.
> Wow. At best, this is simply ignorant on several fronts. At worst,
> it's insulting to Klacke, Bob Ippolito, me and others who've put a lot
> of work into their Erlang web servers and continue to do so. Hell,
> Erlang wouldn't be where it is today without all the features Klacke
> put into it, and I doubt Erlang web systems would be as far along as
> they are now without Klacke's and Bob's continued contributions and
> deployments into real products in years where most of us hadn't even
> started using Erlang yet. Part of the reason Roberto has taken this
> new action regarding misultin is that he wants the Erlang web
> community to become more cohesive, reusing each other's work instead
> of competing with each other, but irresponsible statements like this
> one from Loïc don't help Roberto's cause at all. If we truly want the
> Erlang web dev community to become less fractured so it can grow,
> taking cheap shots at each other won't get us there.
>
> Yaws exists and continues to exist because people continue to use it
> in real-life production systems. Klacke, Christopher, and I all have
> day jobs, so whatever time we put into yaws is based on what users are
> asking for. What makes it real interesting and fun is to fit new
> features like websockets into a system without it being an ugly hack
> and without breaking everything else that's already there, and we
> intend to continue to do exactly that.
>
> Perhaps worst of all about parts of this thread, though, is that from
> what I've seen over the past few years, those spreading these
> unfounded rumors about yaws being old and creaky and slow and legacy
> and not actively developed and not usable for their projects never
> once contacted Klacke or me or the erlyaws mailing list about
> questions or issues with the system. They've never attempted to
> contribute to the system with features or patches. I therefore suspect
> that they just listened to the same recurring unfounded gossip and
> made up their mind that way. Unfortunate, if true. But surely it's not
> asking too much to request that, going forward, people at least do
> their homework, try things out, and maybe ask some questions before
> stating "facts" that simply aren't true about yaws, or mochiweb, or
> any other such systems?
>
> --steve
>

I am glad yaws is now actively developed and I hope it will be used more in the future to help support your efforts.  I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

- Michael