[cgiapp] Re: Movable Type fork: an opportunity for CGI::Application

[Mark Stosberg]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:34:06 +0530
"Gurunandan R. Bhat" <guru at informationmatters.in> wrote:

> Thats great news. 
> I checked out from Git but could not find references or use of
> CGI::Application anywhere in the source.
> Has development begun?

The work done so far has been planning work linked to from my blog post,
the proposals that Tim and I published on the movabletype.org wiki:

http://mark.stosberg.com/blog/2009/06/movable-type-fork-is-an-opportunity-to-harness-cpan.html

It is not just a technical task... there are significant policy
decisions here, too. The best technical refactor to maximize use of
CGI::Application would break backwards compatibility with many MT
plugins. So, there there are decisions about which route is best for the
project in some cases. 

I would lean towards making the best technical choices, and documenting
for plugin authors the (relatively minor) changes that may need to make
their plugins to make them work.

I think Drupal is a community that has a policy that explicity says that
backwards compatibility is not a priority between major releases. 

As a fork, this is even more complicated, since besides backwards
compatibilty, there is also compatibility with Movable Type Open Source
to consider. Ideally, these kinds of changes to Melody would be shared
with them.

My "Query Object Refactor" proposal has options for more conservative
refactors that preserve backwards compatibility, but still head in the
direction of making greater use of CGI::Application. 

It's a good time to get involved if you want to be in on the ground
floor of this. Be prepared to be involved with policy decisions with the
group to decide on some kinds of changes before proceeding with them.

    Mark