Gray's Matter - ThinkJot and DasBlog (Justice Gray's blog)

Steven recently brought to my attention that there is a "new" piece of blogging software out there called ThinkJot. I use new in quotes because it's apparent from the web page that the author has taken the DasBlog 1.8 source and then made several modifications of his own in order to make it more user-friendly. Some of these changes probably *are* pretty useful, like the DatePicker control (I'm confused too - why would a DatePicker control want full trust?), and I'm all for making the install of DasBlog a *lot* easier for an end user. However, I guess I have some concerns about his reasons for forking the source:

Lots of source code changes. It would be difficult to get it on to the dasBlog source tree without risking its stability.

Why not just make small changes gradually? Or even just ask the DasBlog dev team about it?

I wanted to provide a lighter version of dasBlog, removing all the features that nobody used. That includes the support for the other blogging APIs.

Considering that the blogging APIs are used in a lot of remote posting applications (BlogJet, w.Bloggar, and now Performancing), is it really safe to say no one is using this feature? To go even further with it, how does Jeswin know which features are being used and which aren't? I don't recall any call to the current DasBloggers to ask which features they didn't really use all that often.

.Net version 1.1 is not a concern. The application will target v2.0.

You're worried about having an easy install for users but you don't care about the users that only have 1.1. hosting? I'm not saying that this is common, but how is the "average" user you're targeting going to really know the difference here? Wouldn't it be better to have it compatible with both?

Speeeed! I have plans to add features or modifications, which may take time to be integrated to the main source tree since it might break a lot of other code. Planned features include multi-user support, and maybe an optional Sql Server backend. Maybe, support Asp.Net's new theme system.

There's already multi-user support. I built it. And again, if you're thinking about other backends, why not just work with the existing developers?

Right now, I don't consider dasBlog to be very shared-hosting friendly. Yes, it needs full-trust, while most ISPs will allow only medium trust. I think it is important to provide a version for people who don't own their boxes.

This is the only idea I like, but realistically then, you should be supporting both 1.1 and 2.0 for those people who want to install DasBlog but their server only has one version. Once again, not saying this is common, just good practice.

Saying that "in the long term, ThinkJot will move away from the original dasBlog source code", implies that all you've done is make some minor project ports, throw in a new DatePicker and call this your own project. For sure, it's probably legally fine given the terms of the open-source license, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. How would you feel if you worked on something for a long time and then someone just took all the work you did, rebranding it and called it their own? I mean, c'mon!

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Comments [3] DasBlog | Personal | Technical |

1/25/2006 10:41:37 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

What bugs me most is that he made the changes for medium level trust but never bothered to check if it was being worked on by the DasBlog dev team (it is currently logged as a bug: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1411621&group_id=127624&atid=709018 )

It would be nice if he contributed the changes he made to fix the medium trust issue in DasBlog.

Steven |stevenrockartsAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

1/25/2006 12:17:47 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I setup ThinkJot yesterday and told Steven about it, It seems to work fine because dasBlog would not work anymore with my host because of the Trust being set at Medium.

I think it's a good application but I will jump back to dasBlog once it is working for Medium Trust.

James

1/25/2006 10:28:33 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Thanks for letting me know what you think, Justice. In the past one month, I have recieved several emails, many of them disagreed with ThinkJot (including the core dasBlog team), while some thought it was quite ok. As I emphasized on the website, I would not have forked unless I had some real reasons. There are a few I have missed on my website.

1. I want to make ThinkJot useful for learning .Net 2.0. So I should be supporting only a bare minimum of features, the ones that everyone wants. dasBlog is unlikely to take exclusive 2.0 features into the main tree.
2. ThinkJot may become more than a blog, blog would be just a module, like Community Server. dasBlog code structure completely precludes that.
3. If you have worked with the dasBlog source, you will see that it is already stretched. Adding multi-user support or Sql Server support would involve changing quite a lot of code, or be just hacks. Due to this reason, to bring out ThinkJot 2.0 I have started a complete re-write of the source and plan to use the dasBlog source only minimally. This is why I had to move the planned release from Jan 2006, to March-April 2006 (see http://www.process64.com/thinkjot/roadmap.htm). This is almost like a total re-engineering.

My biggest mistake has been that I never talked to the dasBlog team previously about this. I admit it, and apologize.

To address your other questions:
----Why not just make small changes gradually? Or even just ask the DasBlog dev team about it?
As explained above, ThinkJot might finally take a completely different direction. The new code structure permits that.

----I wanted to provide a lighter version of dasBlog, removing all the features that nobody used. That includes the support for the other blogging APIs.
I got a lot of flames for that, and I agree partly. But again, I would like to stress simplicity and compactness.

----.Net version 1.1 is not a concern. The application will target v2.0.
Supporting 1.1 would mean sticking to the 1.1 APIs. 2.0 brings in a lot of new capabilities in Asp.Net and Ado.Net

I have written "Built on dasBlog" all over the place. Unless I completely re-write the app, I will advertise that fact, and intend to take no credit away from the real developers. They did an outstanding job, and I have found dasBlog to be the only good completely _FREE_ blog on .Net.

Again, thanks for your comments,
Jeswin

Jeswin P |jeswinAT NOSPAMprocess64 dot com

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