1.6.0.3 status: Where we're at

[Mark Caudill]

So we have patches in for everything (according to Lighthouse) and
tests for at least 3/12 of the patches. I don't think 75% is an
accurate completion amount considering this. Do we need to get tests
in for the other patches (if so, which)?

I spoke with Tobie yesterday and I'm under the impression Caja is more
directly important right now (due to understandable reasons), but is
there anything that a contributor can do to ease 1.6.0.3's release?


Despite what anyone calls it, Prototype is starting to stall (due to
huge changes in the Core team, lighthouse transition, API system,
etc.). I don't want to see Prototype lose more support because of one
slow sub version. Everyone keep saying it'll be fine after 1.6.0.3 is
finally out, but I don't know if that's factual.

Anyway, I want this to be a positive message. I am willing to do as
much as I can to help this release and the eventual 1.6.1.

[Andrew Dupont]

I'm committed to releasing 1.6.0.3 before The Ajax Experience at the
end of September. Obviously we'd like to release sooner, but both
Christophe and I will be attending that conference and presenting on
Prototype, so it behooves us to close some glaring bugs in 1.6.0.2.

The main problem is that we've made a lot of changes in the past few
months — far more than we typically make for a bugfix release — and we
paid the complexity tax for that. Tobie has kindly volunteered to roll
back to late April and cherry-pick the important stuff that happened
after that point. The rest we can defer to 1.6.1.

On Aug 29, 1:54 pm, Mark Caudill <ninjainvisi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Despite what anyone calls it, Prototype is starting to stall (due to
> huge changes in the Core team, lighthouse transition, API system,
> etc.).  I don't want to see Prototype lose more support because of one
> slow sub version. Everyone keep saying it'll be fine after 1.6.0.3 is
> finally out, but I don't know if that's factual.

It's rough; I know. Unlike Dojo and jQuery, we don't have anyone who's
paid to work on Prototype full-time, so there will be an ebb and flow.
Tobie's been busy with the Caja work, I've been busy at my full-time
job (I'm not even on a web development project right now), Thomas is
busy getting married, and so on. But I would get ready for another
flurry of development after The Ajax Experience, since conferences
always give me the coding itch. ;-)

> Anyway, I want this to be a positive message.  I am willing to do as
> much as I can to help this release and the eventual 1.6.1.

I swear soon we'll figure out a more formal way to match people up
with what they're good at. In the meantime, depending on your
strengths, here's what we could use help with:

* Unit tests for existing patches with a 1.6.0.3 milestone.
* Increased test coverage for stuff that's already in the library.
For instance, it'd be great to have a bunch more "dirty" tests for
Selector.
* Help with PDoc. If you have a head for parsers, grab the source
and see if you can grok what we're doing there.
* Help with the eventual PDoc documentation for Prototype. My GitHub
fork [1], the unofficial 1.6.1 branch, has some PDoc comments in there
already; feel free to fork, document what is still undocumented, and
send pull requests.

That's what I can think of at the moment. Other team members should
speak up if they can think of anything else. Thanks for your concern
and enthusiasm, Mark.

Cheers,
Andrew

[1] http://github.com/savetheclocktower/prototype/tree/master

[Valentin]

Has anyone actually built a current version of the trunk? I have no
idea how to do that (never used Ruby on Rails or anything like that)
and the incredibly annoying bugs in 1.6.0.2 just make me want to move
away from Prototype to JQuery.

For example, a simple bug (dunno if it was fixed or not) is that you
cannot select with the $ extended element function an <object /> tag
in IE 7 without getting an arrow. Prototype is supposed to be cross-
browser and right now I have to write code separately for IE to deal
with this ...

[kangax]

On Sep 5, 12:52 pm, Valentin <valen...@mathlinks.ro> wrote:
> Has anyone actually built a current version of the trunk? I have no
> idea how to do that (never used Ruby on Rails or anything like that)

I have uploaded a trunk snapshot as of today.
http://yura.thinkweb2.com/prototype_trunk_9_5_08.js

> and the incredibly annoying bugs in 1.6.0.2 just make me want to move
> away from Prototype to JQuery.
>
> For example, a simple bug (dunno if it was fixed or not) is that you
> cannot select with the $ extended element function an <object /> tag
> in IE 7 without getting an arrow. Prototype is supposed to be cross-
> browser and right now I have to write code separately for IE to deal
> with this ...

Could you please file a bug report. We'll definitely look into it.

Best,
--
kangax

[Valentin]

I just tried it and the bug is still here (and there other bugs,
because the following simple code doesn't even work on Firefox with
the trunk version, it works just fine with the 1.6.0.2 stable)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://
www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Test IE Bug with Prototype 1.6.0.2</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="prototype_trunk_9_5_08.js"></
script>
<script type="text/javascript">
function tesst() {
$('test').update('Doesnt work');
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is a test of the bug with Prototype 1.6.0.2</h1>
<div>
<input type="button" value="Click to test" onclick="tesst();" />
<p><object id="test">This is the inside of an object tag.</object>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Save the above piece of code in a .htm file and run it in FIREFOX 3.0
and IE 7. In FF 3 if we use stable 1.6.0.2 code works as expeected. In
IE 7 it fails. The problem is that I cannot extend the <object> tag
with the $ function. It's really unbelivable that this hasn't been
documented / fix to this date ...

On Sep 5, 10:54 am, kangax <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 5, 12:52 pm, Valentin <valen...@mathlinks.ro> wrote:
>
> > Has anyone actually built a current version of the trunk? I have no
> > idea how to do that (never used Ruby on Rails or anything like that)
>

> I have uploaded a trunk snapshot as of today.http://yura.thinkweb2.com/prototype_trunk_9_5_08.js

[kangax]

On Sep 5, 8:03 pm, Valentin <valen...@mathlinks.ro> wrote:
[snip]

> Save the above piece of code in a .htm file and run it in FIREFOX 3.0
> and IE 7. In FF 3 if we use stable 1.6.0.2 code works as expeected. In
> IE 7 it fails. The problem is that I cannot extend the <object> tag

It does extend object element as far as I can see. E.g. `show`/`hide`
work as expected.

> with the $ function. It's really unbelivable that this hasn't been
> documented / fix to this date ...

<object>'s in IE are notorious for their buggy behavior. E.g. trying
to call `appendChild` (which `update` uses internally) results in an
error.

It's also a good idea to file bug reports when you encounter such
issues. It's not easy to test for all the edge-case scenarios.

--
kangax

[Valentin]

I really seems weird that nobody in the world actually had to deal
with $.update on an <object> ... I really don't know how to submit a
bug, or how to compile prototype. So if you want you can submit this
yourself ...

[Tom]

Running this in my IE7 - the <object> isnt even created. Its not a
problem with it not being able to extend, its that
getElementById('test') returns null, because IE doesnt actually create
the <object> in the DOM. As such I dont really think this is a
prototype bug

Tom

[kangax]

On Sep 6, 1:24 am, Valentin <valen...@mathlinks.ro> wrote:
> I really seems weird that nobody in the world actually had to deal
> with $.update on an <object> ... I really don't know how to submit a
> bug, or how to compile prototype. So if you want you can submit this
> yourself ...

Here's a bug tracker http://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/

--
kangax

[T.J. Crowder]

> I really don't know how to submit a
> bug, or how to compile prototype. So if you want you can submit this
> yourself ...

Valentin, I'm not on the core team (or any Prototype team, although I
help moderate the user's discussion group), so I think I can say
this: It's all very well complaining about bugs (in fact, hijacking
other peoples' threads to talk about your pet bugs), but that's not
constructive. You don't know how to submit a bug report? How hard
did you try to find out? Because from http://prototypejs.org, there's
this big tempting link labelled "Contribute" saying "Submit patches
and report bugs" under it. Gosh. And lo!, if you follow that link
and it tells you exactly what you do to submit a bug report, complete
with links and instructions. How hard was that? Sure, it'll take a
few minutes, but then again so did posting to this thread.

I'm not trying to be unkind, but c'mon, *everyone* working on
Prototype is a volunteer. They're donating their time and we're
getting the benefit of their efforts. Telling them to file your bug
reports for you is seriously uncool. Take ten minutes and file your
own report; they've sure as heck saved you more than ten minutes with
their code. I'd rather the core team and contributors spent their
time doing something more constructive -- like, you know, fixing the
problems people take the time to report properly. Which, curiously,
they do.
--
T.J. Crowder
tj / crowder software / com

[Tobie Langel]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks T.J.

Best,

Tobie

On Sep 7, 2:56 pm, "T.J. Crowder" <t...@crowdersoftware.com> wrote:
> > I really don't know how to submit a
> > bug, or how to compile prototype. So if you want you can submit this
> > yourself ...
>
> Valentin, I'm not on the core team (or any Prototype team, although I
> help moderate the user's discussion group), so I think I can say
> this:  It's all very well complaining about bugs (in fact, hijacking
> other peoples' threads to talk about your pet bugs), but that's not
> constructive.  You don't know how to submit a bug report?  How hard

> did you try to find out?  Because fromhttp://prototypejs.org, there's

[Valentin]

I didn't hijacked anyone's thread. This is about the upcoming 1.6.0.3
so what I posted is directly related. The purpose of a JS library is
to 1) provide compatibility among browsers using the same code 2)
reduce the time the programmer has to spent to do certain tasks.

Also in today's day IE7 has BY FAR the highest market share, and also
the <object> tag is the XHTML requirement to presenting Java
applications, flash objects, and the like which, now, more than ever,
appear on Web 2.0 pages. If Prototype can't hadle these two things
than it is missing it's point, and it's users.

I'm not talking here about a "pet" problem, but about some fundamental
facts. Your most basic function doesn't work on the most used browser
with one of the most common tags in XHTML (that are called in JS
events). Therefore you are building a house on a crappy foundation,
and it will fall. You want to make this about me submitting or not
submitting a bug? Really I already told you what is wrong, how to
recreate it, so any developer of the ones that have read this topic
could have taken the time to fix it instead of replying back 3 pages
long of messages on how I should have done this.

On Sep 7, 5:56 am, "T.J. Crowder" <t...@crowdersoftware.com> wrote:
> > I really don't know how to submit a
> > bug, or how to compile prototype. So if you want you can submit this
> > yourself ...
>
> Valentin, I'm not on the core team (or any Prototype team, although I
> help moderate the user's discussion group), so I think I can say
> this:  It's all very well complaining about bugs (in fact, hijacking
> other peoples' threads to talk about your pet bugs), but that's not
> constructive.  You don't know how to submit a bug report?  How hard

> did you try to find out?  Because fromhttp://prototypejs.org, there's

[Nick Stakenburg]

Valentin, it's common knowledge that the object tag is problematic,
that's a browser issue though not a high priority for any framework to
fix. That is why it's described as your 'pet' problem. You could have
googled around to find this out yourself and that would have given you
a number of fixes for object related issues. Whining about it is only
keeping things off topic and wasting people's time.

[Andrew Dupont]

On Sep 22, 7:16 pm, Valentin <valen...@mathlinks.ro> wrote:
> I didn't hijacked anyone's thread. This is about the upcoming 1.6.0.3
> so what I posted is directly related. The purpose of a JS library is
> to 1) provide compatibility among browsers using the same code 2)
> reduce the time the programmer has to spent to do certain tasks.
>
> Also in today's day IE7 has BY FAR the highest market share, and also
> the <object> tag is the XHTML requirement to presenting Java
> applications, flash objects, and the like which, now, more than ever,
> appear on Web 2.0 pages. If Prototype can't hadle these two things
> than it is missing it's point, and it's users.
>
> I'm not talking here about a "pet" problem, but about some fundamental
> facts. Your most basic function doesn't work on the most used browser
> with one of the most common tags in XHTML (that are called in JS
> events). Therefore you are building a house on a crappy foundation,
> and it will fall. You want to make this about me submitting or not
> submitting a bug? Really I already told you what is wrong, how to
> recreate it, so any developer of the ones that have read this topic
> could have taken the time to fix it instead of replying back 3 pages
> long of messages on how I should have done this.

Stop for a second. Read back over this thread.

You reported the problem; someone asked for a test case. You posted
the test case (thanks for that; a lot of people don't bother). kangax
noted that the problem is not in extending the OBJECT tag, it's in
calling the "update" method, because I'm guessing OBJECT nodes don't
have an "innerHTML" property in the IE DOM.

You keep expressing disbelief at how nobody else has encountered this
before. That should tell you one of two things: either your scenario
isn't as commonplace as you think it is; or others have encountered
this problem and found it too big to solve in JavaScript.

Internet Explorer doesn't handle OBJECT tags right [1]; it thinks
they're all ActiveX controls because that's all the element was for
when Microsoft introduced it. There's no way around this. (This is the
reason why, for instance, people use SWFObject [2] to insert Flash
content without using invalid markup.) Prototype aside... if you think
you're going to get the OBJECT tag to work the "XHTML way" in IE7,
you're sorely mistaken.

Prototype isn't our product; it's our side project. We ask that bug
reports and test cases be filed through the proper channels because it
ensures they won't get missed. The less time we spend copying and
pasting from Google Groups into our bug tracker... the more time we
spend writing code. If that makes us seem anal to you, then I'm OK
with that.

Cheers,
Andrew

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2002AprJun/0865.html
[2] http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/

[T.J. Crowder]

> I didn't hijacked anyone's thread.

That's a matter of opinion. In *my* opinion, not hijacking the thread
would have looked like this: "I'd really like to see a fix for bug
#1234 (error using update() on 'object' elements) in 1.6.0.3, it's a
serious problem." And, er, yes, that *would* have involved taking
five minutes to properly submit a bug report. Clearly you disagree,
which is your right, but I suspect you're in the minority.

> You want to make this about me submitting or not
> submitting a bug?

I don't want to make it about anything at all. You said:

> I really don't know how to submit a
> bug, or how to compile prototype. So if you want you can submit this
> yourself ...

...which is seriously uncool, so I called you on it.

Move along, nothing to see here.

--
T.J. Crowder
tj / crowder software / com