[asterisk-dev] AstriDevCon 2014: Agenda item Deprecate AMI/AGI(Ben Klang)

Thu Oct 23 10:45:11 CDT 2014

On Oct 22, 2014, at 3:39 PM, Matthew Jordan <mjordan at digium.com> wrote:

> 
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Paul Albrecht <palbrecht at glccom.com> wrote:
> 
> On Oct 22, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Matthew Jordan <mjordan at digium.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Paul Albrecht <palbrecht at glccom.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Oct 22, 2014, at 10:33 AM, Joshua Colp <jcolp at digium.com> wrote:
>> 
>> > Paul Albrecht wrote:
>> >> Really? Shouldn’t something this major affecting the entire Asterisk
>> >> community get discussed on the lists? Any idea what Leif is talking
>> >> about when he says the community is in transition, moving from dial
>> >> plan model to external control.
>> >
>> > It was something Ben Klang brought up and wanted to talk about - it's
>> > not something that has been decided 'nor does anyone know what the
>> > future entails. Any further discussions will naturally occur on the
>> > mailing list and in fact some things have explicit action items to bring
>> > them up on here.
>> >
>> 
>> The suggestion that Asterisk should consider deprecating AMI/AGI is “crazy talk.” It doesn’t merit discussion and shouldn’t be on the agenda in the first place. It’s completely impractical and can never happen. Moreover, Leif seems to think we (the asterisk community) are in transition. What does that mean? Are we abandoning the dial plan? Seriously? That’s never gonna happen either. ARI isn’t easier to use than dial plan scripting. I guess one could hope that "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”, but I don’t think the Asterisk community has that kind of luck.
>> 
>> 
>> Just because someone decided to bring up a radical idea does not mean we refuse to discuss it.
>> 
> 
> So you agree that deprecating AMI/AGI is “crazy talk” but you’ll discuss it because of your open-mindedness?
> 
> I didn't say that the idea of deprecating AMI/AGI is "crazy talk". I did say that radical ideas - and even ones that some folks think are crazy - are all fine to discuss at AstriDevCon.
> 
> The whole point of AstriDevCon is to have a large, free, and open conversation about Asterisk Development. I fundamentally disagree with the notion that that should be discouraged.
> 

The problem with AstriConDev is there is no user input so what you have is a developer echo chamber and what you get is groupthink.

>> This is an open source project. Communication is done in an open, transparent manner. People should feel like they can bring up interesting, radical, and yes - even crazy - ideas.
>> 
> 
> By the same token, when you propose ideas, you must be prepared for honest criticism and accept it in graciously rather than simply resorting to argument ad hominem. 
> 
> You didn't have honest criticism. You labelled a discussion point as "crazy talk" and said we shouldn't have even discussed it.
> 
> There was no ad hominem attack. I never attacked you. I never even attacked your statements. I simply defended the free exchange of ideas in AstriDevCon. I have no problem doing that.
> 
> On the other hand, you did callously label an Asterisk Developer's admittedly ambitious idea as "crazy talk". In the future, you may want to choose your language more carefully if you wish for others to have a more open discussion with you.
> 
>  
>> If you don't like that, you don't have to participate in the discussion.
>> 
> 
> You haven’t really responded to the substance of my post, that is, is asterisk abandoning the dial plan?
> 
> There are Asterisk users (who also happen to develop) who would like to minimize the dialplan necessary in their systems, to the point where they may no longer even need the dialplan. This is a fundamentally sound idea for some systems, particularly those that require scaling Asterisk out to many machines.
> 
> There are also some Asterisk users who build complex applications on top of Asterisk, and who find having to use multiple interfaces cumbersome. They like ARI, and would like to see it able to do more than what it currently does today.
> 

Don’t have a problem with extending the Asterisk user interface or changing Asterisk internals that are not visible to users. Do object to taking away taking away user functionality like the dial plan that users expect, are familiar with, and has made the Asterisk project successful.

> Fully deprecating a feature in Asterisk is non-trivial. You must have:
> (1) A logical and full replacement for the feature
> (2) Buy-off from the developer community
> (3) Several major versions of the project in which the deprecated feature must remain
> 
> Even in the case of point #3, deprecated features have often lasted in *many* versions of Asterisk. We are enormously conservative in what we choose to remove from the project.
> 

Not interested in what rules or process steps need to be followed to deprecate features. The fact of the matter is you’re not starting with a blank sheet of paper and you can’t simply abandon the existing user interface because what will really happen is your users will abandon you and your project. 

> I would imagine that things as important as traditional dialplan, AMI, or AGI would be very difficult to ever deprecate.
> 
> Finally, as I've noted to you before [1] [2], please don't cross post across lists. As this discussion is about AstriDevCon, it should be on the asterisk-dev mailing list.
> 

Everybody doesn’t read both lists so I think it’s important to post to both lists because those getting done unto deserve to see what they’re going to get.

Lastly, the veiled threat to boot me from the list thus stifling dissent really belies your repeated assertions of your open-mindedness to different ideas.

> [1] http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-dev/2013-October/063075.html
> [2] http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-app-dev/2013-October/000113.html
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Jordan
> Digium, Inc. | Engineering Manager
> 445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
> Check us out at: http://digium.com & http://asterisk.org
> -- 
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