I have just tried out this new module and it appears to be identical in philosophy to the subscriptions module (http://drupal.org/project/subscriptions). The similarity between the modules is of course not surprising because both the subscriptions module and this notifications module are rewrites of the same old subscriptions module, and both had the aim of being a framework that allows plugins for different notification types. I don't think it is a good idea to have two modules so close to each other? Could they please be fused?

Comments

jose reyero’s picture

jose reyero commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

Yes, I agree the philosophy is the same and we all would like to have one single module fitting everybody's needs.

Many other similarities come from the fact that we started by investing a lot of development hours and posting lots of patches to the subscriptions module. However, after some point it was just not possible to have there some of the features we needed -basically, more scalability and more flexibility- so we had no other option than to fork development and rewrite some parts from scratch.

So, short story, we already tried, it was not possible, we are building on this one and not looking back, just sharing the development so anyone can use it, use whatever option best fits your needs.

gustav’s picture

gustav commented

Jose, thanks for your answer. Can you be more specific about what the advantages are that you see in the notifications module over the subscriptions module? I don't see any limitations in scalability or flexibility in the subscriptions module.

gustav’s picture

gustav commented
Status: Closed (won't fix) » Active

Jose, I just noticed you marked this issue as "won't fix". I have marked this issue as active again because I think it is very important that Drupal does not end up with two incompatible notifications/subscriptions API. That would bad for the Drupal community.

I notice that your motivation for writing this module was exactly the same as that of the developers of the new subscriptions module: the old subscriptions module code apparently was terrible. Given that you all felt exactly the same about the need for a complete rewrite, you may very well have similar tastes and might well be able to get together and fuse your modules. The developer of the subscriptions module, chx http://drupal.org/user/9446, is also a long-time active contributor to drupal development and I think you would get along well.

I know this will require a lot of extra effort and time. But I think it is important not to have two APIs for the same thing. I just hope you don't think I am trying to be annoying.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

delius, when a maintainer has said he won't fix something and even went so far as to explain why, changing the status again is rude. Yes, in a perfect world there would be one module for each function. But the fact is that it doesn't always work out that way. It sounds like Jose really tried to make a go of it and it wasn't working for him. Expecting him to put in "a lot of extra effort and time" because _you_ think it is important is just not reasonable unless you are planning on paying him to make it work.

Michelle

jose reyero’s picture

jose reyero commented

Hey, thanks Michele, for helping with the issue tracker :-)

However I'd like to make one more try at trying to explain the issue. Lazy Sunday afternoon ;-)

First, though I'm the maintainer of this module, it is not my personal effort. This has been developed -and paid for- by Development Seed, and also more people on the team has been working on it.

Second, what gustav suggests, we've tried hard, it didn't work. You can try but cannot pretend that a single solution fits always everyone's specific needs.

And last, at this point the only option for us was whether to contribute it or not. So we did, and that for sure will benefit the Drupal community. If you don't want to have one more option, you can just ignore it.

So gustav, feel free to follow up on this issue, I just can tell you your comments will be read. Just please, don't mess with the issue status as it won't help anyone. The "won't fix" just means the question has been considered and we rather put our time and efforts on something else. Thank you.

gustav’s picture

gustav commented

Hi Jose, thanks for you answer. What would really help me (and probably others) would be to know where the differences are between the two modules.

vacilando’s picture

vacilando commented

Whilst understanding arguments of both/all sides, I still think Gustav's request for a list of differences was justified here. And the question still stands.

If you think your module is better you should say so because now people get confused spending hours comparing the major subscription modules (notify, subscriptions, comment notify, etc.) (And, if they wish for a new feature, to which module should they post it?)

I feel/hope that your 'notifications' module might, just might be able to do all what these modules do, and you are the best person to answer that question, as I am sure you keep following the competitors' work.

Good luck, this module looks awesome, keep up the good work. But please help your users to distinguish it from respectable competitors and weed. Thanks.