Reactor vs Core

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
[quote author="Daniel Moore" date="1294172089"]As long as I have core, I feel that as many people that want their own version of "built-up modifications" to that core are welcome to have it. I personally like to have CodeIgniter modified my own way, and will not be using Reactor, as it does things differently than the way I work. Nothing wrong with that.[/quote]

To get back to talking about Reactor, I think there are some general misconceptions as to what we're working on. We aren't going mad over here and throwing in HMVC, millions of parsers, Twitter libraries and any other random junk people suggest.

We are just making CodeIgniter better. Fixing bugs, adding small features, making improvements and taking the framework forward. We aren't trying to make it a new framework, add in conventions or do anything mental that breaks your current applications.

Hopefully it will be out soon along with CodeIgniter 2.0 and the speculation can end. :lol:

[eluser]JasonS[/eluser]
Ha, this thread had one post when I checked this morning. Shows what a little bit of baiting can do.

I liked the idea of reactor but a bunch of people in this thread have said the following.

Core - Boring + Stable
Reactor - New Features + Unstable at times

For some reason someone else took this as...

Core - Corporate sites
Reactor - Anything else

Suggesting that stability doesn't matter in a number of projects. This is BS. If Reactor isn't going to produce bug free stable releases then it shouldn't exist.

CI has been stagnant for way to long. Its support of PHP4 = Fail. I mean supporting a version of PHP when it has been abandoned by PHP itself... it being linked to ExpressionEngine has both pro's and con's. I think the con's out weigh the pro's as EllisLabs won't rework sections of EE to change CI.

You also have this issue of maintaining backward compatibility. EllisLabs seem to put a massive importance on this. I don't think it is a massive deal reworking a library between major versions. Especially if it pushes the framework forward.

At the end of day Reactor will be a good thing if...

1) Its stable.
2) Has new features that people actually need.
3) Maintains the simplicity + small footprint of Core CI
4) Has a clear road map for the future.

It will be a bad thing if..

1) Rushed updates lead to instability
2) Features are added haphazardly as the perceived need arises as apposed to following a road map which clearly specifies what the reactor framework should be.
3) Multiple releases in a short time frame. I mean... a .1 increase could be done once every 3 months with fixes between. Releasing more often than this will mean that many people will not even use versions as they are mid-project with the last version. EllisLab's epic time lapse between updates has one benefit. They can fully assess the impact of the last update and assess what a new version should contain. A release every < 3 months doesn't allow you do this.

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
I did not say unstable, I said less stable. Even that is not exactly what I meant.

Put it this way. Nothing much has changed in CodeIgniter in 2 years. That means its very very very stable, because if nothing changes no bugs can be introduced.

We are adding in new features, fixing bugs and testing as we go. Changes mean bugs MAY be introduced, but we will do our best not to. Nobody is rushing anything or changing anything drastically, just making the tweaks that people need.

Does that make a little more sense?

[eluser]kenny.katzgrau[/eluser]
Third Reactor guy to chime in —

Like Phil said, Reactor will build on the core. There will be some features introduced in Reactor that CodeIgniter Core has sorely needed for years.

What kind of features? The ones that true engineers could appreciate: better caching, unit testing, a light ORM, etc. If you are a CI user, and you don't understand why these things are needed, you probably aren't an experienced developer. Enterprise-level applications need those features.

Reactor isn't some anything-goes repository. It's a faster moving version of the core for CI developers who aren't afraid to use something different after two years. The whole point is to continue building a great framework with a lot of power and a small learning curve.

Wait to see what comes out over the next few months.

[eluser]Maglok[/eluser]
Question: So Reactor will keep adding some features. Then at one point say 'this is it' and release those features as a CodeIgniter Reactor release? So I could grab say Reactor 2.1 and it would be a stable release, just as usual with code.

At the moment I am really liking the development of reactor and how we can tell you guys what we would like to see implemented.

So the big question is, when do we get a stable release to play with. I just don't have the time anymore to check out code in progress.

[eluser]Eric Barnes[/eluser]
[quote author="Maglok" date="1294175639"]Question: So Reactor will keep adding some features. Then at one point say 'this is it' and release those features as a CodeIgniter Reactor release? So I could grab say Reactor 2.1 and it would be a stable release, just as usual with code.

At the moment I am really liking the development of reactor and how we can tell you guys what we would like to see implemented.

So the big question is, when do we get a stable release to play with. I just don't have the time anymore to check out code in progress.[/quote]

Hopefully sooner rather than later. Yes we will have a few features added in and then make the official release. Some others features will be saved for 2.1, 2.2, etc.

[eluser]jacobkball[/eluser]
[quote author="Jack McDade" date="1294169935"]This thread makes me sick. I've never seen this sort of childish bickering in the EE/CI threads before, and I feel let down by what has always been, to me, the best online community around.[/quote]I just wanted to add that I agree 100% with this.

Phil, you do yourself credit when you remain calm and unprovoked in the face of these sorts of posts.

There's nothing wrong with healthy debate and arguments about CI, its features etc but the personal attacks are really uncalled for.

[eluser]Pascal Kriete[/eluser]
I'm not here to detract attention from the reactor questions. If want those skip this post.

While we may be a company, we're certainly not a bunch of robots. The reactor team wasn't selected at random, they are quite a capable bunch.

Still, if you have concerns over CI and how it may affect your business, email one of us. Bickering about it on the forums does more harm than good, and personal attacks are not welcome in this community.

[Not support hotlines!]
It's [email protected] for all of our staff, so mine would be [email protected].
Or you can touch base with the dev team collectively: [email protected].

I think the con’s out weigh the pro’s as EllisLabs won’t rework sections of EE to change CI.

Heh, we actually had quite a field day in EE's codebase when we moved to PHP 5, but it's true that we have to provide a stable target for EE add-on developers, and they for their clients. It's turtles all the way down.

[eluser]Dennis Rasmussen[/eluser]
As much as I enjoy seeing the earlier work of the 6 announced Reactor folks, I have to agree with Mr. Wiredesignz (non-personal stuff).

I currently have this sad feeling that Reactor is going to be unstable/undesirable because of many factors, where one could be Phil crying out loud about this and that missing feature (yes I'm following his blog and I'm sure you all are because of the repeating hype about CodeIgniter and EllisLab).

Then some of you say that you're not going to bash in 100s of different libraries to the system, but in a couple of posts in this topic already I see about 10+ things you're going to add to the Reactor... 10+... really?

So what's wrong with having CodeIgniter as a core and modifying it the way your want (adding libraries/resources you need for that specific website) rather than being forced to use Reactor because you need this particular feature, which you could have added as a plugin for CI Core instead?

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
Hang on, what?

What features am I going to start crying about? If you have been following any of the discussions on UserVoice you will know that is a bunch of bull. I am trying to keep this lean, mean and useful.

So far everyone is going on pure guess-work and only the Reactor Engineers know what is going on. Fine, that is fair enough as you have nothing to look at yet.

Hopefully this will be released soon and people can stop making wildly inaccurate assumptions about what Reactor is and is not.