No one is irreplaceable
I’m officially retiring from the symfony project core team and documentation. My recent rant about the shift in symfony philosophy lead Fabien and I to agree that we disagree. The symfony project will have to find new documentation writers.
I’ve been working on the symfony project for three years now, and it’s been a great adventure. Seeing what was originally a very specialized piece of work done by the head of a French Web Agency become one of the top web application frameworks in the whole world has just been amazing. Betting on Open-Source, dedicating time and money to develop and document an internal tool was a great move for Sensio. I learned a lot, thanks to Fabien and Sensio. I enjoyed writing the Askeet tutorial, the symfony book and all the other tutorials very much. I enjoyed writing plug-ins and applications, just for the pleasure to donate them. Now that Big Players recommend symfony for large-scale applications, a bright future opens for all the symfony developers out there.
I’ve also been battling for three years. I kept trying to put my two cents in the symfony development choices, even though I’m not a developer. I kept advocating simplicity of use over sophistication and code purity. I kept urging for smaller, more often releases. I kept giving the documentation writer’s point of view, which is that if something is hard to explain, it is probably also hard to use. I kept asking for more methods, so that there could be More Than One Way To Do Things - one simple, and one powerful. To a certain point, some of my remarks have been taken into consideration, but it required a tremendous amount of energy and stubbornness. And even now, I’m reminded that these changes (like using YAML instead of XML for schemas for instance) were mistakes.
Today, my opinions are clearly not the ones of the “symfony core team”. Important design choices are not discussed with the community, just like when symfony was only developed internally. 95% of the code base is still the result of a single man’s work and decisions. The community is just there to provide support, do the beta testing and play with plugins. This is a big strength of the project (no dispersion, no time lost in sterile discussions), but it’s also frustrating when somebody wants to get more involved.
I left Sensio last year partly because I couldn’t get my views accepted. I’m leaving symfony today for the same reason. I regret it, because I would love to continue collaborating to the project, because I really like writing documentation, and because I love the open-source spirit and the symfony community. But the time I spend on symfony is now on my free time, and I can’t just do what others decide. A hobby must be fun, not frustrating. I’m tired. Three years is long enough.
I also regret to leave a half-finished symfony 1.1 guidebook. But I heard that Sensio is writing a whole book about the new Form system (!), and I’m confident that they can dedicate internal resources to writing documentation. If you’re interested in contributing, you should get in touch with Fabien - he’s now the documentation lead (in addition to the rest).
To conclude, I’d like to quote a French guy named Talleyrand. He said: “War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men”. I personally think that Programmatic API is much too serious a thing to be left to developers.
It is a shame it has come to this but I can see where you are coming from, François.
I think you should take over maintenance of the 1.0 branch personally and make it your own - that’s the beauty of open-source, after all!
You’ve been a great asset to the project and will be sorely missed. I hope you’ll still frequent IRC from time to time and don’t move away from the framework completely over time.
Francois, I’m so sorry to read that you’re resigning from the Symfony project - your commitment to the documentation (amongst other things) made it possible for me to get up to speed with Symfony in very little time.
Good luck with whatever your new hobby turns out to be - and thanks for all the wonderful things you did for the Symfony project.
Thanks for everything, François. Regardless of any difference of opinion (and I don’t want to get into that), you can be very proud of you contribution to the web in general and Symfony in particular. You deserve a rest!
your departure from symfony is such a sad news… i think your contribution to the project added big value to the framework and its notoriety.
the great quality of the askeet tutorial and the symfony book really encouraged me to try symfony one year ago. since then, i really adopted the 1.0 version to develop several enterprise applications for my customers. i just hope the 1.1 switch won’t lead me to use another framework…
i wish you good luck François !
Its good to make clear decisions. Hopefully you stay in the symfony community, because I firmly believe that you add a lot of value to it.
I see no need for you to regret.
Take care
.: Fabian
Hi François,
rest assured that some developpers think like you do. The obvious lack of readability of the new 1.1 API will keep us away as long as 1.0 meets our needs.
Your work on the book and tutorials was as important as the core class design itself.
I’m pretty sure that 1.1 adoption rate will be pretty low.
Thanks again for you remarkable work!
thanks for your nice work Francois and I whish you a even better future
U’r a good writer guy ! sorry for symfony… but now you have a mission Mister Zanintto !
head on in a precise direction… i named magénération dOT com !
iBuena Suerte! et à
Thanks for all the work you’ve done. Your book is the main reason I chose symfony over the other PHP frameworks.
I’m very sorry to hear that you’re leaving the project, although I expected it after reading your rant. Thanks for everything you contributed. Your work is very appreciated.
I am realy sorry to hear that you leaving Symfony, i like to thank for the wanderfull documentation, back in the day i choose symfony, i did it becouse of the documentation and only for the documentation, becouse dispaice the fact that many other frameworks (or even cms) could satisfice our requirements, symfony where clear and consice about how i shuld doit, and not just showing “working” (near imposible to adapt) examples, and this was even before the book was even anounced.
So, thank you.
I just want to say: Thank You and the best luck for you.
Thank you so much for your great work Francois!
Your point of view and documentation efforts will be greatly missed.
Sorry to see you go Francois, Your contributions are key in symfony being usable for devs like me. I hope this isn’t the start of the end for us.
Thank you again for the good work you have done, Francois. Like others here, the main reason I chose symfony over the other frameworks was the documentation, and the book is one of the very best technical books I have used. I also agree with what I’ve seen recently on your blog of your ease-of-writing approach.
I hope that you will keep writing, and that Fabian and the community will keep asking “what would Francois say?” at every juncture, even if you aren’t around to say it as much.
It’s a shame you leave the project. Thanks anyway for the awesome work you did in the community. Hope you consider to come back some day.
Thanks again for your really hard work and help to the symfony.
Good luck. [Mucha suerte]
Greetings from colombia. [Saludos desde Colombia]
First of all: remarkable work!
I’m a Java developer (not web developer) and I know what’s great with: reliability, reusability, modularization, type-safety, extensibility, and so on.
BUT, extensibility is expensive if it implies complexity. Developers must read a lot of documentation, spend time being trained, getting practice, experience, just to implement what it’s known since a long time ago.
Symfony 1.1 is poorly documented right now, and certainly wrong headed, since Java Server Faces is not a RAD way, neither KISS.
Of course it is MVC… but… pages can’t be designed in Dreamweaver any longer, since
I think they will miss the core of Symfony’s popularity.
I’m deeply sorry about you getting away.
It seems to me that Symfony 1.0 should stand by it’s own.
Take the best, leave the rest.
What Symfony 1.1 got for good should be migrated into 1.0
Good look whenever you go.
Congratulations for your child!
First of all: remarkable work!
I’m a Java developer (not web developer) and I know what’s great with: reliability, reusability, modularization, type-safety, extensibility, and so on.
BUT, extensibility is expensive if it implies complexity. Developers must read a lot of documentation, spend time being trained, getting practice, experience, just to implement what it’s known since a long time ago.
Symfony 1.1 is poorly documented right now, and certainly wrong headed, since Java Server Faces is not a RAD way, neither KISS.
Of course it is MVC… but… pages can’t be designed in Dreamweaver any longer, since “echo $form”
I think they will miss the core of Symfony’s popularity.
I’m deeply sorry about you getting away.
It seems to me that Symfony 1.0 should stand by it’s own.
Take the best, leave the rest.
What Symfony 1.1 got for good should be migrated into 1.0
Good look whenever you go.
Congratulations for your child!
BTW: Yes, you are irreplaceable!
The comprehensive documentation of Symfony was reason for me to start using Symfony. So it’s a real shame you decided to move in different directions but I fully understand you.
I also agree with your ideas on keeping the framework simple and easy to use instead of making it more “sophisticated”. I’m afraid you leaving the team also means the project will head that direction even further. Fortunately Symfony 1.0 is pretty good and the documentation is solid as well so we can continue using that if necessary.
Anyway thanks for the hard work and keep us informed about your other projects!
Francois your contributions will definitely be missed. symfony would not be what it is today with out your many contributions. Good luck in all of your endeavors.
François, Thank you for all your work for symfony, this is main reason for me to choice symfony.
PS: your daughter is so beautiful:)
You will be missed. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
First of all: François, thank you!
The excellent symfony documentation was one of the reasons why our company chose symfony.
I agree with you that there should a sophisticated, but also a simple way of doing most things (= that means two ways, but not more, otherwise an API gets too bloated IMO)
I disagree with some commenters, you shoudn’t equate symfony 1.1 with the new forms etc. AFAIU you don’t have to take forms 1.1 when you want to use sf 1.1.
Maybe that’s the huge step that sf 1.1 takes forward: being so decoupled that we have more choices. Couldn’t that be the step forward towards a more community-driven project?
Sebastian
Salut,
I had look for a framework like Symfony for years before I discover it. It was the Saint Grall and more over it has a huge & clear documentation which is noteworthy written style so It take me just a second to decide to leave my old home made little pear powered CMF and to developp all my web projects with Symfony. This documentation is essential because starting to use a framework like Symfony is not easy for a lot of developper who are used to use little packages (like Pear) or turnkey cms (with the hand in the engine to add business features). Symfony is clearly the state of art. I hope like you explain that 1.1 version will not be too difficult to use simply because php developpers are not java developpers (I will not write a book here to explain).
I hope you will continue to be present some time in Symfony Community for SF 1.0 or plugins.
Thanks a lot and a lot for all your work !
Sylvio
I have not played with symfony 1.1 at all, but it also seems to be like most of the criticism revolves around the forms layer. I am sure that someone could put together a plugin that behaves like the old helpers using the new forms layer as a basis.
Anyways, if you choose to join another OSS project, they will see a huge boost no doubt. People willing to write documentation are a scarce ressource, those that master and enjoy it are even fewer to be found in OSS.
Fanstastic work you have done, thanks a lot for everything and I hope you will meet new challenges as interesting as your skills.
Loïc
So many thanks for the excellent documentation work you’ve done, François.
I remember two years ago I was looking for a PHP framework to develop a new project and Symfony was definetly choosen for its semplicity.
During these two years, and many projects thereafter, I have discovered that Symfony was not only ’simple’, it is complex and flexible, but its documentation, and the API made it simple for us beginners.
So, being a developer, I do agree with you (and with Talleyrand), API design is way too serious and important to be left to us hackers.
Good luck and let us know where you will bring your talent next time.
Oh my God, I’m a bit disappointed to learn you left the Symfony Core Team. All your contributions (docs, apps or plug-ins) were very helpfull for all the community and people who wanted to practise Symfony.
I hope your new hobbies and open-source activity still continue in other exciting projects.
Best regards,
Hugo.
Francois, thanks for the effort you have put in the documentation. The book was the reason I am able to use symfony. Going through API documentation is just too hard.
I am sorry to see you leave the project and hope the symfony 1.1 documentation will be as good as the current book/documetation.
Would you be interested in maintaining docs if the sf1.0 branch would be maintained in the current spirit by a ’separate’ team? (as has been suggested by arhak)
François - I’ll greatly miss your contributions. Your contributions to this blog alone have been, in my opinion, the most insightful and innovative that I’ve seen in the Symfony community.
Ryan
François I, really sad about your decision. You have been a great contributor to the project and if I think symfony it’s your’s and Fabien’s name that come to my mind immediately. I understand your reasons and wish you all the best for the future! Thanks a lot for all the great work you have done for the community!
Goodbye Francois, I hope you find something else to do. I see your point about many things to do with the Symfony Framework lately, especially concerning 1.1…
I loved your documentation, I refer to it whenever I’m stuck with something silly.
François, best wishes and I am sure your future projects will be fantastic success. Like everyone else, thank you for your great plugins and superior documentation!
Carl
symfony wouldn’t be what it has become without your contributions. And, sorry - you are developer, and one of the good ones!
uli
François,
You will be greatly missed. Thank you for all your hardwork and dedication to the project.
The main reason I am a Symfony developer today is because of the depth and quality of documentation. Thank you once again.
Take care!
I can’t imagine you leave the project, just like that. Why don’t you post a thread on the devs mailing-list to see if people agree with your philosophy? As symfony is an opensource project, all core design decisions should be taken in a democratic process, aren’t they?
I can understand some of your points, but after a bit of play with the new 1.1 forms, I can clearly say that they’re awesome. The configuration is done with plain PHP code in dedicated classes, which is by far more maintenable than crappy undebuggable Yaml stuff used in 1.0.
I think sometimes verbosity is better than magic, and the new forms are one perfect example.
For the rest, I cannot see for the moment if too much abstraction has been made into the core framework code… Let’s wait for some stable release and some doc to see how it goes.
Shame you’ve left the core team Francois, because every team needs a different point to view to keep it on its toes.
It’ll be interesting to see where symfony goes over the next couple of years. I sincerely hope it will continue to grow and mature.
Maybe part of that maturity will be along similar lines to the Rails phenomenon: some healthy criticism and analysis from outside the core team, in the form of published books and websites helping developers like me who don’t know the API backwards.
Ho noo!
Each time we’ll read you, we will a litlle bit sad. Symfony community will never forget your job. As an attendee in december with my friend Franck, we really appreciated the philosophy explained by your two views, especially when, later in the afternoon, fabien and you explained us the forms1.1. there were a great debate that we’ll never forget.
6 month later, Fabien seems to have decided not to ear your point of view, but more important, you have kept your beliefs, without perverting your point of view, without compromising yourself.
You’re act, today, fill our heart of sadness, but i want to say that the world needs great guys like you!
I hope you’ll keep the power of doing what is important in a life
See you later François, maybe in YOUR world.
«And even now, I’m reminded that these changes (like using YAML instead of XML for schemas for instance) were mistakes.»
I just can’t believe it… Is it really said that this was a mistake ? This may be one of the greatest advantage of Symfony… Having a human-readable schema for model…
Good luck for what’s coming next in your life, and I still hope that Symfony won’t ignore that your choices are (I think) supported by the majority of developers using Symfony. I’m afraid for 1.1, I’m afraid it won’t have the desserved success because of bad choices
(well, not “bad choices”, but more “unsufficient choices” by chosing to provide only the “complex way” instead” and not the alternative easy way).
Sad to hear that you will leave the symfony core team. But I can understand your motivation for this step. Hopefully this will do something positive and the core development process of symfony will get a bit more community driven in the future.
Your great documentation and plugin work will be missed…
And what about all of the plugins you wrote? I love your sfPropelFinderPlugin, will you keep up working on it?
Good luck for you.
Timo
By far the most important part of any application development system is the documentation. Without documentation a system can’t be easily used.
It’s a great loss to the symfony project that you’ve resigned.
I totally understand where you’re coming from though. Working on open source is really only fun if its what you want to be doing.
It appears that symfony is going to be just like all the other open-source projects. Most go well at first, when people with enthusiasm and motivation are involved. The life cycle of open source is such that they are started be people with good ideas and motivated to build something shiny and new. The drudgery of supporting, documenting and maintaining a complex system that is used by lots of people is anathema to these types of people.
Its why we have so many new features being built yet bugs open for months on end. The developers would rather write new stuff than fix bugs. That’s OK, its just the way they like to work, and lets face it they’re not being paid.
But it won’t let the software be really successful.
I would rather pay money for symfony than have that happen.
Unfortunately its just the way things go…
You’re doing the right thing in moving on. I’ll buy your symfony book if you ever write one on 1.1
thanks francois for everything.
François!
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
I also hope that some other open source project will realize what an asset someone like you could be for them. I personally chose symfony mostly because it was so well documented.
On the other hand I will have to take Fabien’s side in your argument. I still use the original xml schema. And I do think that the new form system is the way to go.
Hello,
Sorry to see that you are moving away from the symfony project. Your documentation was the main vector to symfony’s success.
I’am agree with you that is hard to get information and reply about decisions taken on the project.
It looks like symfony devs do not try to see symfony from a novice point of view. IMO, experimented devs will always find a way to extends the framework for their needs.
Thanks you again.
Thomas R.
Thank you for everything, God bless you
Thank for your contributions Francois.
François, i will just say thank you for all your amazing work on symfony during all these years… and good luck !
Francois! The sayin goes: “If it is not documented - it isnt there.”
But then it is so important, that it is documented in a nice way, in apositive spirit - and that is, as far as I know, exactly what you did, and a very important reason, for many of us using and enjoing symfony!
Worst stuff are the one not said.
Your work on symfony documentation was awesome and the community will keep a good souvenir.
Even if I’m not happy about you giving up with symfony doc, I think it’s a part of any opensource project to see members leaving, and you’re work on symfony has been awesome so thanks again.
As you said, no one is irreplacable, and that’s especially true in an open source project in which this is a part of the concept.
Still I’m pretty sure you’ll go on using symfony, and I hope we’ll share a beer at the next symfony Pot :p
Sorry to see you leave Francois, but I understand - these things happen from time to time. Thank you very much for your hard work on symfony - it is much appreciated.
Can I be so bold as to suggest you set up an Amazon wishlist, or similar, so that symfonians wishing to do so can thank you properly? I believe you can set up a French one so that people can buy things from it internationally, and just pay the national postage.
François, Thank you very much for your work. Your documentation was the reason why I chose symfony. Now I’m too deep to crawl back into another framework. I wish you would keep the opposition blogging because it can contribute a lot into getting the community to preassure Fabien into your philosophy. I share your point since PHP IDEs are so poor featured. I wish there could be something I can do so you won’t leave the community, but for now I just wish you best of luck in your new path.
Please don’t leave.
Just mentioning this because a few people have commented on YAML being prone to errors.
For me, I feel its not prone to errors as there exist easy ways to debug YAML:
http://www.symfony-project.org/forum/index.php/t/12746/
Very simple but very effective… With tools like this, YAML is no more prone to errors than any other programming language.
Thank you for all your hard work François. Symfony is simply the best framework out there.
I agree with Ivan. Don’t leave.
Symfony is an open source product. Have you ever considered letting the community decide? Has Fabien? I haven’t looked at the licence… will you fork symfony? I REALLY DON’T WANT TO MOVE TO RAILS….
Really sorry to hear you’re not involved in Symfony anymore. Whilst I think Fabien is possibly a genius, you brought so much balance to the project and it was an honour to meet you both when you came to IPC in London a couple of years ago.
I’m afraid I’m inclined to agree with you about simplicity vs code purity. None of my developers can get their heads around the majority of symfony! Unfortunately you have to be on Fabien’s plain of conciousness to follow it now… and not may coders are - not ones I can afford anyway
oh man. bloody religious wars always spoil everything. Take care of yourself and find ways to keep doing good work.
Francois,
Thanks for all your hard work, I know its painful to leave something that you’ve worked on since its birth.
Honestly, I have to agree with a lot of what you say. I really like symfony and its very powerful, however I’ve come across some of the same criticims as you.
I never moved to a YML schema, what’s the point? And today, I am trying to build sfForms that are very complicated. In some situations, I see and use the power they offer, and in others, I say to myself, the complexity of this is out of control for no reason!
I think sf 1.1 is good, but the sfForm framework is very much on the fence. It’s great for big complicated forms that require error handling and validation, yet not so great for the smaller things.
You will be missed very much Fancois, plz don’t hesitate to email me if you ever need anything =]
– Ian
Hi François,
I am very sorry to hear you are leaving the Symfony project. I just read why and I can understand your motivation.
I am really thanking you for trying to get keep Symfony as simple as possible. I hope Fabien will remain KISS.
Also Yaml makes it much easier not only to start beginning with Symfony, but also to remain an overview in your projects. XML is mostly overrated.
I am also disappointed in having to conclude that you where right when you said that there isn’t much feedback asked about important design choices to the community. Don’t get me wrong I am very happy to make use of the Symfony project, do testing, provide feedback and extend it with plugins, especially under the terms of the MIT-license. However I also see the danger of being depended on the decision decisions of someone else, and apparently only one man… I don’t want to get to negative, since as it turned out at the moment we all have a great framework, but this should definitely be a point to keep in mind for the future, especially now since you’ve decided to leave.
Finally about the more verbose style, I don’t mind the new style. At the moment I’ve only seen your samples and am still working in 1.0 only (this because I don’t have time right now to adjust my plugin), but it looks more readable to me and as said before with good IDEs you can be assisted to reduce the learning curve.
I can see why Fabien does not want to duplicate the method signature, since it tends to make things more complicated in the long run, where a mix of plugins in large applications can really get you confused.
However again I am disappointed in the way the decision has seem to be made, by Fabien only even ignoring the wishes of someone as important as you are to the project.
I can see why you have decided to leave the project; working this way probably was really frustrating and as said it should be fun!
I wish you best of luck with your new projects and hope to see nice new projects from your hand!
Regards
Leon - sfExtjsThemePlugin
Francois,
I am sorry to hear about this. You were a voice of reason that I have always felt represented where I was coming from as a developer. Symfony, for lack of a better term, has gone off the rails in version 1.1. An entire book on just forms? I’m not shocked, but I am sorry to see you leave. Any open-source project would be lucky to pick you up!
Oh, these comments all sound like he died..
I think it is not necessary to be in the core team to be an important part of the symfony community.
So, what.. I am still hoping you will continue contributing — maybe a make-forms-simpler-by-yaml-plugin!? Who knows. I could offer help.
Thanks for all your work!
Dear François,
It’s a real shame to hear that you’ve left the symfony project, especially since I really admire your work, which has made symfony accessible to me. In fact, I came across this blog post because I was looking for when the next symfony workshop in English will be!
I can understand how not having your opinions heard can be irritating and, like what others have said here, work should be enjoyable and not frustrating.
You may consider yourself replaceable, but it’ll certainly be very difficult to replace you.
I’m not asking you to get back to the symfony project for the “greater good” at your own expense, but may I make a simple request:
I am sure that your work on symfony has made you grow fond of this project, especially while seeing its enormous success sweeping the web. In my opinion, you leaving will be an enormous drawback for the project and all those who can benefit from what it has to offer, and I don’t think you’re readily prepared to let that happen.
I don’t know if this is feasible or not (and how explosive your parting with Fabien was), but could you not convince Fabien to take these two matters into consideration:
1- The success of a framework doesn’t simply depend on the performance of the code, but also on all the factors that make the framework accessible (symfony’s two key strengths, besides the code, are its documentation and its community. Dustin Whittle has mentioned the documentation as the key reason why Yahoo! opted for symfony). If the documentation is becoming too difficult to read (and write :D), the framework’s accessibility will dwindle, and that’ll diminish symfony’s success.
2- Isn’t it possible to have a forum poll to find out in what direction symfony users would like to see the framework go? Already symfony has a steep learning curve, and the experience of symfony users should be taken into consideration to gauge how difficult it is for people to make effective use of the framework without having to learn so much that’s beyond their immediate capacity to learn and be comfortable with.
I would love to see you succeed in convincing Fabien to take documentation and user experience into consideration, and to continue having you contribute to symfony.
Like I said, I don’t expect you to suffer and agonize for the good of the symfony community (even if you can be replaced, you’re still a great asset!), but I really hope that you can reach an understanding with Fabien to agree to agree that what’s best for symfony, its users and those working on it is to make symfony as accessible as possible, while improving its performance and its functionality.
I apologize if my comment is longer than your post, but I feel passionate about seeing you stay with the project.
I wish you all the best in any path you take.
Haider
YAML i snothing but a pain in the but for most things except more complicated stringls, like embedding the MCE editor (that never works easy with YAML either)
Didn’t all of you end up errorsearhing your application ending up with a missing blankspace in a YAML file? Grrrrr.
Francois, you and Fabien are Symfony in my book.