is express dying?

[TrejGun]

Since TJ left the project and it became "property" of StrongLoop the project is slowly dying.
I guess you (StrongLoop) promised TJ and thus a community to continue to maintain the code.
Sure you want to push part of express users to use yours solutions and to make money on support.
But open-source gave a start to your company and if you don't want to share back your code and time, just give a control back to community

[aredridel]

What? Doug Wilson is doing a spectacular job of maintenance. One of the hardest working folks I've ever encountered in open source.

[Knighton910]

I agree with @aredridel Doug wilson is always working his ass off. I'm a huge Tj fan @tj . I think what your comparing is, express when it was hot & it was the go to framework for Node.js , but now there are more frameworks vying for the attention of developers. I don't think you're completely off your rocker, but to each his own 😄 👍

[TrejGun]

I know Doug Wilson was committing to express (and other TJ's project) since its beginning and i appreciate his work. However i don't know if he works for strongloop now and have less free time.

please, look at commits
there are nothing except new npm versions and some docs since august and a very few before

PR for async route handlers was introduced in november and not merged yet
#2809

release 5.0 was initiated on july but stale since november
#2237

You should check this out: #2827

[Twipped]

@TrejGun If the intent of your post is to shame strongloop, you really need to mention strongloop in the post, because right now it looks like you're shitting all over @dougwilson's hard work.

Most of the bulk of Express' codebase has been refactored out into external dependencies, which Doug is constantly maintaining. That is why the only commits you see are npm version bumps, because he's updating for changes in those dependencies. Express 5 will take this even further by completely removing the routing engine from express core. Look at Doug's public timeline and tell me that he isn't actively working on Express.

Doug is one of the hardest working OSS contributors in the NodeJS community. Comments such as yours not only undermine his massive efforts, but also contribute to developer burn out (which Doug has recently recovered from). You are not helping with the problem, @TrejGun, you're making it worse.

[dougwilson]

Hi everyone, reading @TrejGun 's initial post, it doesn't sound directed to me, more directed to the project/StrongLoop/IBM. Thanks for the kind works, everyone, I really want to see the continued success of Express, but the situation of the project ownership makes this extremely difficult.

I am working with IBM to find a good path forward.

[NetOpWibby]

Yikes!

Express is awesome. I don't understand why StrongLoop/IBM won't speak, that's absurd.

[tj]

FWIW projects don't have to change in order to be good. Nothing wrong with a project finding its place and staying relatively put. I haven't been following what's going on with Express, that might not even be the case but that's my opinion.

[mikermcneil]

@tj hallelujah

@dougwilson thank you for taking the time to post publicly about this. You have my support, and the support of the Sails.js core maintainers regardless of what happens. I am hopeful that when the moving parts settle down, IBM will be able to help. Let me know if there's any way I can assist in the interim.

[TrejGun]

@ChiperSoft don't know what you are about. there is strongloop and there is no Doug's name in the initial post.

@tj very glad to see you in this topic. the life is change. we have big upcoming es6 changes which can help reduce code and improve performance. for example #2809 is only 8 lines but i will shave of 200 lines from each of my projects

@dougwilson thanks for you answer, you just confirmed my guesses about a reason strongloop bought express. at least they don't mind if it die. sad story but not so rare. and the solution is not so rare too.

express has MIT license so anybody can fork it at any time and continue to maintain as express 2.0
what do you think about this?

[ritch]

What? Doug Wilson is doing a spectacular job of maintenance. One of the hardest working folks I've ever encountered in open source.

+1

[ritch]

Hey gals and guys. Express is certainly active and poised to move even faster. I agree with concerns that @dougwilson has been unfairly carrying the project maintenance, which just isn't sustainable. I know from experience that triaging issues and working on bugs is not very exciting work. It leads to burn out fairly quickly. It just shows how dedicated @dougwilson is to this project that he has been doing it for this long and without much help.

IBM leadership has heard the call for help loud and clear and is announcing increased sponsorship of the project including two very talented IBM developers: @hacksparrow (Yaapa) and @tunniclm (Mike). Other names are likely to follow as we more clearly understand what is required and how we can assist. This means more dedicated developers on the project than ever before.

We are also looking at ways to optimize how the express and related repositories are organized to make it easier to contribute to the project by community members as individuals and in organizations (including IBM).

This will take some time to get it right and we ask for your patience. Please keep your comments and recommendations coming to ensure all points of view are considered.