This is exactly what the developers of Angular thought when they developed Angular 2;
Now they are surprised to learn that this “captive audience”, when it found out that it was needed to rewrite half of the code in order to migrate to Angular 2, preferred to migrate to React…
Before they started to develop Angular 2, almost nobody used React, and most of the popularity of React was created by the declaration that Angular 2 would not be compatible with Angular 1.
Frankly, I have no idea why MDG doesn’t use the popularity of Blaze to take the entire market; They have such a power in their hands, and just do anything they can in order to destroy it.
I ask many developers “why not Meteor?”, and all of them answer me that Meteor used to be a great framework till a year ago, and since then, MDG is too busy in shooting itself, so they (the developers I ask) don’t want to touch it.
It’s only a matter of time till we see the following title about Meteor in one of the leading blogs or news sites:
“The making, and unmaking, of the best framework in the world”…
Note that npm and atmosphere download numbers can’t be compared because atmosphere counts unique apps and npm counts total downloads, but in general the point is valid.
You should compare Meteor+Blaze vs. Meteor+React.
Nobody expects all of React developers, or a half of them, or even a quarter of them, to adopt Meteor just because it supports React.
And on the other hand, stopping the Blaze support will cause many developers to leave.
In any case, when I mentioned “popularity”, what I meant was:
The fact that you can easily develop a fullstack app, from end to end, after a very short training, without depending on many external packages, and almost without coding, and it will run multi-platform, including different web browsers and mobile.
This was a unique power that could not be challenged by anybody else, and it’s sad that instead of using it to win the competition, MDG loses it.
I hear you - I was just throwing in a bit of tongue in cheek; that being said I think it’s really easy to understand Apollo’s decision to support React and Angular out of the box (going for the larger market share in this case makes a tonne of sense).
Right - they’re not directly comparable, but looking at developer interest alone (downloads) speaks volumes …
The above being said, I know we all love Blaze and would love to see it keep thriving. Hopefully we can all help rally behind the planned community lead future of Blaze. And this:
Is an awesome opportunity for someone! Not me of course … I’m too busy pretending to work and instead reading Meteor forum posts … by the time I actually get back to work, Vue will be the way forward!
Blaze (which is built on Handlebars) remains a very strong UI as it is essentially the DOM with little abstraction and will continue to have its appeal (Ghost and other packages use Handlebars).
Personally, I think this is a ‘how to make money’ approach. MDG is now focusing on the data layer and less on the Meteor framework, so the community has to step in. I am willing to work with @mitar and the rest of the community on this.
Also, I believe that as a platform, Meteor in itself will see less and less investment from MDG regardless (the UI layer won’t solve that). So the community will HAVE to step in, even for React and Angular.
Side topic: I have a hard time believing you can make money just hosting Meteor, we spun up a DO VM for Meteor (with Clustering built in) and another DO for MongoDB and had a very solid infrastructure up in no time. Add Nagios and you have maintenance. MDG’s model may need to be redefined. If I am wrong about this, then great! One less thing that keeps me up at night.
It’s time to sleep easy; when your primary investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Trinity Ventures, and Matrix Partners, you not only have a plan, your plan has been vetted by some serious heavy hitters.
I disagree, this is a logic flaw, called academicism. Arguing that an opinion’s truth value is correlated to whom propose such an idea is a flaw.
In synthesis, success is not made by people, but by ideas.
I think MDG is making some management mistakes, as I think the management is under a lot of stress due to some past mistakes.
Maybe this is not one of them, I prefer not to express an opinion on Blaze and Apollo, as I think that the situation is more complex than how it looks at first. Anyhow it’s interesting to notice that:
They said they would drop blaze support in favor of react / angular.
This has been a breach of trust between MDG and the community
They went back on their steps after the community pressured against the decision. Anyhow the trust was already lost, and I didn’t believe it.
Now in a critical decision Blaze has been left behind. Not abandoned, ok, but it’s being treated as a second class citizen.
Again I don’t want to say that not supporting blaze in apollo is bad, but I think that there are some problem in the management group behind MDG.
In all seriousness though, you bring up interesting points @muaddib. My comments though about not worrying based on their impressive VC list comes from my dealings with related companies. These guys have plans. They aren’t just impressed by demo’s, and they bet on both people and ideas. They also hand hold, guide and help find solutions for a lot more than they usually get credit for. The power of a good VC (and these guys are top notch) isn’t just their bankbook. It’s their network. When problems arise with a startup they’re sponsoring, these guys not only dive in to help out, but they bring in the expertise of other successful founders they’ve worked with. This is all of course to their own benefit, but hey - we’re benefiting too!
(EDIT: Sorry, I just realized that I’m totally derailing this thread - it must Friday!)
I agree with both your posts strongly. Having good VCs make a hellava difference. In this case, a technical platform needs top notch VC’s / advisors / board. My concerns as a developer using this technology are well articulated by @muaddib and no great VC is going to take this away, as it has to do with the platform’s vision and direction.
I am extremely comforted that the community is stepping in … but we need more people (myself included) to take a more active role. It’s in everyone’s best interest. Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ will kick in and direct the platform to a point where it satisfies most stakeholders. That may or may not include MDG on the long run, which in itself comforts developers and brings them on board.
We could foresee a time where we set up a foundation (which we could invest in and help manage) and hire in (including the key devs @ MDG – everything is on the table).
As, considering the blaze-to-apollo news, blaze is obviously already an afterthought for them-- maybe MDG can play a more active role (both organizing and financing) this “organization/foundation” in the near term.
Even if they just help set up the structure, recruit the first few people, setup the patreon (or other) account, and donate the first thousand bucks… they could start by handing over the blaze library.
They could put one person on this task FT and have it set up in under a week if they really wanted to do it. Then that person can go back to whatever they were doing before.
It’s really not that much work. Two days picking the initial team. One day on setting up the organization (doesn’t even have to be formal I guess), a day setting up patreon. Boom. You’re done.
@sashko, is this something you can help us organise? If so, we could set up a call. The foundation could even help offset MDG’s costs and investment. Features can be financed and developed based on community needs, while you guys focus on what is core and essential for your near term. The foundation could also be an asset for MDG, as a direct arm into the community.
We’re putting in a lot of work, especially in the last few months, to empower meteor contributors and community, and we would certainly appreciate more help! That’s something @zol spends a lot of time thinking about.
Blaze will work just fine with Apollo. The current React bindings for Apollo were built and are being maintained by the community, I really hope someone will step up and do the same for Blaze!
- any news on Apollo/Blaze front?