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Posted to dev@shindig.apache.org by Derek Houghton <de...@chuwori.co.uk> on 2011/06/30 07:19:05 UTC
Shindig support
Dear Shindig Developers,
As someone new to Shindig, but seeing it as a useful tool to plug into a large scale bioinformatics project, I am finding it slow going enabling the functionality I require.
As brought to light in recent requests for help regarding OAuth, UserPrefs and my own requirement for implementing a database back-end there is not much to go on in the way of documentation.
I was fortunate to get some help from Evgeny who pointed me in the right direction for connecting my own back end database to Shindig. Without that detailed help my project would have got seriously behind time. Even then I had further issues with EclipseLink v Hibernate.
My experience so far in contacting other users is that they have given up on Shindig due to lack of support/ degree of difficulty or , ironically for open source, having to pay someone else to resolve the issue.
I am sure that this is not what you intend for your project.
I have not given up on it yet but I am concerned that if I continue to adapt Shindig for my own purposes then when I hand the project over in a few months time, I am doing so without adequate reference/help material from the apache team which my employers can fall back on.
Is there a possibility that some of the development work goes into the production of a help system in the form of tutorials or snippets of example code being made available and maintained online? A little more than 'You have to implement class X' would be invaluable.
Under different circumstances I would like to be able to contribute to the development of Shindig, but that is not in my remit at present. For now I am just a user. I want to be able to use your product as much 'out of the box' as possible. I would rather not have to spend a lot of time figuring out exactly where I have to plug into Shindig in order to extend or implement some apparently specific core functionality for version x/y.
Even an upfront list of what does/doesn't work out of the box would be time-saving.
In the meantime here is a question for you: What do you think would be the best way to save multiple states of the same gadget?
ie A user views the same gadget at different times.
On each occasion the user wishes to save a preferred state.
The state that is saved involves the same parameters on each occasion - but different values.
The user would wish to recall these different states at any time.
The user would want to share these different states with friends.
My immediate thought is to employ a naming convention to distinguish distinct states and writing the params to the app_data table (which is person specific- yes?) and then modifying the relevant database classes PersonDB etc.. to retrieve records based on the naming convention.
Perhaps there is an alternative level I should be approaching this from?
I appreciate all the work that is being done on Shindig by the development team and hope that you view this as constructive feedback and that the interest that exists in the Shindig project in the community persists and gains momentum.
Regards
Derek
Re: Shindig support
Posted by Ryan J Baxter <rj...@us.ibm.com>.
Hi Derek,
I think a lot of people would agree with your points below. I myself, and
may others I work with, have found it a little frustrating getting off the
ground with Shindig for many of the reasons you outline below. However we
need to start somewhere, if you are willing to document problems and the
corresponding solutions as you encounter them, you might want to consider
documenting them on the Shindig Wiki (
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/SHINDIG/Index%3bjsessionid=CA26246F597032FAAA9123CA01139E03
). I think the documentation for Shindig and OpenSocial started out
strong but has since become outdated as the spec and reference
implementation has progressed. As contributors to Shindig, we should all
be trying to improve the documentation as we continuously contribute to
the project.
-Ryan
Email: rjbaxter@us.ibm.com
Phone: 978-899-3041
developerWorks Profile
From: Henry Saputra <he...@gmail.com>
To: dev@shindig.apache.org,
Date: 06/30/2011 03:47 PM
Subject: Re: Shindig support
Hi Derek,
These suggestions are very valuable. One way you can immediately help
to improve our docs and help system is to file JIRA
(https://issues.apache.org) issues for Apache Shindig project. This
could help us to keep track and plan what fixes or upgrades need to be
done.
The Shindig community is trying to make Shindig to be a turn-key
project with more pluggable customization points for easy deployment.
Really appreciate and looking forward for your help to make the
project better.
Hope this response helps to ease your concern a little bit.
- Henry
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 10:19 PM, Derek Houghton <de...@chuwori.co.uk>
wrote:
> Dear Shindig Developers,
>
> As someone new to Shindig, but seeing it as a useful tool to plug into a
large scale bioinformatics project, I am finding it slow going enabling
the functionality I require.
> As brought to light in recent requests for help regarding OAuth,
UserPrefs and my own requirement for implementing a database back-end
there is not much to go on in the way of documentation.
> I was fortunate to get some help from Evgeny who pointed me in the right
direction for connecting my own back end database to Shindig. Without that
detailed help my project would have got seriously behind time. Even then I
had further issues with EclipseLink v Hibernate.
>
> My experience so far in contacting other users is that they have given
up on Shindig due to lack of support/ degree of difficulty or , ironically
for open source, having to pay someone else to resolve the issue.
> I am sure that this is not what you intend for your project.
>
> I have not given up on it yet but I am concerned that if I continue to
adapt Shindig for my own purposes then when I hand the project over in a
few months time, I am doing so without adequate reference/help material
from the apache team which my employers can fall back on.
>
> Is there a possibility that some of the development work goes into the
production of a help system in the form of tutorials or snippets of
example code being made available and maintained online? A little more
than 'You have to implement class X' would be invaluable.
>
> Under different circumstances I would like to be able to contribute to
the development of Shindig, but that is not in my remit at present. For
now I am just a user. I want to be able to use your product as much 'out
of the box' as possible. I would rather not have to spend a lot of time
figuring out exactly where I have to plug into Shindig in order to extend
or implement some apparently specific core functionality for version x/y.
> Even an upfront list of what does/doesn't work out of the box would be
time-saving.
>
> In the meantime here is a question for you: What do you think would be
the best way to save multiple states of the same gadget?
> ie A user views the same gadget at different times.
> On each occasion the user wishes to save a preferred state.
> The state that is saved involves the same parameters on each occasion -
but different values.
> The user would wish to recall these different states at any time.
> The user would want to share these different states with friends.
>
> My immediate thought is to employ a naming convention to distinguish
distinct states and writing the params to the app_data table (which is
person specific- yes?) and then modifying the relevant database classes
PersonDB etc.. to retrieve records based on the naming convention.
> Perhaps there is an alternative level I should be approaching this from?
>
> I appreciate all the work that is being done on Shindig by the
development team and hope that you view this as constructive feedback and
that the interest that exists in the Shindig project in the community
persists and gains momentum.
>
> Regards
> Derek
>
>
>
Re: Shindig support
Posted by Henry Saputra <he...@gmail.com>.
Hi Derek,
These suggestions are very valuable. One way you can immediately help
to improve our docs and help system is to file JIRA
(https://issues.apache.org) issues for Apache Shindig project. This
could help us to keep track and plan what fixes or upgrades need to be
done.
The Shindig community is trying to make Shindig to be a turn-key
project with more pluggable customization points for easy deployment.
Really appreciate and looking forward for your help to make the
project better.
Hope this response helps to ease your concern a little bit.
- Henry
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 10:19 PM, Derek Houghton <de...@chuwori.co.uk> wrote:
> Dear Shindig Developers,
>
> As someone new to Shindig, but seeing it as a useful tool to plug into a large scale bioinformatics project, I am finding it slow going enabling the functionality I require.
> As brought to light in recent requests for help regarding OAuth, UserPrefs and my own requirement for implementing a database back-end there is not much to go on in the way of documentation.
> I was fortunate to get some help from Evgeny who pointed me in the right direction for connecting my own back end database to Shindig. Without that detailed help my project would have got seriously behind time. Even then I had further issues with EclipseLink v Hibernate.
>
> My experience so far in contacting other users is that they have given up on Shindig due to lack of support/ degree of difficulty or , ironically for open source, having to pay someone else to resolve the issue.
> I am sure that this is not what you intend for your project.
>
> I have not given up on it yet but I am concerned that if I continue to adapt Shindig for my own purposes then when I hand the project over in a few months time, I am doing so without adequate reference/help material from the apache team which my employers can fall back on.
>
> Is there a possibility that some of the development work goes into the production of a help system in the form of tutorials or snippets of example code being made available and maintained online? A little more than 'You have to implement class X' would be invaluable.
>
> Under different circumstances I would like to be able to contribute to the development of Shindig, but that is not in my remit at present. For now I am just a user. I want to be able to use your product as much 'out of the box' as possible. I would rather not have to spend a lot of time figuring out exactly where I have to plug into Shindig in order to extend or implement some apparently specific core functionality for version x/y.
> Even an upfront list of what does/doesn't work out of the box would be time-saving.
>
> In the meantime here is a question for you: What do you think would be the best way to save multiple states of the same gadget?
> ie A user views the same gadget at different times.
> On each occasion the user wishes to save a preferred state.
> The state that is saved involves the same parameters on each occasion - but different values.
> The user would wish to recall these different states at any time.
> The user would want to share these different states with friends.
>
> My immediate thought is to employ a naming convention to distinguish distinct states and writing the params to the app_data table (which is person specific- yes?) and then modifying the relevant database classes PersonDB etc.. to retrieve records based on the naming convention.
> Perhaps there is an alternative level I should be approaching this from?
>
> I appreciate all the work that is being done on Shindig by the development team and hope that you view this as constructive feedback and that the interest that exists in the Shindig project in the community persists and gains momentum.
>
> Regards
> Derek
>
>
>