Re: set of basic Samples (Was: Again - how do I make saxon 8 thedefault xslt transformer?)

[Derek Hohls <DH...@csir.co.za>]

David

Um, not sure about "contributing" - unless you mean
uploading to Wiki... there is nothing very magical about
these - as I said ... for me to understand something (and
be able to explain to someone else!) I usually need to strip 
it down to its most basic components.  The Cocoon samples
are great, but are written by people *who already know what
they are doing* and tend to have a whole chunk of less obvious
stuff in the mix.  The idea of "one concept per topic" is an
attractive one.  For an example of a page that I have setup
before now, look at:
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=FlowHelloWorld

The "comments" on these exist mostly in my head ('cause
I've had to work thru them and figure them out) but if any
one thinks there is a need for for VSS (very simple stuff) 
and can add comments on the wiki page, then I guess
we should start this...

Derek

PS This was the intention of the "For Beginners" section
which was started by Hussayn Dabbous (hello?!)
but as has been pointed out below, that already is 
out-of-date... maybe we MUST have a x.y.z header on 
each page and add the caveat that "this page may be 
out of date or not applicable if you are using a different
version!"  

PPS Plea to Wiki maintainers - maybe we can also start 
having a process whereby we can request for a page to
be marked as "redundant" and color-code it somehow?!

>>> crossley@apache.org 2004/06/25 11:16:58 AM >>>
Derek Hohls wrote:
> To be honest, I am not sure the Wiki is the best place
> to start learning from... bear in mind that's its a free-
> for-all site, maintained on an ad-hoc basis (at best!).
> 
> Certainly the leap from Cocoon 2.0 to 2.1.n has caused
> many wiki pages and 3rd party tutorials to date *very* fast.
> The wiki needs a heavy hand with pruning...
> 
> For starting learning, I would always start with the main
> site and use the shipped samples - especially the simpler 
> ones - as a basis for building.
> 
> If you get stuck, and the wiki looks confused, ask here
> first!
> 
> Derek
> 
> PS - If you are asking a new question, or starting with a
> new idea, its a good idea to post to a new message thread.
> 
> PPS - I can always send you my current "basic" directory
> which I add to on an ongoing basis with "really simple, 
> one topic only" samples... usually stripped down from more
> complex Cocoon ones.

Oooh!!! Would it be possible to contribute that to Cocoon.

If each "concept" in Cocoon had a really basic sample
to portray it, then we could have a self-demonstrating
application. The best sort of documentation is that which
demonstrates the concept in action, describes its pieces,
and provides the code to show how it works.

The new "supersonic tour" block would provide a good model.
It could be copied to provide the infrastructure for a
"simple samples" block.

As a side-benefit, that provides a starter-kit for people
to build their own stuff on a strong foundation.

--David

> Colin Paul Adams wrote:
>     >> Is this all documented somewhere? I can't find it (actually,
I
>     >> find the whole of the cocoon documentation chaotic - things
are
>     >> liable to turn up all over the place, be contradictory, or
>     >> downright wrong, or just out of date).
> 
>     David> Patches are welcome.
> 
> I don't that patches will help much. 
> I see on the cocoon developers list that people are aware it's a
mess.
> 
> Anyway, here's one specific instance of something that is:
> a) Wrong, and
> b) Difficult to find what is right.
> 
> And since it comes form the Wiki section "For Beginners", it could
> very VERY easily put someone off if they weren't as sure as I am
> (having looked at Cocoon before) that Cocoon is what I want to use.
> 
> Having gone through the pain of getting Cocoon up and running, and
> then getting it to work with saxon 8, I now actually want to write a
> little application.
> 
> So I've got my transform working on static sample xml file, outside
of
> cocoon. I'm ready to try to put it into Cocoon.
> This ought to be available right upfront on the documentation main
> page. Instead i find I have to:
> 
> >From the documentation main page:
> Select "Wiki Docs"
> Select "For Beginners"
> Select "Organizing your development"
> 
> And then, I find it's plain wrong (for 2.1.5 - no doubt a problem on
> rely on a wiki). It talks about a subfolder in $cocoon_root called
> mount. 
> Well, it doesn't exist in 2.1.5.
> So I delve into the sitemap (note - already I'm starting to have to
> look at source code, rather than documentation - but it gets worse).
> 
> I find that what I actually want is a file called mount-table.xml.
> But that doesn't exist either (why isn't there a default one with
> sample entries commented out?).
> 
> So I finally find my way to some java source, and find the format of
> the file in java comments (made so much more harder to read by
<s).
> 
> Phew.
> Well, now I'll go and create one, and hope the java comments are
> correct.
> 
> This is hard work!
> -- 
> Colin Paul Adams
> Preston Lancashire



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