Re: Thoughts on how to grow our community.

[Dan Haywood <da...@haywood-associates.co.uk>]

Hi Bilgin,
thanks for your thoughts here.  I remember doing that lightning talk at
last years LJC open conf, only shame that I couldn't make it to this years.

It is, actually, really easy to use Isis domain models in other frameworks,
but we don't really explain how particularly well.  Hopefully the new site
will make it clearer that this is an option and have some better
information here.

I've been working on the online demo, and hope to have it hosted and
running in the next day or two.  It combines the HTML and JSON (REST)
viewers into a single WAR, so the user can switch between either view.  If
you're interested in a sneak peak, its in SVN at examples/onlinedemo.

Your idea of having a special JIRA list for would-be contributors to tackle
is a great one; I'll try to go through them and categorize them some how.
 Do you know how other Apache projects do this, by the way?

Thanks
Dan


On Monday, 28 November 2011, Bilgin Ibryam wrote:

> Hi Dan  and others,
>
> I think this is a really good start for some changes in ISIS.
> Coming from another Apache full-stack business app  oriented framework
> (Apache OFBiz) I find ISIS really interesting.
>
> Personally after reading the NO book and going through the examples, I
> found it hard to dive deeper into the framework, many viewers and
> deployment models... made it hard to focus on and understand the core
> functionality of the framework. So I strongly support the cleanup of
> the viewers and having in the base framework only the best (full and
> clean) implemented one as a reference.
>
> Another thing is that ISIS is a full-stack framework and not simply a
> tool which can be used as part of another project or development
> process, thus make it hard to use in real life projects.
>
> some other notes:
> I couldn't see a list(jira filter) for issues that can be fixed by
> newcomers.
> A running demo on Apache infrastucture would be good demonstration of
> ISIS features.
> I heard about ISIS on last year's LJC Open Conference. Giving a 5min
> lightening talk about ISIS on LJC gatherings would be helpful too.
>
> Cheers,
> Bilgin Ibryam
>
>
> On 21 November 2011 13:02, Dan Haywood <da...@haywood-associates.co.uk>
> wrote:
> > There's been an interesting thread going on in incubator@a.o [1] about
> (a)
> > the number of podlings in the incubator and (b) how long some of them are
> > taking to graduate.  One of the main points being made is that podlings
> that
> > have been in the incubator for a certain period of time (no-one is
> > suggesting how long exactly, but 1 year is being used as a strawman in
> the
> > thread) should be more explicit in defining their roadmap and action
> steps
> > towards graduation.
> >
> > To be honest, this is all very reasonable, but from Isis' point of view
> it
> > is perhaps slightly worrying, because although we've made some progress
> with
> > getting our code etc together (and the licenses, ICLAs, release processes
> > etc are in good shape), we haven't made a lot of progress in attracting
> new
> > committers.  Indeed, arguably we've gone backwards in that space: right
> now
> > only Kevin, Rob and myself currently actively commit.
> >
> > With that in mind, Kevin, Rob and I had a skype conf call this weekend to
> > discuss some ideas to move Isis forward towards graduation.  Obviously,
> this
> > is it's slightly against Apache policy ("if it didn't happen on the
> mailing
> > list then it didn't happen"), which is why I'm posting here now to post
> some
> > of our initial conclusions and to broaden out the discussion to everyone
> > else who might be interested.  (Kevin and Rob: correct me if I overstate
> on
> > any of this).
> >
> >
> > Marketing Message
> >
> > The main thing we discussed was the "marketing message" for Isis.
> >
> > Automatic UI
> >
> > The view we came to was that the automatic-UI generation part of Isis (ie
> > the naked objects pattern) is possibly more of a negative than a
> positive,
> > at least so far as attracting new users:
> > * That is, for those that have heard of naked objects (guestimate: 1/4 to
> > 1/3 of developers), chances are that they have dismissed it as being a
> way
> > to build over-simplified CRUD-style applications.  (Of course, those of
> us
> > who have actually used it to build apps know that ain't so, but that's a
> > different discussion).
> > * For those that have not heard of naked objects, the proposition that
> > "here's a framework that will automatically generate your UIs" doesn't
> > resonate.  Why? I guess we can speculate; my view is that there are now
> > plenty of UI technologies that are quite productive/easy to use/fun;
> > probably a lot more so than when the original naked objects framework was
> > developed c: 2000.  Another reason might be that developers put too much
> > emphasis over owning the UI rather than making sure the domain model is
> > good.
> >
> > On the other hand, we did conclude that the automatic-UI is useful as a
> > design tool, and would-be users of Isis could probably understand it in
> > those terms.  The fact that the automatic UI is also suitable for use by
> > end-users in some situations is subsidiary and something that adopters of
> > Isis might discover only later on.
> >
> > REST
> >
> > Another point that I was keen to see factored into the marketing message
> for
> > Isis is its REST support (the json-viewer).  As you may have picked up
> from
> > other posts, I've been developing a standalone spec, Restful Objects [2],
> > which defines defines a set of RESTful resources, and corresponding JSON
> > representations, for accessing and manipulating a domain object model.
> >
> > I'm quite excited by this Restful stuff.  On the one hand, as well as
> Isis'
> > implementation, there's also another .NET implementation underway via
> Naked
> > Objects MVC (Richard Pawson has been providing great feedback on the
> spec).
> > And Johan Andries has been making good progress on a new RESTful UI,
> which
> > I'm hoping might go open source.  Also, the REST approach has met a good
> > reaction at our (joint) client in Ireland.
> >
> > In terms of marketing, my view is that REST is an area where there is
> > currently a lot of interest, but developers looking into it will likely
> > realise that it's a complex area to do right (ful support for HATEOAS,
> HTTP
> > headers and status codes etc).  As such, developers might be interested
> in a
> > framework that can help them out, at a somewhat higher level of
> abstraction
> > than JSR-311.  The proposition is: press a button and get

Re: Thoughts on how to grow our community.

[Bilgin Ibryam <bi...@gmail.com>]

On 1 December 2011 05:59, Dan Haywood <da...@haywood-associates.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Bilgin,
> thanks for your thoughts here.  I remember doing that lightning talk at last
> years LJC open conf, only shame that I couldn't make it to this years.
>
> It is, actually, really easy to use Isis domain models in other frameworks,
> but we don't really explain how particularly well.  Hopefully the new site
> will make it clearer that this is an option and have some better information
> here.
>
> I've been working on the online demo, and hope to have it hosted and running
> in the next day or two.  It combines the HTML and JSON (REST) viewers into a
> single WAR, so the user can switch between either view.  If you're
> interested in a sneak peak, its in SVN at examples/onlinedemo.
>
> Your idea of having a special JIRA list for would-be contributors to tackle
> is a great one; I'll try to go through them and categorize them some how.
>  Do you know how other Apache projects do this, by the way?

Yes,  Apache Camel is a good example, you can see in this page
http://camel.apache.org/contributing.html  there is "easy to resolve
issues" link pointing to jira and shows only issues with estimated
complexity - novice.

HTH
Bilgin


>
> Thanks
> Dan
>
>
> On Monday, 28 November 2011, Bilgin Ibryam wrote:
>>
>> Hi Dan  and others,
>>
>> I think this is a really good start for some changes in ISIS.
>> Coming from another Apache full-stack business app  oriented framework
>> (Apache OFBiz) I find ISIS really interesting.
>>
>> Personally after reading the NO book and going through the examples, I
>> found it hard to dive deeper into the framework, many viewers and
>> deployment models... made it hard to focus on and understand the core
>> functionality of the framework. So I strongly support the cleanup of
>> the viewers and having in the base framework only the best (full and
>> clean) implemented one as a reference.
>>
>> Another thing is that ISIS is a full-stack framework and not simply a
>> tool which can be used as part of another project or development
>> process, thus make it hard to use in real life projects.
>>
>> some other notes:
>> I couldn't see a list(jira filter) for issues that can be fixed by
>> newcomers.
>> A running demo on Apache infrastucture would be good demonstration of
>> ISIS features.
>> I heard about ISIS on last year's LJC Open Conference. Giving a 5min
>> lightening talk about ISIS on LJC gatherings would be helpful too.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Bilgin Ibryam
>>
>>
>> On 21 November 2011 13:02, Dan Haywood <da...@haywood-associates.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>> > There's been an interesting thread going on in incubator@a.o [1] about
>> > (a)
>> > the number of podlings in the incubator and (b) how long some of them
>> > are
>> > taking to graduate.  One of the main points being made is that podlings
>> > that
>> > have been in the incubator for a certain period of time (no-one is
>> > suggesting how long exactly, but 1 year is being used as a strawman in
>> > the
>> > thread) should be more explicit in defining their roadmap and action
>> > steps
>> > towards graduation.
>> >
>> > To be honest, this is all very reasonable, but from Isis' point of view
>> > it
>> > is perhaps slightly worrying, because although we've made some progress
>> > with
>> > getting our code etc together (and the licenses, ICLAs, release
>> > processes
>> > etc are in good shape), we haven't made a lot of progress in attracting
>> > new
>> > committers.  Indeed, arguably we've gone backwards in that space: right
>> > now
>> > only Kevin, Rob and myself currently actively commit.
>> >
>> > With that in mind, Kevin, Rob and I had a skype conf call this weekend
>> > to
>> > discuss some ideas to move Isis forward towards graduation.  Obviously,
>> > this
>> > is it's slightly against Apache policy ("if it didn't happen on the
>> > mailing
>> > list then it didn't happen"), which is why I'm posting here now to post
>> > some
>> > of our initial conclusions and to broaden out the discussion to everyone
>> > else who might be interested.  (Kevin and Rob: correct me if I overstate
>> > on
>> > any of this).
>> >
>> >
>> > Marketing Message
>> >
>> > The main thing we discussed was the "marketing message" for Isis.
>> >
>> > Automatic UI
>> >
>> > The view we came to was that the automatic-UI generation part of Isis
>> > (ie
>> > the naked objects pattern) is possibly more of a negative than a
>> > positive,
>> > at least so far as attracting new users:
>> > * That is, for those that have heard of naked objects (guestimate: 1/4
>> > to
>> > 1/3 of developers), chances are that they have dismissed it as being a
>> > way
>> > to build over-simplified CRUD-style applications.  (Of course, those of
>> > us
>> > who have actually used it to build apps know that ain't so, but that's a
>> > different discussion).
>> > * For those that have not heard of naked objects, the proposition that
>> > "here's a framework that will automatically generate your UIs" doesn't
>> > resonate.  Why? I guess we can speculate; my view is that there are now
>> > plenty of UI technologies that are quite productive/easy to use/fun;
>> > probably a lot more so than when the original naked objects framework
>> > was
>> > developed c: 2000.  Another reason might be that developers put too much
>> > emphasis over owning the UI rather than making sure the domain model is
>> > good.
>> >
>> > On the other hand, we did conclude that the automatic-UI is useful as a
>> > design tool, and would-be users of Isis could probably understand it in
>> > those terms.  The fact that the automatic UI is also suitable for use by
>> > end-users in some situations is subsidiary and something that adopters
>> > of
>> > Isis might discover only later on.
>> >
>> > REST
>> >
>> > Another point that I was keen to see factored into the marketing message
>> > for
>> > Isis is its REST support (the json-viewer).  As you may have picked up
>> > from
>> > other posts, I've been developing a standalone spec, Restful Objects
>> > [2],
>> > which defines defines a set of RESTful resources, and corresponding JSON
>> > representations, for accessing and manipulating a domain object model.
>> >
>> > I'm quite excited by this Restful stuff.  On the one hand, as well as
>> > Isis'
>> > implementation, there's also another .NET implementation underway via
>> > Naked
>> > Objects MVC (Richard Pawson has been providing great feedback on the
>> > spec).
>> > And Johan Andries has been making good progress on a new RESTful UI,
>> > which
>> > I'm hoping might go open source.  Also, the REST approach has met a good
>> > reaction at our (joint) client in Ireland.
>> >
>> > In terms of marketing, my view is that REST is an area where there is
>> > currently a lot of interest, but developers looking into it will likely
>> > realise that it's a complex area to do right (ful support for HATEOAS,
>> > HTTP
>> > headers and status codes etc).  As such, developers might be interested
>> > in a
>> > framework that can help them out, at a somewhat higher level of
>> > abstraction
>> > than JSR-311.  The proposition is: press a button and get