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Posted to dev@forrest.apache.org by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> on 2002/12/24 14:08:48 UTC
What's going on here?
Dudes, the amount of effort ownership in this project is simply too
high. This is not only hurting the project, but it's hurting *YOU*
developer to get your point across.
Again, I'm not pointing fingers but expressing my opinion.
This project is about solving people's problems on static and complex
web site generation and do it in such as way that it can scale to many
different people with different skills working on it nicely.
Do you read 'theory vs. practice' in the above lines? do you read
'accademy vs. craftmanship'?
Each one of us has ideas on how a software should run and each one of us
contributes to the amount of time/effort/skill/will/patience that he/she
can share.
At the end, we are a community... everything that pushed the community
forward (yes, it might be as simple as "I used forrest on this site and
I'm telling my friends about it!") will be appreciated, everything that
pushes the community backwards (yet, it might be the best-of-breed
theorical system but that nobody wants to use) will not.
When I hear Andy complaining about forrest speed without suggesting any
solution, that doesn't bring the community forward.
But when Andy tries to evangelize forrest and stick with us to make
forrest fits his needs, indeed, it does help this project.
So, when Steven says that he'd like to do thinks right from the start
he's making several mistakes:
1) without user feedback there is no way to know if you did a mistake
or not... the sooner you get feedback, the better you can adjust your aim
2) forcing solutions down people's throwt is not going to help you
creating a community... listening to their problems will. Big time.
This development community seems to have traded usefullness for
purity.... the problem is that purity is defined out of usefullness and
user feedback.. do we really want to cut that off?
Jeff says that the Cocoon CLI sucks ass. I disagree, but if he can come
up with something better, hey, I'm going to love it... and 'better' will
not be defined by "me" but by the people who are actually going to use it.
Is speed the only thing that matters? not at all!
What's the point of having a tool generating your web site in a second,
but then lacking the ability to scale to many people working on it?
Unfortunately, they'll hit that wall only when they have enough people
to work on it.
So, Forrest and Maven should be interoperable as much as possible. share
DTDs and work together on those things that are common and keep the
differences at least compatible.
The goal is *NOT* to win an internal apache fight for what tools covers
more ground or what skin covers more pages... this is not a pissing
contest... this is a project to get stuff done.
When Ken says that he'd like to have non-well-formed HTML fragments in
his documents, it's perfectly valid to tell him why we think it's a bad
idea... but that doesn't mean that we should become *religious* about
something.
Damn it, if our technology becomes our religion, it's exactly when we
start missing the point to learn and evolve from there! expecially from
the usability perspective!
XML is good for many situations, but people tend to ignore how *bad* it
can be for some others. The golden hammer anti-pattern.
So, people, let's get back in line and let's do something that works.
Ah, this doesn't mean we have to give up to the design ideas behind
forrest, just that we don't have to be religious about it.
Random Suggestion to random readers: next time you make comment that you
*know* it's goint to come across as personal, don't write it. You'll
help both this community *and* yourself much more that way.
Now let's go back to work proactively.
Thanks.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: A view from userland (was Re: What's going on here?)
Posted by Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>.
Avik Sengupta wrote:
> This mail has gotten too long already.. so i want to sign off saying..
> thank you guys, great job, and keep it up.
Thanks, there's some of us who needed this badly :)
As per searching and 'chapter' PDFs - interesting ideas!
</Steven>
--
Steven Noels http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at http://radio.weblogs.com/0103539/
stevenn at outerthought.org stevenn at apache.org
Re: A view from userland (was Re: What's going on here?)
Posted by Marc Portier <mp...@outerthought.org>.
Avik Sengupta wrote:
> directories). Very rarely will developers use it on the command line.
> I'll more likely use it in a continuous integration settings and
> automatically publish the static site. Also, i'll probably use forrest
since you're not mentioning it yourself, could be that you missed
out on the forrestbot [1,2] up to now... it _does_ that, and
equally unclear ATM might be that you can set up such a beast
yourself inside your organization.
[1] http://forrestbot.cocoondev.org/index.jsp
[2] http://xml.apache.org/forrest/forrestbot.html
-marc=
PS: thx for the motivation booster.
--
Marc Portier http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at http://radio.weblogs.com/0116284/
mpo@outerthought.org mpo@apache.org
Another view from userland
Posted by Luca Morandini <lu...@tin.it>.
Folks,
I've downloaded and set up Forrest in a couple of hours... and, honestly, I thought it to be much harder :)
Currently, I'm using it to generate a couple staic sites and make some documentation for a software I've made.
>From this brief experience, I can tell you that it has numerous strong points:
1) It can be used as a webapp at development time and as a static site for deployment on servers with basic web-hosting features
2) The XML dictionary for documents is limited but sound
3) The PDF generation is really a bonus
4) The default skin is pleasant
5) I haven't run up into bugs
At the end of the day: I've found it quite useful and I hope it grows stronger...
Best regards,
---------------------------------------------
Luca Morandini
GIS Consultant
lmorandini@ieee.org
http://utenti.tripod.it/lmorandini/index.html
---------------------------------------------
A view from userland (was Re: What's going on here?)
Posted by Avik Sengupta <av...@apache.org>.
> Forrest is *NOT* even close to be ready for prime time
Not that i disagree, but i thought you guys might want to know the
unsolicited opinion on someone who is trying to get the whole company
converted to centipede/forrest.
I've spend the last couple of weeks trying to integrate one project at
work with centipede/forrest.
I spent about 2 full days to get the basic site generation up and
running, including some customisations in the skin.
I have then spend a couple of days time off and on to figure out the pdf
stuff that i have sent so many mails on :)
OK, so why do i insist on using something thats so raw? Well, primarily
that forrest provides a very important functionality, and i couldnt find
any alternatives that did the job for me. For that reason i think its
worth the risk. I have been thinking about getting automated doc
generation working for about two years now. I feel its a VERY important
productivity tool, but havent managed to implement it .. till now.
My first efforts were at writing a few custom ant targets, but i quickly
found that its impossible to scale to multiple projects.. its almost as
much work for each new project. I've looked at anakia off and on, but
found it too difficult to use. While as the person responsible for
processes within the company, i am willing to spend time on such
projects, including debugging the tools i use, my success is totally
dependent on envangelising their use throughout the company. So scaling
(in human terms) is a key goal. And till the arrival of
centipede/forrest, i really didnt have a solution.
(btw, i dont want to comment on maven here, except to say that i did
evaluate it)
So given the above, i am happy to have hitched a ride with forrest. What
do i need in the future? well primarily more flexible pdf generation
(dont generate for some directories, generate combined rather than
page-by-page docs for some etc).Searching, certainly. I'll probably come
up with a few more as time goes, but nothing major right now.
And more documentation. I firmly believe that meta projects such as
centipede and forrest live and die by the strength of their
documentation.
I dont care much about speed at the moment (tho probably i can reduce
time drastically now if i can swith off pdf generation for some
directories). Very rarely will developers use it on the command line.
I'll more likely use it in a continuous integration settings and
automatically publish the static site. Also, i'll probably use forrest
only with centipede, and not by itself. Again, becoz i think that'll be
more scalable- people wise.
So forrest as it stands serve's my needs pretty well (if only i can get
images in pdf :)... but i think i can crack that myself), and in fact is
my only alternative as far as i can leave.
This mail has gotten too long already.. so i want to sign off saying..
thank you guys, great job, and keep it up.
Regards
-
Avik
Re: What's going on here?
Posted by Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>.
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> Steven Noels wrote:
>
>> Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
>>
>>> So, when Steven says that he'd like to do thinks right from the start
>>> he's making several mistakes:
>>>
>>> 1) without user feedback there is no way to know if you did a
>>> mistake or not... the sooner you get feedback, the better you can
>>> adjust your aim
>>
>>
>>
>> My intonation was perhaps too harsh.
>
>
> Yes, it sounded so to me (and to Andy as well)
Apologies for that.
>> Of course, we need feedback. But I prefer bugs & feature requests
>> rather than FUD or tendencious chest-thumping (ouch). Hell, I even
>> host a Jira instance for issue tracking:
>> http://issues.cocoondev.org/jira/secure/BrowseProject.jspa?id=10000
>>
>>> 2) forcing solutions down people's throwt is not going to help you
>>> creating a community... listening to their problems will. Big time.
>>
>>
>>
>> Pardon me, but I'm pretty sure you are misinterpreting the situation.
>> You are looking at the symptoms, not at the cause.
>>
>> This project feels like a surgery table, with many spin doctors around
>> it, and some humble technicians being afraid to touch anything since
>> the sky will be falling down.
>
>
> This is *always* so for open development projects, Steven. I should know
> this by now. If you think that designing Cocoon2 was a painless staight
> job you definately need to read the mail archives again.
OK - but the ratio of technicians vs. spin doctors is a bit skewed these
days.
> This said...
>
>> The fact that it is being overpublicized is counterproductive.
>
>
> I totally agree with this.
>
> Forrest is *NOT* even close to be ready for prime time (it can't even
> replace damn stylebook, for &deity;'s sake!) and I would not use it for
> production (there is a reason if Cocoon itself doesn't use it!) but now
> it's too late to blame anybody for having the cat out of the bag and we
> must deal with it.
>
> This means that either:
>
> 1) we piss people off the they move away (Ken and Andy might be the
> first one to do this)
They won't be pissed off, not that fast :)
> 2) we pay attention to them and try to meet their needs or, at least,
> try to work with them to converge toward a solution that helps both sides.
>
> I'd suggest we go #2, but that's my humble opinion.
False modesty :)
>> Anyway, I'll stop trying to convince people of my best intentions in
>> all this, and just get some work done. Really.
>
>
> Good, code is always the best way to shut people up.
I'm glad some of my feelings seem to be well-founded. Now let's try and
live up to the expectations we created.
</Steven>
--
Steven Noels http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at http://radio.weblogs.com/0103539/
stevenn at outerthought.org stevenn at apache.org
RE: What's going on here?
Posted by Robert Koberg <ro...@koberg.com>.
Howdy,
Just read a nice little article that fits into this thread:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulgreenberg/pg20021227.shtml
best,
-Rob
Re: What's going on here?
Posted by David Crossley <cr...@indexgeo.com.au>.
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> Steven Noels wrote:
<snip/>
>
> > The fact that it is being overpublicized is counterproductive.
>
> I totally agree with this.
>
> Forrest is *NOT* even close to be ready for prime time (it can't even
> replace damn stylebook, for &deity;'s sake!) and I would not use it for
> production (there is a reason if Cocoon itself doesn't use it!)
> ...
It is just that Cocoon docs and current publication process
are very complex to get Forrest to build and publish. Also many
hands are needed and not much action yet. See cocoon-docs list
and the proposal-in-preparation at:
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=ForrestProposal
Forrest is fine for prime time - many of us use it for
production sites. I do not care if it is not fast - it does
much of what i need already.
In my opinion there is too much talk and new feature rush, and
not enough attention to existing features and documentation.
This is particularly evident on cocoon-dev but also forrest-dev.
Such lack of polish is our main downfall.
--David
Re: What's going on here?
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Steven Noels wrote:
> Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
>
>> So, when Steven says that he'd like to do thinks right from the start
>> he's making several mistakes:
>>
>> 1) without user feedback there is no way to know if you did a mistake
>> or not... the sooner you get feedback, the better you can adjust your aim
>
>
> My intonation was perhaps too harsh.
Yes, it sounded so to me (and to Andy as well)
> Of course, we need feedback. But I
> prefer bugs & feature requests rather than FUD or tendencious
> chest-thumping (ouch). Hell, I even host a Jira instance for issue
> tracking:
> http://issues.cocoondev.org/jira/secure/BrowseProject.jspa?id=10000
>
>> 2) forcing solutions down people's throwt is not going to help you
>> creating a community... listening to their problems will. Big time.
>
>
> Pardon me, but I'm pretty sure you are misinterpreting the situation.
> You are looking at the symptoms, not at the cause.
>
> This project feels like a surgery table, with many spin doctors around
> it, and some humble technicians being afraid to touch anything since the
> sky will be falling down.
This is *always* so for open development projects, Steven. I should know
this by now. If you think that designing Cocoon2 was a painless staight
job you definately need to read the mail archives again.
This said...
> The fact that it is being overpublicized is counterproductive.
I totally agree with this.
Forrest is *NOT* even close to be ready for prime time (it can't even
replace damn stylebook, for &deity;'s sake!) and I would not use it for
production (there is a reason if Cocoon itself doesn't use it!) but now
it's too late to blame anybody for having the cat out of the bag and we
must deal with it.
This means that either:
1) we piss people off the they move away (Ken and Andy might be the
first one to do this)
2) we pay attention to them and try to meet their needs or, at least,
try to work with them to converge toward a solution that helps both sides.
I'd suggest we go #2, but that's my humble opinion.
> Anyway, I'll stop trying to convince people of my best intentions in all
> this, and just get some work done. Really.
Good, code is always the best way to shut people up.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: What's going on here?
Posted by Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>.
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> So, when Steven says that he'd like to do thinks right from the start
> he's making several mistakes:
>
> 1) without user feedback there is no way to know if you did a mistake
> or not... the sooner you get feedback, the better you can adjust your aim
My intonation was perhaps too harsh. Of course, we need feedback. But I
prefer bugs & feature requests rather than FUD or tendencious
chest-thumping (ouch). Hell, I even host a Jira instance for issue
tracking:
http://issues.cocoondev.org/jira/secure/BrowseProject.jspa?id=10000
> 2) forcing solutions down people's throwt is not going to help you
> creating a community... listening to their problems will. Big time.
Pardon me, but I'm pretty sure you are misinterpreting the situation.
You are looking at the symptoms, not at the cause.
This project feels like a surgery table, with many spin doctors around
it, and some humble technicians being afraid to touch anything since the
sky will be falling down. The fact that it is being overpublicized is
counterproductive.
> This development community seems to have traded usefullness for
> purity.... the problem is that purity is defined out of usefullness and
> user feedback.. do we really want to cut that off?
Nope. Misinterpretation of your side.
I don't understand the message you are conveying. It seems a bit twisted
to me.
Anyway, I'll stop trying to convince people of my best intentions in all
this, and just get some work done. Really.
(yep, this mail has been written twice)
</Steven>
--
Steven Noels http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at http://radio.weblogs.com/0103539/
stevenn at outerthought.org stevenn at apache.org