Use the next Sling Release to enhance to community

[Mike Müller <mi...@mysign.ch>]

Hi all,

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for the big efforts to enhance and refine sling step by step. I'm watching the project since a few months for now and tested sling in a few simple projects - and it really is very easy to use it right from scratch.

But to be honest, it's rather hard to really get into the code of sling if you try to build a complex app, not only based on scripting. The big problem by now for a non-sling-insider is the documentation. The website mostly is outdated. Dont' get me wrong, I know sling is open source and all free, so nobody has to bother about missing things. And yes, if you try hard enough, you also get into the details of sling. But that's the problem of the project: I think sling is such a good project it should get out of the incubator. The project is mature, it is tested in real projects (as Day's CQ5) and it evolves further. It seems that the only thing which holds sling off to get out the incubator is the list of active committers outside Day. My company would like to move our products on a sling based core and we also are interested to develop sling and help to enhance it. To make it easier for others to use and also contribute to sling, I think the following things would be as important as the source code itself:

1) an up-to-date website with documentation about the core part of sling (like architecture, request processing, which services/interfaces are exposed by the core of sling and which are additional services/interfaces?, how and where can you enhance sling -> servlets, scripting, components)

2) a short getting started guide for developers e.g. how do I develop for sling with eclipse without getting long roundtrips (or other IDEs, what's about the eclipse plugin for jcr/sling?)

3) a short how-to guide for a real productive installation (like apache as front server with mod_proxy or similar)

4) a separation of the core code and the additional bundles (as it is already planed for the new release) -> maybe almost done?

It's great to hear that there will be soon a new release of sling. IMHO the new release should be really used to get more people using sling and also to get more people be involved in sling development. Maybe in favour of a consistent documentation the release should be delayed.

WDYT?

regards
Mike

Re: Use the next Sling Release to enhance to community

[Ruben Reusser <rr...@headwire.com>]

Hi there,

I heard a rumor that day is planning a sling training in the near 
future? Is that so and if yes, could that lead to a better documentation 
for sling?

Ruben

Dominik Süß wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> you're not the only one who did address this issue. This pops up in the
> mailing list from time-to-time and on conventions like ApacheCon last week.
> The main problem about that seams that the commiters are involved in a lot
> of projects (as well the apache projects as the day products). Since Sling
> does not have that many other commiters there is just a lack of time for
> documentation. And since there is almost nothing in the existing
> documentation which isn't at least in details outdated no one except the
> core team feels capable enough to write a basic documentation.
>
> I really hope someone will do the move and try to write a basic
> documentation.
>
> The getting started guide would propably be something even someone of us
> "users" could write and contribute. I would like to do this but I'm always
> out of time and the rare time I have left is reserved by my girlfriend.
> (planning to write something since the first official release).
>
> I even did plan some kind of multipart tutorial which allows to start with a
> simple app which grows from step to step and uses all those funky features
> we have (like versioning and observations). If there is anyone out there who
> wants to support me in doing this little project please mail me directly
> (since I wouldn't like to spam the mailing list without having at least a
> skeleton of this).
>
> Any other ideas out there how to get better documentation?
>
> Best regards,
> Dominik
>
> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Mike Müller <mi...@mysign.ch> wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi all,
>>
>> First of all, I would like to thank all of you for the big efforts to
>> enhance and refine sling step by step. I'm watching the project since a few
>> months for now and tested sling in a few simple projects - and it really is
>> very easy to use it right from scratch.
>>
>> But to be honest, it's rather hard to really get into the code of sling if
>> you try to build a complex app, not only based on scripting. The big problem
>> by now for a non-sling-insider is the documentation. The website mostly is
>> outdated. Dont' get me wrong, I know sling is open source and all free, so
>> nobody has to bother about missing things. And yes, if you try hard enough,
>> you also get into the details of sling. But that's the problem of the
>> project: I think sling is such a good project it should get out of the
>> incubator. The project is mature, it is tested in real projects (as Day's
>> CQ5) and it evolves further. It seems that the only thing which holds sling
>> off to get out the incubator is the list of active committers outside Day.
>> My company would like to move our products on a sling based core and we also
>> are interested to develop sling and help to enhance it. To make it easier
>> for others to use and also contribute to sling, I think the following things
>> would be as important as the source code itself:
>>
>> 1) an up-to-date website with documentation about the core part of sling
>> (like architecture, request processing, which services/interfaces are
>> exposed by the core of sling and which are additional services/interfaces?,
>> how and where can you enhance sling -> servlets, scripting, components)
>>
>> 2) a short getting started guide for developers e.g. how do I develop for
>> sling with eclipse without getting long roundtrips (or other IDEs, what's
>> about the eclipse plugin for jcr/sling?)
>>
>> 3) a short how-to guide for a real productive installation (like apache as
>> front server with mod_proxy or similar)
>>
>> 4) a separation of the core code and the additional bundles (as it is
>> already planed for the new release) -> maybe almost done?
>>
>> It's great to hear that there will be soon a new release of sling. IMHO the
>> new release should be really used to get more people using sling and also to
>> get more people be involved in sling development. Maybe in favour of a
>> consistent documentation the release should be delayed.
>>
>> WDYT?
>>
>> regards
>> Mike
>>
>>     
>
>   

Re: Use the next Sling Release to enhance to community

[Dominik Süß <do...@gmail.com>]

Hi Mike,

you're not the only one who did address this issue. This pops up in the
mailing list from time-to-time and on conventions like ApacheCon last week.
The main problem about that seams that the commiters are involved in a lot
of projects (as well the apache projects as the day products). Since Sling
does not have that many other commiters there is just a lack of time for
documentation. And since there is almost nothing in the existing
documentation which isn't at least in details outdated no one except the
core team feels capable enough to write a basic documentation.

I really hope someone will do the move and try to write a basic
documentation.

The getting started guide would propably be something even someone of us
"users" could write and contribute. I would like to do this but I'm always
out of time and the rare time I have left is reserved by my girlfriend.
(planning to write something since the first official release).

I even did plan some kind of multipart tutorial which allows to start with a
simple app which grows from step to step and uses all those funky features
we have (like versioning and observations). If there is anyone out there who
wants to support me in doing this little project please mail me directly
(since I wouldn't like to spam the mailing list without having at least a
skeleton of this).

Any other ideas out there how to get better documentation?

Best regards,
Dominik

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Mike Müller <mi...@mysign.ch> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> First of all, I would like to thank all of you for the big efforts to
> enhance and refine sling step by step. I'm watching the project since a few
> months for now and tested sling in a few simple projects - and it really is
> very easy to use it right from scratch.
>
> But to be honest, it's rather hard to really get into the code of sling if
> you try to build a complex app, not only based on scripting. The big problem
> by now for a non-sling-insider is the documentation. The website mostly is
> outdated. Dont' get me wrong, I know sling is open source and all free, so
> nobody has to bother about missing things. And yes, if you try hard enough,
> you also get into the details of sling. But that's the problem of the
> project: I think sling is such a good project it should get out of the
> incubator. The project is mature, it is tested in real projects (as Day's
> CQ5) and it evolves further. It seems that the only thing which holds sling
> off to get out the incubator is the list of active committers outside Day.
> My company would like to move our products on a sling based core and we also
> are interested to develop sling and help to enhance it. To make it easier
> for others to use and also contribute to sling, I think the following things
> would be as important as the source code itself:
>
> 1) an up-to-date website with documentation about the core part of sling
> (like architecture, request processing, which services/interfaces are
> exposed by the core of sling and which are additional services/interfaces?,
> how and where can you enhance sling -> servlets, scripting, components)
>
> 2) a short getting started guide for developers e.g. how do I develop for
> sling with eclipse without getting long roundtrips (or other IDEs, what's
> about the eclipse plugin for jcr/sling?)
>
> 3) a short how-to guide for a real productive installation (like apache as
> front server with mod_proxy or similar)
>
> 4) a separation of the core code and the additional bundles (as it is
> already planed for the new release) -> maybe almost done?
>
> It's great to hear that there will be soon a new release of sling. IMHO the
> new release should be really used to get more people using sling and also to
> get more people be involved in sling development. Maybe in favour of a
> consistent documentation the release should be delayed.
>
> WDYT?
>
> regards
> Mike
>

AW: Use the next Sling Release to enhance to community

[Mike Müller <mi...@mysign.ch>]

Hi Felix

> First of all: We are perfectly aware of this situation, but fail to be
> able to really cope with it in the sense of updating all docs, due to
> overfilled time tables (you know the problem ;-) ).

yes, you're totally right, I know exactly the problem :-)

> One thing you could do, except of contributing code of course, is to
> contribute documentation ;-)

that's correct. but to be clear, to provide a good documentation, you have
to have deep knowledge of the project, which is - unfortunately - hard (or
better say time consuming) to get without a documentation...
To have more people getting involved, to have more committers - even "only"
committers for more documentation, there should be at least some basic
up to date documentation about the core.
I really know the difficult situation, but if it's the ambition to get
out of the incubator (hope it is?) someone of the core team has to
bite the bullet.

> > 1) an up-to-date website with documentation about the core
> part of sling (like architecture, request processing, which
> services/interfaces are exposed by the core of sling and
> which are additional services/interfaces?, how and where can
> you enhance sling -> servlets, scripting, components)
> >
> > 2) a short getting started guide for developers e.g. how do
> I develop for sling with eclipse without getting long
> roundtrips (or other IDEs, what's about the eclipse plugin
> for jcr/sling?)
> >
> > 3) a short how-to guide for a real productive installation
> (like apache as front server with mod_proxy or similar)
>
> +1 for 1-3 Sounds good and this is also what is spinning around in our
> heads .. but it never finds time to spin down into the
> fingers and over
> the wires.

Maybe your expectations are to high: In my mind 1) should be a
short but precise docu about the core and how to extend/enhance it.
(an indiscreet question: is there no docu stuff from CRX which Day
would provide to reshape for sling?)
2) the release of the plugin would be a big push for sling. documentation
here is not the big issue, here I agree, if the plugin is published, the
documentation could be done by new committers like our company could be.
3) has lower priority for me than 1 and 2.

> We have discussed delaying the release for documentation before the
> first release (which dates back almost a year now!). And we decided to
> cut the release and then update the docs.
>
> My position is to do the same this time... The release is
> overdue as is
> the docs. But I think first things first and the docs will surely
> follow. Promised.

if you promise it :-))

> Hope this helps to understand the situation as it is.

To be clear: I really understand your situation but would like to see
the sling community growing...

regards
mike

Re: Use the next Sling Release to enhance to community

[Felix Meschberger <fm...@gmail.com>]

Hi Mike,

Mike Müller schrieb:
> Hi all,
> 
> First of all, I would like to thank all of you for the big efforts to enhance and refine sling step by step. I'm watching the project since a few months for now and tested sling in a few simple projects - and it really is very easy to use it right from scratch.

Thanks to you ;-)

> 
> But to be honest, it's rather hard to really get into the code of sling if you try to build a complex app, not only based on scripting. The big problem by now for a non-sling-insider is the documentation. The website mostly is outdated. Dont' get me wrong, I know sling is open source and all free, so nobody has to bother about missing things. And yes, if you try hard enough, you also get into the details of sling. But that's the problem of the project: I think sling is such a good project it should get out of the incubator. The project is mature, it is tested in real projects (as Day's CQ5) and it evolves further. It seems that the only thing which holds sling off to get out the incubator is the list of active committers outside Day. My company would like to move our products on a sling based core and we also are interested to develop sling and help to enhance it. To make it easier for others to use and also contribute to sling, I think the following things would be as impo
rtant as the source code itself:

First of all: We are perfectly aware of this situation, but fail to be
able to really cope with it in the sense of updating all docs, due to
overfilled time tables (you know the problem ;-) ).

One thing you could do, except of contributing code of course, is to
contribute documentation ;-)

> 
> 1) an up-to-date website with documentation about the core part of sling (like architecture, request processing, which services/interfaces are exposed by the core of sling and which are additional services/interfaces?, how and where can you enhance sling -> servlets, scripting, components)
> 
> 2) a short getting started guide for developers e.g. how do I develop for sling with eclipse without getting long roundtrips (or other IDEs, what's about the eclipse plugin for jcr/sling?)
> 
> 3) a short how-to guide for a real productive installation (like apache as front server with mod_proxy or similar)

+1 for 1-3 Sounds good and this is also what is spinning around in our
heads .. but it never finds time to spin down into the fingers and over
the wires.

> 
> 4) a separation of the core code and the additional bundles (as it is already planed for the new release) -> maybe almost done?

Carsten has already done that. We now have the "main folders" (parent,
api, bundles and launchpad) which constitute what's going into the next
big release. And we have the contrib folder (with the same structure as
the bundles folder), which are additional bundles, we will be releasing
separately later, based on community requirements.

> 
> It's great to hear that there will be soon a new release of sling. IMHO the new release should be really used to get more people using sling and also to get more people be involved in sling development. Maybe in favour of a consistent documentation the release should be delayed.

We have discussed delaying the release for documentation before the
first release (which dates back almost a year now!). And we decided to
cut the release and then update the docs.

My position is to do the same this time... The release is overdue as is
the docs. But I think first things first and the docs will surely
follow. Promised.

Finally: As I said, contribution is also possible in the form of
documentation and we very much welcome documentation contribution.

Hope this helps to understand the situation as it is.

Regards
Felix

> 
> WDYT?
> 
> regards
> Mike
>