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Posted to users@tapestry.apache.org by Alex Kotchnev <ak...@gmail.com> on 2008/08/27 04:30:41 UTC
T5 : The book - next steps
Here are a couple of the next steps that I think would be useful in moving
the effort forward:
1. Post a rough outline of the table of contents in the book (initially,
probably on the wiki). I have a couple of ideas in mind, I think that a good
starting point would be the same/similar chapters as in "Tapestry in Action"
book by Manning, with additional chapters to cover things like Hibernate,
Spring, AJAX, etc. integration
2. Experiment somewhat w/ the publishing / collaboration methodology.
In line with Geertjan's suggestion (
http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan/entry/collaborative_writing_in_a_distributed)
to run this as a development project: I have this image in my head how I
have the doc-book php app set up and running against a Mercurial repository
somewhere on a server. Simultaneously, all "major" chapter contributors /
owners have a local mercurial repository for working on their personal
content, and pushing daily/weekly their advances in their chapters to a
shared central repository (e.g. one of the Hg hosting facilities - e.g.
http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/MercurialHosting). The
changes from the doc-book wiki can be reviewed and pushed to the central
repo on a weekly basis as well.
I guess my main reason for thinking of Mercurial (or a DVCS for that
matter) is that one can work pretty much independently on a set of changes
and then push them out to a shared Hg repo.
3. One of my areas of concern is how the merging of xml/docbook would work
in the long term. I know it's just text, but I'd imagine the doc-book
project will probably have it's own way of editing content and converting it
into docbook , while manual editing might create a slightly different set of
tags. Having used ClearCase for a while at my job, I know that merging XML
could sometimes be a pain in the rear, so I'd like to experiment early and
see if the docbook approach is viable in that respect.
4. I was thinking of pinging Alexander Kolesnikov and see if he would be
willing/able to contribute a chapter or two from his book to the effort
5. I think it would be best if we use either an existing "examples" project
(e.g. like jumpstart) or take one and modify it to fit under a particular
theme that gets developed throughout the book (e.g. the Wicket book has a
Cheese store or something like that) and is kept in running order w/
official 'releases' of the book. Any ideas about the theme of such an app ?
"Releasing" a version of the book could possibly involve building the output
formats, building the sample code, and even possibly running some "automated
acceptance tests" on the code.
Here are a couple more outstanding and pesky issues that are still very
murky in my head :
1. Would a book like this be published under some open source license (e.g.
I know that there are a couple of 'open source' books, e.g. the CVS book the
SVN book, etc) , maybe Creative commons ?
2. How to make the decisions regarding a book's content ? Would it be some
voting involved ? E.g. if someone thinks a particular chapter should be in
the book, and others don't agree, how to decide if the chapter is in the
book or no (here comes the concept of "committers" again)
3. Can we continue using this T5 users list or discussions regarding the
book are a distraction ?
I'm really very positively surprised by the amount of feedback so far, and
I'm very curious to see how far we can take this. Please comment on any of
the ideas above, rip me to shreds if you think this is the wrong way of
doing it.
Cheers,
Alex Kotchnev
Re: T5 : The book - next steps
Posted by Hugo Palma <hu...@gmail.com>.
inline
Alex Kotchnev wrote:
> Would there be any value to having a top-level domain for the book (e.g.
> tapestry-book.org or something like that), or can we find it a home for the
> book somewhere under the Tapestry namespace ?
>
A top-level domain should brink more visibility to the effort. Also, in
the future we could probably spend some of the monetary payback to pay
for the domain and some hosting solution so that we could include the
live version of the book application and other cool stuff.
Still, for now i think we can live with a project on some project
hosting site where we can host the book files and wiki.
> A note on the potential mode for governing decisions : I was thinking that
> in the next couple of days, I'll post a list of possible chapters to include
> in the book. Then, we can collect a first set of volunteers for people take
> ownership of each chapter. After the initial set of volunteers, the chapter
> owners will vote on addition of new chapters and giving ownership of
> chapters to new contributors (if needed).
>
Shouldn't the outline be already created in a tapestry-book wiki ?
We could decide on where to host it and then move the discussion to the
dedicated list and use its wiki for the outline.
> On whether the book would cover additional libraries (e.g. chennilekit,
> t5components): I think that after we get to a good place where we have
> enough content on the core we can probably spend some time on those as well,
> possibly with contributions from the project owners. Conceptually, it would
> be impossible to include all 3rd party / contrib libraries in the book (or
> it will always be incomplete) . I guess my point is that I think we'd want
> to describe Tapestry and most essential additions (e.g. t5-hibernate,
> t5-spring, etc).
>
While it's true that if we go down the line of including third party
libraries it will always be incomplete and maybe unfair to some i think
it would be important to cover the ones that we consider the most used.
We could go with a voting process where each one would say the top 2 or
3 third party libraries in his opinion. The top 2 or 3 would get
included in the book.
> Cheers,
>
> Alex Kotchnev
>
> On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Thiago H. de Paula Figueiredo <
> thiagohp@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Em Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:30:41 -0300, Alex Kotchnev <ak...@gmail.com>
>> escreveu:
>>
>> Here are a couple of the next steps that I think would be useful in moving
>>
>>> the effort forward:
>>>
>>>
>> Nice! I was thinking of posting a similar set of questions here . . . :)
>>
>> 1. Post a rough outline of the table of contents in the book (initially,
>>
>>> probably on the wiki).
>>>
>>>
>> +1 I can't thing of another way of kicking off this project.
>> I just suggest another step: just start writing real content after refining
>> the table of contents, thus avoiding some Frankensteinian results.
>>
>> 2. Experiment somewhat w/ the publishing / collaboration methodology.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> 3. One of my areas of concern is how the merging of xml/docbook would work
>>
>>> in the long term. I know it's just text, but I'd imagine the doc-book
>>> project will probably have it's own way of editing content and converting
>>> it into docbook
>>>
>>>
>> I always tend to prefer handwriting documents and code over tools (so
>> Howard's Tapestry 5, I guess :) and we could define some policies related to
>> use of tags, whitespace and maximum line length. I think the merging
>> problems would be reduced this way.
>>
>> 5. I think it would be best if we use either an existing "examples"
>>
>>> project (e.g. like jumpstart) or take one and modify it to fit under a
>>> particular
>>> theme that gets developed throughout the book
>>>
>>>
>> +1 to find one single application that will be developed throughout the
>> book. It should be hosted in some repository (SourceForge, java.net, etc).
>> Maybe it could even be integrated as a Tapestry subproject.
>>
>> Here are a couple more outstanding and pesky issues that are still very
>>
>>> murky in my head :
>>> 1. Would a book like this be published under some open source license
>>> (e.g.I know that there are a couple of 'open source' books, e.g. the CVS
>>> book the SVN book, etc) , maybe Creative commons ?
>>>
>>>
>> It would be really hard to define each contributor share in the profits, so
>> I think some open license and proper credits would be a better fit. This
>> would also attract more people to Tapestry 5, as there would be more free
>> documentation in the internet about it.
>>
>> The open source book does not prevent a printed version of the book.
>> 37signals, for example, sells the PDF and printed versions of ther Getting
>> Real book, but it can be read for free in their website (
>> http://gettingreal.37signals.com/). By the way, very interesting read. :)
>>
>> 2. How to make the decisions regarding a book's content ? Would it be some
>>
>>> voting involved ? E.g. if someone thinks a particular chapter should be in
>>> the book, and others don't agree, how to decide if the chapter is in the
>>> book or no (here comes the concept of "committers" again)
>>>
>>>
>> Looking at several different projects , there are two main ways to organize
>> a team:
>> 1) Benevolent dictatorship. The team has a leader that listens to
>> everybody, but he/she decides.
>> 2) Straight democracy. We could (re)use the Apache model (my choice).
>>
>> 3. Can we continue using this T5 users list or discussions regarding the
>>
>>> book are a distraction ?
>>>
>>>
>> IMHO, the Tapestry users list is already used for two very different
>> Tapestry versions, so we should open some other communication channel
>> (forum, another mailing list, maybe a tapestry-book one).
>>
>> Another questions:
>>
>> 4) Would it only cover 1st party packages or 3rd party ones (t5components,
>> chinellikit, etc) too?
>>
>> My first thoughts: yes, and the 3rd party packages would happily write
>> about their creations. I would. :)
>>
>> 5) Would it also have a cookbook section or chapter?
>>
>> My answer: yes, and we could reuse the Tapestry wiki pages here. The book
>> would then be something like a central place to find additional information,
>> something similar to what the Hibernate document is.
>>
>> I'm really very positively surprised by the amount of feedback so far, and
>>
>>> I'm very curious to see how far we can take this. Please comment on any of
>>> the ideas above, rip me to shreds if you think this is the wrong way of
>>> doing it.
>>>
>>>
>> I second your words, Alex. This is going to be a really interesting
>> project, involving people from many places around the world, having
>> different first languages, different visions, but sharing the same goal:
>> promoting our favorite Java web framework by writing a good book about it.
>> :)
>>
>> Thiago
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tapestry.apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tapestry.apache.org
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Re: T5 : The book - next steps
Posted by Alex Kotchnev <ak...@gmail.com>.
Would there be any value to having a top-level domain for the book (e.g.
tapestry-book.org or something like that), or can we find it a home for the
book somewhere under the Tapestry namespace ?
A note on the potential mode for governing decisions : I was thinking that
in the next couple of days, I'll post a list of possible chapters to include
in the book. Then, we can collect a first set of volunteers for people take
ownership of each chapter. After the initial set of volunteers, the chapter
owners will vote on addition of new chapters and giving ownership of
chapters to new contributors (if needed).
On whether the book would cover additional libraries (e.g. chennilekit,
t5components): I think that after we get to a good place where we have
enough content on the core we can probably spend some time on those as well,
possibly with contributions from the project owners. Conceptually, it would
be impossible to include all 3rd party / contrib libraries in the book (or
it will always be incomplete) . I guess my point is that I think we'd want
to describe Tapestry and most essential additions (e.g. t5-hibernate,
t5-spring, etc).
Cheers,
Alex Kotchnev
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Thiago H. de Paula Figueiredo <
thiagohp@gmail.com> wrote:
> Em Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:30:41 -0300, Alex Kotchnev <ak...@gmail.com>
> escreveu:
>
> Here are a couple of the next steps that I think would be useful in moving
>> the effort forward:
>>
>
> Nice! I was thinking of posting a similar set of questions here . . . :)
>
> 1. Post a rough outline of the table of contents in the book (initially,
>> probably on the wiki).
>>
>
> +1 I can't thing of another way of kicking off this project.
> I just suggest another step: just start writing real content after refining
> the table of contents, thus avoiding some Frankensteinian results.
>
> 2. Experiment somewhat w/ the publishing / collaboration methodology.
>>
>
> +1
>
> 3. One of my areas of concern is how the merging of xml/docbook would work
>> in the long term. I know it's just text, but I'd imagine the doc-book
>> project will probably have it's own way of editing content and converting
>> it into docbook
>>
>
> I always tend to prefer handwriting documents and code over tools (so
> Howard's Tapestry 5, I guess :) and we could define some policies related to
> use of tags, whitespace and maximum line length. I think the merging
> problems would be reduced this way.
>
> 5. I think it would be best if we use either an existing "examples"
>> project (e.g. like jumpstart) or take one and modify it to fit under a
>> particular
>> theme that gets developed throughout the book
>>
>
> +1 to find one single application that will be developed throughout the
> book. It should be hosted in some repository (SourceForge, java.net, etc).
> Maybe it could even be integrated as a Tapestry subproject.
>
> Here are a couple more outstanding and pesky issues that are still very
>> murky in my head :
>> 1. Would a book like this be published under some open source license
>> (e.g.I know that there are a couple of 'open source' books, e.g. the CVS
>> book the SVN book, etc) , maybe Creative commons ?
>>
>
> It would be really hard to define each contributor share in the profits, so
> I think some open license and proper credits would be a better fit. This
> would also attract more people to Tapestry 5, as there would be more free
> documentation in the internet about it.
>
> The open source book does not prevent a printed version of the book.
> 37signals, for example, sells the PDF and printed versions of ther Getting
> Real book, but it can be read for free in their website (
> http://gettingreal.37signals.com/). By the way, very interesting read. :)
>
> 2. How to make the decisions regarding a book's content ? Would it be some
>> voting involved ? E.g. if someone thinks a particular chapter should be in
>> the book, and others don't agree, how to decide if the chapter is in the
>> book or no (here comes the concept of "committers" again)
>>
>
> Looking at several different projects , there are two main ways to organize
> a team:
> 1) Benevolent dictatorship. The team has a leader that listens to
> everybody, but he/she decides.
> 2) Straight democracy. We could (re)use the Apache model (my choice).
>
> 3. Can we continue using this T5 users list or discussions regarding the
>> book are a distraction ?
>>
>
> IMHO, the Tapestry users list is already used for two very different
> Tapestry versions, so we should open some other communication channel
> (forum, another mailing list, maybe a tapestry-book one).
>
> Another questions:
>
> 4) Would it only cover 1st party packages or 3rd party ones (t5components,
> chinellikit, etc) too?
>
> My first thoughts: yes, and the 3rd party packages would happily write
> about their creations. I would. :)
>
> 5) Would it also have a cookbook section or chapter?
>
> My answer: yes, and we could reuse the Tapestry wiki pages here. The book
> would then be something like a central place to find additional information,
> something similar to what the Hibernate document is.
>
> I'm really very positively surprised by the amount of feedback so far, and
>> I'm very curious to see how far we can take this. Please comment on any of
>> the ideas above, rip me to shreds if you think this is the wrong way of
>> doing it.
>>
>
> I second your words, Alex. This is going to be a really interesting
> project, involving people from many places around the world, having
> different first languages, different visions, but sharing the same goal:
> promoting our favorite Java web framework by writing a good book about it.
> :)
>
> Thiago
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tapestry.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tapestry.apache.org
>
>
Re: T5 : The book - next steps
Posted by "Thiago H. de Paula Figueiredo" <th...@gmail.com>.
Em Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:30:41 -0300, Alex Kotchnev <ak...@gmail.com>
escreveu:
> Here are a couple of the next steps that I think would be useful in
> moving the effort forward:
Nice! I was thinking of posting a similar set of questions here . . . :)
> 1. Post a rough outline of the table of contents in the book (initially,
> probably on the wiki).
+1 I can't thing of another way of kicking off this project.
I just suggest another step: just start writing real content after
refining the table of contents, thus avoiding some Frankensteinian results.
> 2. Experiment somewhat w/ the publishing / collaboration methodology.
+1
> 3. One of my areas of concern is how the merging of xml/docbook would
> work in the long term. I know it's just text, but I'd imagine the
> doc-book
> project will probably have it's own way of editing content and
> converting it into docbook
I always tend to prefer handwriting documents and code over tools (so
Howard's Tapestry 5, I guess :) and we could define some policies related
to use of tags, whitespace and maximum line length. I think the merging
problems would be reduced this way.
> 5. I think it would be best if we use either an existing "examples"
> project (e.g. like jumpstart) or take one and modify it to fit under a
> particular
> theme that gets developed throughout the book
+1 to find one single application that will be developed throughout the
book. It should be hosted in some repository (SourceForge, java.net, etc).
Maybe it could even be integrated as a Tapestry subproject.
> Here are a couple more outstanding and pesky issues that are still very
> murky in my head :
> 1. Would a book like this be published under some open source license
> (e.g.I know that there are a couple of 'open source' books, e.g. the CVS
> book the SVN book, etc) , maybe Creative commons ?
It would be really hard to define each contributor share in the profits,
so I think some open license and proper credits would be a better fit.
This would also attract more people to Tapestry 5, as there would be more
free documentation in the internet about it.
The open source book does not prevent a printed version of the book.
37signals, for example, sells the PDF and printed versions of ther Getting
Real book, but it can be read for free in their website
(http://gettingreal.37signals.com/). By the way, very interesting read. :)
> 2. How to make the decisions regarding a book's content ? Would it be
> some voting involved ? E.g. if someone thinks a particular chapter
> should be in the book, and others don't agree, how to decide if the
> chapter is in the
> book or no (here comes the concept of "committers" again)
Looking at several different projects , there are two main ways to
organize a team:
1) Benevolent dictatorship. The team has a leader that listens to
everybody, but he/she decides.
2) Straight democracy. We could (re)use the Apache model (my choice).
> 3. Can we continue using this T5 users list or discussions regarding the
> book are a distraction ?
IMHO, the Tapestry users list is already used for two very different
Tapestry versions, so we should open some other communication channel
(forum, another mailing list, maybe a tapestry-book one).
Another questions:
4) Would it only cover 1st party packages or 3rd party ones (t5components,
chinellikit, etc) too?
My first thoughts: yes, and the 3rd party packages would happily write
about their creations. I would. :)
5) Would it also have a cookbook section or chapter?
My answer: yes, and we could reuse the Tapestry wiki pages here. The book
would then be something like a central place to find additional
information, something similar to what the Hibernate document is.
> I'm really very positively surprised by the amount of feedback so far,
> and I'm very curious to see how far we can take this. Please comment on
> any of the ideas above, rip me to shreds if you think this is the wrong
> way of
> doing it.
I second your words, Alex. This is going to be a really interesting
project, involving people from many places around the world, having
different first languages, different visions, but sharing the same goal:
promoting our favorite Java web framework by writing a good book about it.
:)
Thiago
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