[binarycloud-dev] EntityManager Roadmap

[Alex B. <en...@tu...>]

hi all,

Did a bit of thinking about how we should go about getting Entitymanager and
its brethren up and running, and "I have a plan":

Have a look at the attachments: the xml entity 'source' and php 'target.

Let's make sure that's final (as far as I'm concerned, it is)

Assuming that we don't have anything else to discuss re: the entity
declaration format, we should build in support for entity declarations in
xml2php.

After there's a functioning make infrastructure, which follows this process:

-Find all *.ent.xml files, copy to temp directory.
-Make all *.ent.xml -> *.ent
-Copy content of temp directory to build directory.

We can begin to build EntityManager using the php format as reference.

That should happen something like this:

    -Build unctional Get(), Add(), Delete(), GetList(), etc methods for
simple entities (no entity pointers, no processors or validators, etc). Only
select, insert, update, delete capability for a simple recordset.

    -Once that's complete, documented and tested - go on to support:
        -basic validation (type, maxlength, etc)
        -processors
        -validators
        -GetPath()
        -entity pointers/references (hierarchical entity structures)
    
After the second generation EntityManager is complete and working properly
with all subclasses (base set of processors & vaidators + Querymanager) we
should create ent2schema, which would make entity declarations into metabase
schema files.

At this point the system would be functional for 'advanced' data management
but would lack presentation tools like FormBuilder, ListBuilder, etc.

Those would be next:
    -Take existing 'editor' code, use it to construct FormBuilder.
        -Construct / Modify any necessary UI controls needed by FormBuilder.
    -Take existing 'lister' code, use it to construct ListBuilder
        -Same as above, build all necessary UI controls.

Obviously both of these things (and the other builders) will require careful
design, but all in good time :)

------

I'd like to get people's thoughts on that plan... but here's the sequence of
events that I see from here:

    -Complete bcc & tag modules
    -Complete Multi-site make

    -Create simple test dataset for a test entity. (populated schema file)
    -Create a 'shell' entity manager and a small set of modules designed
each to test insert, update, delete, select capabilities of entity manager.
    -Complete and test basic methods necessary to get and post data to the
DB.
    -Add validator support to entitymanager, build a couple sample
validators based on existing code (avalances of it :)
    -Add processor support to entityManager, and samples
    -Finish off other complex additions: entity pointers, etc.


Thoughts?

best,

_alex