Re: [ODP-dev] A good place to start

[<no...@se...>]

Hi Dan et al,

the problem is the current directory structure. The source code is in the
src/ directory and all source code references are made with a base
directory './src' in mind. The problem is now, that if you run
OpenDocumentPHP as a library you will have your own program as code base
and the OpenDocumentPHP stuff in your classpath. So you have the separate
your own source code from the OpenDocumentPHP source code.
For instance, you will include the PEAR stuff always with something like
'require_once "Phing/PhingFile.php";' or 'require_once
"PHPUnit/PHPUnit_TestSuite.php";'.

If you take a look at the published files on sourceforge.net you will find
two packages. One is call OpenDocumentPHP-0.5.1-src.zip, which is a more
or less a snapshot of the subvision repository at a certain time. But
there is also a file named OpenDocumentPHP-0.5.1.zip, which  is what we
call the 'production code'. It is only the library (and the api
documentation done by PhpDocumentor) and that is what people need, if they
only what to use our code. If you take a look at that part of the code you
will see, that there is a directory OpenDocumentPHP which includes all our
production code and that all the line like "require_once
'meta/DublinCoreFragment.php';" are substituted by something like
"require_once 'OpenDocumentPHP/meta/DublinCoreFragement.php';".

The new directroy structure will end this messy situation, by putting all
the code in src/OpenDocumentPHP/ which should go as OpenDocumentPHP/ in
the library and all other code (like the samples, tools etc) in the
src/samples/, src/tools/ ... directories.

So if you develop an example for OpenDocumentPHP you should use the
production or new directory structure to include the classes, thinking
that OpenDocumentPHP was lnked by the user in there classpath.

May be I should write a simple sample first.  ;-)

So, Dan, your are complete right, when you want to use

> require_once('OpenDocumentPHP/OpenDocument.php');

and

> require_once('OpenDocumentPHP/meta/DublinCoreFragment.php');

because you added OpenDocumentPHP first, even when there is (currently) no
such suffix in the require_once statements in the source code.

> I should say, before we get too far into this, that I will take any and
all criticism of my coding style or logic. I have programmed for a long
time but have little formal training in matters such as version release
and team programming. I am always open to suggestions and refinements to
better improve my skills and our project and will not take what you say
personally. (obviously you mentioned refactoring as a project-wide
series of a constant refinements).

As you can (not ?) see, I love such things as "Agile Development" or "XP".
The problem is, that I spend most of the time in coding then follow the
rules of XP or AD, shame on me! But if you use a project not only to
finish something, but to learn more and get benefit not you by getting it
done but also by see how your own vision changes ... well too much
dreaming I think...


> To wrap up, my sourceforge username is dlongest (should be easy to
remember :-)  I hope to have something (useable is the wrong word)
demonstrative by the end of the week to be examined, prodded, and
inspected as my first project submission.  I am using xampp to run
Apache and PHP locally for my test client.
That would be nice.

> Are we running production code with superglobals turned on or off?
No superglobals please. Always thing of a hyper secure system, that allows
nearly nothing! ;)

Yours,

Norman

PS: Dan, you have now SVN access, too.