Re: [Openinteract-dev] What is OpenInteract2 ?

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

Sorry I've been missing much of this -- I switched mailers for a few  
weeks (not by choice) and Thunderbird doesn't float new threads up to  
the top like Mail.app does. Just another dumb user error.

On Jul 18, 2005, at 12:36 PM, Salve J Nilsen wrote:
> ...
> Basicly I agree with you, but I also think the question of "wether  
> or not OI2
> is a CMS (or has a clear end-user decipherable mission statement)"  
> isn't the
> most important question at this stage. Today, I think we're much  
> better off if
> we try to make OI2 as developer-friendly as possible.

That sounds good. I think it would be great to reach out to users but  
you really need apps for that, and we don't have them right now.

> To do this, it may help to point out that OI2 isn't a _product_, but a
> _project_. Asking product questions (e.g. "Does it do A") can be  
> useful, but
> not nearly as much as asking project questions (e.g. "Can someone  
> help me write
> feature A" or "How can we make it easy for someone to write the A  
> feature").

It's a subtle difference, and users usually can't recognize it. (Not  
that it's a bad thing, just different.)

> If we hace a quick look at the state of OI2 (today), it may look  
> something like
> this - AFAICT:

This is a really good summary! I'll try to chime in where it's  
interesting...

>   1) OI2 is Big and Complicated
>   2) Although the beta period for OI2 has lasted forever(tm),  
> there's still a
>      large amount of bugs (currently around 60 in JIRA). :-\

Yes. This is tied in with "Chris does everything and is swamped",  
unfortunately.

>   3) OI2 has some good "infrastructure" features but few "application"
>      features. Developers like the former, users the latter. Who's  
> more
>      important?

Right. Maybe people do build apps but are shy to publish? Or maybe  
since there's no real distribution mechanism the necessary  
infrastructure isn't there? (Maybe the 'publish to CPAN-distributable  
module' will help?)

>   4) OI2 is pretty well documented (I'm guessing 75%), but lacks a  
> lot of
>      common things that make large amounts of information more  
> comprehensible
>      to the reader (e.g. ER diagrams, class diagrams, data flow  
> diagrams).
>   5) The OI2 community is too small and quiet. :-(

Again, I think this is the issue where one person (me) has been the  
main developer. Since I'm not contributing as much as I used to it  
becomes a problem.

>   6) Contribution to the project is difficult - perhaps due to  
> social quirks
>      (shyness of speaking in public fora? our inability to follow  
> up requests
>      on this mailing list? the "Jante law"?),

I haven't heard of this. Time to google...wow, that's really  
interesting. This is a good link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A668694

> but also due to technical
>      complexity (finding where to add a feature requires a lot of  
> digging).

True. It would probably be useful to have a FAQ-like guide for this.

>   7) One _can_ say OI2 has a lacking webpage, unclear about mission  
> and
>      perspective.

True.

>   8) We have an underutilized wiki (is anyone actually reading or  
> using it?)

True.

>   9) The mailing list archives and bugtracker have little sense of  
> connection
>      between them, the website and the wiki. What can we do to make  
> all this
>      information less fragmented? Is there a way we could integrate  
> JIRA with
>      the main site? Or use a OI2-native wiki instead of TWiki?

Good questions.

>  10) We have only a vague sense of what kind of audience OI2 is  
> for. It seems
>      to be mainly for advanced web application developers, but we'd  
> like more
>      people to use it, right?

Right.

>  11) Chris has always been doing most of the significant  
> development, but like
>      the rest of us, he's swamped in distractions from from doing  
> the Important
>      Stuff - namely improving OI2. :)

Right!

> All these points lead to interesting project questions. Ask  
> yourself these
> questions, find if some of them interest you, try to answer these,  
> and finally
> try to implement the answer. (And should you come across something  
> that stops
> you from implementing it, then fix that first)
>
> OI2 is an open source project, dammit. Why bother with the self- 
> scrutinizing
> philosophical questions when we can change the world with code? We  
> _have_ the
> freedom to do watever we want, and _that_ is why I'm sure you can  
> mold OI2 into
> whatever you want it to be... :-)

!

> Sure. Fix it if you have access, write a bugreport if you haven't.
>
> Chris, is it feasible to give people access to improve the website?

Absolutely! If you're interested let me know.

> What's more important? That new users and developers can get a site  
> up and
> running easily, or that experienced developers have a "clean  
> install" to work from?
>
> Should OI2 _only_ be an application framework, or should it also be  
> usable
> ("out-of-the-box") as a corporate intranet? Or a collaboration tool  
> for a
> volunteer organization? Or a generic frontend for a database?  
> Should we be
> allowed to choose?

The basic applications (like news, lookups, the super-simple CMS)  
were mainly put there so you didn't install OI2 and say, "Okay, now  
what?" You'd have something to tinker with and break as well as  
examples to follow.

But since it's easy to swap functions in and out, maybe it makes  
sense to have a stripped down distribution (*no* apps, just basic  
user/security stuff) and the version as it is today? It would be  
doable with Module::Build rules, I think...

I really appreciate that you folks are interested enough in OI2 to  
get involved with big picture ideas like this.

Chris

--
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.