Re: Getting Started With WO site
Re: Getting Started With WO site
- Subject: Re: Getting Started With WO site
- From: Florijan Stamenkovic <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:48:59 +0200
Hi all,
What used to be true:
1. Apple used to provide the "getting started with..." tutorials, of
good quality. Not anymore.
2. The same documentation also provided decent architectural
overviews of EOF and WO.
3. You could always go back to those docs and find the same text
telling more then the last time you read it.
4. Once you would hit a wall (no matter how simple it actually is)
the community was more then helpful.
5. Once you get better at it, there was a bunch of other stuff to
explore (EOGenerator, WOnder, best practices, etc), but there already
one would bump into lack of documentation and motivation (no obvious
reason WHY one would want to try to make sense out of all the stuff
out there).
Now when WO dev has fallen from the Apple, the situation is quite
different for beginners. Apple's docs are deprecated, probably not
even on the site anymore. Eclipse and WO and WOLips are much to
tackle all at once even if one had great docs. The exposure of the
technology is minimal. There is no realistic entrance.
In my eyes any kind of collaborative effort needs to be to some
degree centralized. I think in this situation one of the problems is
that a bunch of excellent developers are trying to fill in a gap,
without effective coordination. I think that what WO needs to thrive
is a central repository of resources, one that matches Apple's docs.
In short, somebody should take on the job of NOT writing tutorials
but weaving all the resources together, and bridging individuals who
do great work in writing the stuff. Forget about wiki. To attract new
people a place that has it all is needed. The propaganda talk, the
tutorials, the overviews, the nice pictures, the success stories, the
specialized areas... Up to date. Stuff to get you both hooked and
going. Everything about core WO, and preferably some info and linking
to popular third party extensions. No one person alone can do it, but
also one hundred excellent individuals working alone or in small
groups can not do it. That approach is history.
Two cents,
Flor
I think that the wikibook is a fantastic resource for reference if
you have a specific problem.
It is not the best place to get the context for why you might be
needing some of the advice in the wikibook.
Everyone who contributes where ever they can are going to give
context for why they're doing certain things. Whether it's a blog
like Keiran's that addressed all of his problems as a beginner and
how he found the solutions (and what solutions he found) or like
Mike's expert WOTips group. Some information is more appropriate
one place than another. I agree with Janine that everyone should do
what they want and let the "market" sort out the most valuable
contributions to the community. I have found that my present
concerns tend more towards the topics at the WOLips wiki and I
really like the interface for posting screenshots etc. on that
wiki. It doesn't mean that I don't find the "main" wiki useful, it
is just not the place I want to be putting my 2 cents right now.
That will change as I move onto other topics. It also doesn't stop
anyone from referencing the material from the WOLips wiki in the
other one. They're both very useful in their contexts.
If there is a tacit agreement that anything (blogs, tutorials,
mailing lists) is fair game for reference in the wikibook, that
would be great. I think that a small problem with the wikibook is
that when Mike set it up he asked those who gave permission for
their posts to be placed on the wikibook to contact him, and not
every poster back into the lists' history gave that permission.
Sometimes I have doubts about how much I am actually able to cut
and paste in a quick and dirty way from the mailing lists into
wikibook topics.
David's new site would be really useful if he can provide the
"beginner's" context for other sites/references for specific topics
going forward. The opportunity for contributing in many different
places is all good.
And this is all just my opinion ;-) Cheers,
David
On 14 Jun 2007, at 9:22 AM, Steven Mark McCraw wrote:
Agreed. How do we (and I guess by we I mean everybody on this
list) come to an agreement on the one place that should be the
definitive posting grounds? Honestly, I sometimes find navigating
the wiki book less than ideal, but it's kind of a minor irritation
that I can live with if it solves the problem of a central
repository, and there's so much there already that it seems like
the most logical place to me. Whatever it is, it should be
publicly editable, I think, and it has to be searchable and
individual articles must be linkable. Is anybody in disagreement
that the wiki book is the best place ongoing to post information?
If so, can we start an effort to shuttle information posted
elsewhere into the wiki book if it is missing? If not, what are
alternative suggestions for the central repository of information?
Thanks,
Mark
On Jun 14, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Dana Kashubeck wrote:
On 6/14/07 11:57 AM, Steven Mark McCraw wrote:
My understanding is that the webobjects wiki book (http://
en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:WebObjects) is trying to
become the central point of documentation for WebObjects that
people post to. There's already a ton of info there, but we all
know it could use a ton more. At WOWODC, when the experts panel
was asked what could be done to help with project wonder, this
is what they came back with immediately: We need people writing
documentation, and this is the place to put it. Even if it's
bad, there are so many people watching it that bad info will get
edited out quickly.
I think there's a danger in having TOO many informational
sites. If everybody decides to wing it because they get on a
high at a developer's conference regarding being able to
document stuff to widen the movement, I think we will end up
with dozens of blogs, half finished tutorials, etc. There's a
reason there isn't much documentation on Wonder and WebObjects:
writing good documentation is HARD and time consuming, and not a
very glamorous task. So if you have 10 spare hours to write a
decent article on a very specific issue, I think everybody would
be better served if that went to the wikibook. That way,
everybody can always point to one resource as definitive.
I don't mean to be preachy about it or rain on anybody's parade
that is putting up yet another site about WebObjects. What I
just wrote might sound snappy or mean, but I don't mean it that
way. I'm just trying to advocate a central repository for
everything so people don't have to go here and there to get
various pieces of the overall puzzle. Maybe if you start a
site, you could also make sure that all of the contents of that
site are also posted in the wiki book in the sensible place?
Thoughts?
I was thinking the same thing. Last year there were some really
great efforts to put together "the site" for WebObjects
information. I think it was this one: http://
wiki.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WOCOM/WOCOM
So there's that wiki, the wiki book, www.wocommunity.org, etc.,
etc. I completely agree that there is a huge need for
documentation and resources and it is important for the community
to put these things together. But right now everything just
seems *so* scattered! Can those who have been generous enough
with their time please post their content on one of the already
existing sites?
--
-------------------------------------
Dana Kashubeck
Systems Manager
Riemer Reporting Service Inc.
http://www.riemer.com
Phone: 440-835-2477 x. 125
Fax: 440-835-4594
-------------------------------------
<dana.kashubeck.vcf>
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