Re: How to contribute ?
Re: How to contribute ?
- Subject: Re: How to contribute ?
- From: Johann Werner <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:44:55 +0100
Hi Gavin,
Am 14.01.2013 um 20:55 schrieb Gavin Eadie <email@hidden>:
> On Jan 14, 2013, at 12:25 PM, James Cicenia <email@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Make sure in your Eclipse Preferences --> WOLips--> Build Preferences settings you don't have "Generate Bundle" checked.
>>
>> That has bit me twice now and consumed many frustrating hours.
>
> A diversion from a grumpy Gavin using "Generate Bundle" as an example of my trouble.
>
>
> I've been programming using WebObjects, off and on, for ten years (and using Wonder for the last six/seven), and still haven't a clue what "Generate Bundle" actually means or does. The most cogent description found by searching for the phrase in the WOCommunity web site is, "A bundleless build means that you have unchecked the build option Generate bundles within the WOLips preferences" .. yippee! I would like to fix things like that for the next confused person.
the problem lies in the complexity of a full fledged WO development: you need WO, Eclipse, WOLips, Wonder, Java, property files, developer tools, … that makes it easy to get something wrong and difficult to understand all the inner workings and interactions. For most people things like bundleless builds should be an unimportant detail and just a free enhancement for those who know (or even need) that feature. That it was needed for James to fix his problem seems not right but is probably due to the aforementioned complexity and the resulting multitude of different installations/settings that are possible.
> I applaud Robert's (and everyone's) work on Wonder 6 without reservation, and I sincerely wish I could contribute to it but I feel just enough below the "expert" level to doubt my abilities to do that.
Of course many things are complicated (or at least seem so) and feeling daunted to change anything in Wonder is a normal reaction–keep in mind that Wonder is the collected knowledge of so many developers contributing over so many years not to count all the effort and ideas NeXT put into WO and its underlying design! But then we all have begun with no knowledge at all and are now nonetheless creating applications and frameworks with it. Don't think that you have to be an expert to be able to add anything to Wonder. Sure there are parts in Wonder you need to get your head wrapped around–even twice or thrice ;)–but that's only a part of it.
There are so many things that can be done (and have to be done) in Wonder that doesn't need you to have a doctor's degree in computer science. Let it be simple things like the addition/correction of Javadocs, renaming of cryptic variable names to more meaningful ones, adding generics or like you said "to fix things like that for the next confused person" by contributing to the wiki. Everyone can take an active part in the community. Don't think that that type of contribution is worth less than a complete framework that will cut the development time of everyone's next big project by half. In sum even those little enhancements will add value, make it easier for the next person to understand / use the code and to contribute himself. And with every commit and change you make you gain more insight in Wonder's code and results in you creating better apps or develop them faster (by knowing where to look for a specific method, by using existing code instead of reinventing the wheel, …) and finally being able to make more complex changes in Wonder.
I hope this doesn't sound too pathetic but I think the community as a whole has a lot more potential to make Wonder even more… wonderful. You think you aren't good enough to create the Next Big Thing? Then make your Next Less Big Thing, even then there will be many people appreciating it. You are not sure if your patch is good / correct / appropriate? Don't hesitate to make a pull request, github has such great features to discuss pull requests and annotate the code with comments and questions waiting to be used. You are saying that you don't have so much time left for such "unpaid work"? In my experience the most difficult part is to know what is actually in Wonder. Wonder is such a big tile of code and ideas that sometimes it is literally a search for a needle in a haystack to find a class or method that does exactly what you need just in the moment you need it. Knowing what Wonder already offers you for free makes it easier to tell your client what you can do for him and how much time it will take to create his application.
Ok, have to stop here now ;-)
> For another example, I've no idea why *.api files are included in a deployment build when they are a purely build-time artifact (aren't they?). My version of build.xml hasn't copied them to a build *.woa (or *.war) for many years so I think I'm right -- but the WOLips build.xml does copy them to Resources and that's so engrained in WOLips that it must be intentional (yes/no?). Should I submit an update via git to improve this build.xml is this, and other, ways? My feeling is, "No Way!" -- there's hardly a more critical file in W6 -- I'd be crazy to touch it!
Uhm, keep those api files for now, there are some ideas I have in mind, just have to find… some… spare… time :-O
> FWIW: I'm grumpy because I'm caught, again, with a scenario that baffles me -- an app that works correctly on my development Mac that when, when rsync'd to Amazon EC2, doesn't (clicking in an Ajax.framework component doesn't fire the "action" method). This behavior started when I moved to Wonder 6 so I need to reverse that decision, and stop using W6, to stay productive.
That's no good. But it must be something wrong in your deployment. Did you check your browser if it gets all resources, are there any javascript errors? Does it work with Wonder 5.8.2?
jw
> That puzzle plays into this message too. I'm good enough at this stuff that I could eventually find the cause, most likely something I missed, less likely a bug, version skew, etc, by diverting time from my paid work and digging into this, but it's not worth it (at least not this month) because I have a product to ship. That doesn't improve my mood -- I'm a devotee of this technology, I'm a believer in open software, this is a talented and generous group of people -- I'd love to contribute, but don't feel that I can, that feels wrong in so many ways.
>
>
> Does this dilemma strike an accord with anyone? Actually, I know the answer to that is "Yes" (if you have personal copies of Wonder or WOLips that you use on a regular basis, it should be familiar).
>
> I feel quite uncomfortable sending this message -- it was generated out of a long felt frustration and triggered by James' ".. has bit me twice now and consumed many frustrating hours", and would be much better as part of a face-to-face conversation but that's not an option. In no way is it my intent to brush anyone's fur the wrong way.
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