[xwiki-devs] [DEMO] Class/Object management improvement

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Pascal Voitot

17 Apr 2008 17 Apr '08

7:29 p.m.

Hello folks, finally I found some time to deploy a demo environment and write some explanations about my work... go on http://myxwikidemo.dyndns.org:8080/xwiki and click on "improve class properties management" to access the text presentation and the demo guide... Sorry for the long text but it also helped me structure my thinking... it demonstrates how I implemented class versioning in order to better manage class properties deletion and consequences on existing objects. This is a private server so it might be slower sometimes ;) It's a draft based on the trunk so you might discover bugs I don't even know about. This is a proof of concept so be indulgent and follow the demo guide to see it work with your own eyes :) If you are interested in this idea, tell me... I'm naturally opened to discussion because I may think in the wrong way or you may have other ideas... Anyway, I had fun digging in XWiki code ;) Don't hesitate to tell me if you discover big problems! Have fun regards Pascal

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Guillaume Lerouge

17 Apr 17 Apr

7:37 p.m.

Hi Pascal, Haven't tested it yet but thanks for your work :-) I feel like this effort might make the handling of classes in XWiki more intuitive and easier to grasp. Plus people have been willing to remove properties from their classes for quite a while now ;-) Guillaume On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Pascal Voitot <pascal.voitot.dev(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

-- http://wikibc.blogspot.com/

Ludovic Dubost

9:18 p.m.

Hi Pascal, Very cool demo ! I wish the XWiki core developers (including me) would document features that well !! This sounds really cool. I have one question: How do you automatically upgrade an object to the latest version of a class ? I have the feeling that this could make life complex for users for the case happening most time (adding properties over time). I'm wondering if a way to handle this would be to do a merge between the class as it was when the object was last created/updated and the way it is now. Basically when you save you ask the user if he wants to "upgrade" the object of there are any changes to the class definition that go beyond adding properties or when the changes have storage impact. Now this would mean automatic upgrading if changes are only cosmetic (which could be different in some cases from the desired effects). It's great to see people dig into this part of the code. Ludovic Pascal Voitot wrote:

...

-- Ludovic Dubost Blog: http://blog.ludovic.org/ XWiki: http://www.xwiki.com Skype: ldubost GTalk: ldubost

Pascal Voitot

18 Apr 18 Apr

12:05 a.m.

thanks ;) Don't worry, I wish I could document as well each time but often I can't spend the time to do so well :)... Generally, I spend my time trying to deliver a new version of a server for yesterday :)... Sometimes, I wonder whether documentation is not something like a ancient myth, a forgotten knowledge that our ancestors were mastering but that we have lost :) This time, as I'm beginning with XWiki, digging in a code which doesn't belong to me and doing some reverse engineering and then trying to involve my ideas into existing code, I wanted to document clearly for you and also for me. See below... regards Pascal On 4/17/08, Ludovic Dubost <ludovic(a)xwiki.org> wrote:

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I totally agree with you... I don't want end-users to be lost in objects and class versions... This is why we should foresee all the usecases and then make everything as easy as possible... But as we say in French:"qui peut le plus peut le moins"=Who can do the more can do the less...

...

I'm wondering if a way to handle this would be to do a merge between the class as it was when the object was last created/updated and the way it is now. Basically when you save you ask the user if he wants to "upgrade" the object of there are any changes to the class definition that go beyond adding properties or when the changes have storage impact.

Are you speaking about saving the object or the class? Would the upgrade be proposed when you save the object or when you save the modified class ? I agree that adding a property is not a problem for automatic upgrade... you don't lose any existing info... the problem is for property deletion or update... But, in the case of automatic upgrade when saving the class, imagine the case you have a document containing lots of objects and you want to keep these objects as they are... But you add a property to the class and then all the objects are automatically upgraded... Is automatic upgrade good for this case?

...

Now this would mean automatic upgrading if changes are only cosmetic (which could be different in some cases from the desired effects).

is adding a property only cosmetic? Woud it be better to control the upgrade from objects or from classes... In fact, I don't have a clear answer: both cases might be useful... Maybe, as you said, when you modify a class, we could propose to the user to upgrade all the objects in a row or maybe to choose which objects he wants to upgrade but if there are lots of objects???... or maybe to choose the documents in which he wants the objects to be upgraded? I wonder if a class/object manager module could not be interesting to provide clever tools... The target is now a problem of ergonomics :)

...

It's great to see people dig into this part of the code. Ludovic Pascal Voitot wrote:

Hello folks, finally I found some time to deploy a demo environment and write some explanations about my work... go on http://myxwikidemo.dyndns.org:8080/xwiki and click on "improve

class

properties management" to access the text presentation and the demo

guide...

Sorry for the long text but it also helped me structure my thinking... it demonstrates how I implemented class versioning in order to better

manage

class properties deletion and consequences on existing objects. This is a private server so it might be slower sometimes ;) It's a draft based on the trunk so you might discover bugs I don't even

know

about. This is a proof of concept so be indulgent and follow the demo guide to

see

it work with your own eyes :) If you are interested in this idea, tell me... I'm naturally opened to discussion because I may think in the wrong way

you may have other ideas... Anyway, I had fun digging in XWiki code ;) Don't hesitate to tell me if you discover big problems! Have fun regards Pascal _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

-- Ludovic Dubost Blog: http://blog.ludovic.org/ XWiki: http://www.xwiki.com Skype: ldubost GTalk: ldubost _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

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Guillaume Lerouge
Ludovic Dubost
Pascal Voitot