[xwiki-users] RE: Xwiki.com API stability and Class/Object model

[Vincent Massol]

On Apr 6, 2007, at 8:28 PM, THOMAS, BRIAN M ((ATTSI)) wrote:

> I am entirely sympathetic to your situation, having been pretty  
> much in
> the same situation about a year ago.  And I believe that I agree
> strongly with your feelings and outlook, and I'm personally very eager
> to help those who are not as deeply experienced to get up the learning
> curve faster than I did and, as you say (if I understand you  
> correctly)
> to pass it on to a yet larger and less-experienced group of users.
>
> As to 'these' users and 'those' users, I was responding to Vincent's
> skepticism about people actually coming in and annotating the JavaDoc
> pages.  Of course they wouldn't if they didn't understand them, but I
> would love to do this in the hope of improving the adoption of XWiki,
> knowing exactly what would be needed to prevent others (like me, at
> least) from going through the pain I went through.  My explanations  
> may
> still be opaque to others, but once they get through it they can share
> what they've learned.  At any rate, providing the opportunity for
> experienced users of the APIs to annotate the Javadocs without
> disturbing the actual source code would allow people like me to share
> that knowledge in the most appropriate place - right alongside the
> official documentation.
>
> My feeling was that Vincent was not adequately acknowledging the new
> class[es] of users that tools of this nature enable - those who can  
> now
> create end-user applications without needing server access, and even
> those (like me) who stand more or less in the gap between the
> application builders and the raw system interfaces, who like to  
> make the
> tools more robust and easier to use.

Just for the record, I'm very happy to try out new ways of doing  
things :-) So, go for it!

Thanks
-Vincent

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Oova [mailto:ping.scan at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 2:48 PM
>> To: xwiki-users at objectweb.org
>> Subject: [xwiki-users] RE: Xwiki.com API stability and
>> Class/Object model
>>
>>
>> Guys,
>>
>> I must be another breed, I barely follow you, 'these' users
>> and 'those'
>> users, automatically generated comment pages for users to
>> fill it out, etc..... I am just lost or too old fashioned.
>> My humble opinion is as follows. In house building as in
>> software, if you want to enable somebody else to build an
>> application (house) you give them a description, what kind of
>> particular applications (houses) you especially are qualified
>> to help building FASTER and BETTER than usual (Benefits
>> overview and tools to gain those benefits). You also write,
>> what kind of skill set might be useful to take advantage of
>> the tools your provide. Then you provide the architecture
>> (blueprint, ....) and explain what kind of interfaces (for
>> walls, windows, plumbing, roofing,...) you created to enable
>> others to build. To expedite the break-in you give some
>> sample applications illustrating how the architecture,
>> interfaces and tools helped gain the benefits for some use
>> cases. And I am sorry, no offense, you do not ask the
>> engineer who designed the software kit/ housing builder kit
>> do document it, otherwise it becomes a kit from highly
>> skilled engineers for other highly skilled engineers written
>> in a highly specialized technise language, which the target
>> audience might not speak. You normally ask a guinea pig out
>> of the targeted audience to try to document, what it
>> understands and let it build at least one application (house)
>> using the tools provided. And you nurture the guinea pig with
>> enough food, encouragement and help, so the snowball effect
>> making the whole target audience aware of your great stuff
>> can start and you as the engineer can go back cranking out
>> the next great SW and tool for even better applications and
>> houses. Making sense? Any agreement?
>> I am a guinea pig, I am eager to use Xwiki, because for some
>> reason, I think XWiki is a great concept (don't let me go
>> into the 'Crossing the chasm modeling, or the 4 steps of the
>> epiphany', both great models of how to establish innovation
>> in the market place successfully and go beyond the
>> innovator's initial excitement). But you need to let the
>> targeted audience pick-up the momentum.
>>
>> Enough Philosophy, if there is any agreement on what I said
>> before, let me, Guillaume and other 'users' spread the word
>> in a lower level technise. To enable us we need to understand
>> - targeted user (groups)
>> - architecture
>> - concept of object model and API
>> - guts (and not only nice webpages) of successful
>> applications of the XWiki (or is the XWikis main purpose to
>> create nice looking webpages? I did not think so)
>>
>> Uwe
>>
>>
>> THOMAS, BRIAN M (ATTSI) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I wish this were true... I don't think a second that it'll work
>>>> though as:
>>>> 1) users will say that they cannot document if they don't
>> know what
>>>> it does
>>>> 2) once users know what it does, they usually go away
>>>> 3) users don't like to document anymore than developers like it
>>>>
>>>> :)
>>>
>>> Your points are generally true, but when you talk of "users" you're
>>> not necessarily talking of these users.  I'm talking about
>> people like
>>> me who would have loved it if someone had just told them
>> this or that
>>> little tidbit of information, and gladly contribute it, especially
>>> when it's in the context of the document
>>>
>>>> But I like the idea...  and would be game to try it... if someone
>>>> else implements it... (all my time is currently used for the 1.0
>>>> release)
>>>>
>>>
>>> The only reason I haven't already made a start of it is
>> that I haven't
>>> found an HTML DOM parser.  Is there one in the myriad of libraries
>>> that come with XWiki?
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> View this message in context:
>> http://www.nabble.com/Xwiki.com-API-stability-and-Class-Object
>> -model-tf3524008.html#a9861035
>> Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>>
>>
>
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