yup, and I think a major contribution from Roberts feedback should be that documentation is not all that's needed. There are some places where we could make it easier to get up and running as a "power-user" (extending existing components level) without having to get into understanding avalon, excalibur, etc. I've been giving that some thought.
Geoff -----Original Message----- From: Derek Hohls [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 12:59 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to yourdilemma And so, reading between and among the lines below... the clear need for "starter" packs aimed at new users (why do we call them newbies??) with differing needs and backgrounds. Each pack can be listed along with its target audience and expected knowledge. Comes back to Robert's whole point in the beginning - make it easy for someone to get started with something simple (the hook) and then reel in them with the full package (the line) - its not a case of "either or" ... but "first" and "then"! >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 27/01/2003 08:17:28 >>> > -----Original Message----- > From: Hunsberger, Peter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 12:43 PM > To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' > Subject: RE: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your > dilemma > > > > For what it's worth, I walked through the steps for building the minimal > war he was looking for on > Saturday, sent him the binary war (5 meg) and > posted the steps on the wiki. He's already written a > first custom > generator that connects to his ejbs and seems much happier now. He's > started to refer > to cocoon as "we"! :) Some of that happened > off list, so > I thought it worth sending in a quick > > update. > > Yes, I saw that. I'm only now catching up with the 280 e-mails I had this > morning: that's what I get for being off-line all weekend; new > baby girl at > home, who has time for computers :-) I can imagine! My wife is looking at me strange after spending all weekend writing some of those 280! Congratulations on the new baby girl by the way. > > > I do agree, Peter that many people will not see a need right > away to strip > things out, but a great > point that Robert made is that the flip side of > keeping the expanse of possibilities visible to a > > new user is that it's quite difficult to figure out what's essential and > what's not: especially for > the ejb world where logic and data access are > already well encapsulated. > > Really the biggest issue for me as a new Cocoon users was the sitemap; you > get told to look at the sitemap since everything is controlled by the > sitemap. Then, once you look at the sitemap you wonder what the > heck is ALL > this stuff? A WAR packed full of tons of JARS I can ignore, but Cocoon > isn't going to do me much good unless I can comprehend the sitemap. > > The flip side top this is that if you have a minimal sitemap then there is > no good way to learn the features of Cocoon incrementally. Once > you've got > things working with Cocoon what is going to make you look at other Coccon > components to see if you can extend things with Cocoon instead of > re-inventing the wheel? You spend a bit of time looking, but there is so > much to look at it's often easier to just incrementally add to > your own code > one bit at a time. Next thing you know you've reinvented the Castor > transformer (or whatever)... I agree. My feeling (and I think Robert to a degree) is that the benefit of the minimal build with an almost empty sitemap is only alongside something else that shows the full range of possibilities. I'm not sure that something else should always be the sitemap - the docs may be a better place but am not sure if they have kept up with the info in the sitemap. Geoff > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Please check that your question has not already been answered in the > FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check that your question has not already been answered in the FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. "The CSIR exercises no editorial control over E-mail messages and/or attachments thereto/links referred to therein originating in the organisation and the views in this message/attachments thereto are therefore not necessarily those of the CSIR and/or its employees. The sender of this e-mail is, moreover, in terms of the CSIR's Conditions of Service, subject to compliance with the CSIR's internal E-mail and Internet Policy." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check that your question has not already been answered in the FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
