Andrew, I hesitated on making the previous 'rant' because I didn't want to come off as ungrateful for all the work you, Janne and others have done and continue to do. What I did want to do is expose you perhaps a different perspective than you may normally get. We all are susceptible to the COIK fallacy (mentioned below). When I'm working intensely on my project, it all seems pretty clear, obvious and intuitive - although it may be completely opaque to others. I think we all benefit from hearing things from a different angle (which doesn't mean, of course, that we have to agree with it).
Javadocs and source code comments are certainly better than nothing, and I would agree that in the case of JSPWiki, they are better than many. However, what I find frustrating is trying to figure out the overall strategy of what's going on - the big picture, if you will. If I use JSPWiki in its entirety, with the available look and feel options, the standard capabilities of editing pages and providing attachments, things go pretty smoothly. It's when I need to do things differently (or implement stuff that isn't available when I need it) that things become a bit tougher. The better I can understand the design philosophy, the easier that job is. Regarding my specific comments, what is your reaction to my concern about letting login names be changed? For many applications, there needs to be some consistent thread of identity (for logging, charging, analysis, etc) - how is that to be provided if the login name isn't a constant? (The more I think about it, the more I actually think this may be a serious problem.) And I hope I provided enough information on the group changing problem for others to verify that it is indeed as I mentioned. (It works that way with both my customized version of JSPWiki and the stock 2.6.2.) If someone else verifies that they see the same thing, then I will add a JIRA ticket. Best, Terry On Wed, 2008-05-07 at 11:01 -0400, Andrew Jaquith wrote: > Terry -- at the risk of making you rant more, I'd simply say the > Javadocs are exceptionally detailed, and the source code is well- > commented. When in doubt, go to the source. > > Frankly, I think your expectations a little unrealistic. As somebody > who's used a LOT of open source projects, I'd say that our docs (at > least the Javadocs, which is really the most important thing for > integration) are probably in the top 25% of Java projects I've seen. > It beats the crap out of, for example, Jetty and Prefuse (to name two > projects I have integrated with lately), but it is not as good as, > say, Tomcat or Stripes. > > I really don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry you find the > implementations confusing. I think the other thing you might be > missing here is that JSPWiki is now too big for one person to > completely comprehend. So, we do the best we can, and we look to > volunteers to help out also. > > Andrew > > On May 7, 2008, at 10:02 AM, Terry Steichen wrote: > > > Specific comments inline below. > > > > <rant - of sorts> > > A general comment: It's very hard to figure out how to patch JSPWiki, > > because it's so hard to figure out precisely how some of the functions > > are implemented. For example, I am intrigued by the workflow > > capabilities, but haven't a clue as to how to implement them. Same > > for > > e-mail factories, negative permissions, e-mail authentication, captcha > > capabilities, to name a few. Whenever I've plunged into the JSPWiki > > code I've usually come away with being genuinely impressed at the > > elegance of the implementation. But that same elegance also makes is > > pretty hard to reverse engineer. (An example of the COIK fallacy - > > "Clear Only If Known".) For me, JSPWiki has become a quite impressive > > set of code (helping me to improve my coding skills, among other > > things), providing an impressive set of capabilities, but at the same > > time becoming an application that's increasingly difficult to > > integrate > > custom code with (at least in a way that survives the next version > > change). > > </rant> > > > > On Tue, 2008-05-06 at 23:26 -0400, Andrew Jaquith wrote: > > > >> I do know that > >> functionally the works as it should: you can change the various names > >> in your profile, and ACLs and groups still work. It's worth > >> remembering, by the way, that for a long time you could NOT change > >> your login name, or wiki name, or full name. Now you can. > > > > I think we may have become too flexible. Most systems of which I'm > > familiar allow you to change just about any element of a personal > > profile EXCEPT the login name. Not sure why it's desirable for > > JSPWiki > > to allow such a change (other than we can do it). Indeed, if we're > > logging application-level events, we usually employ the login name > > as a > > key - but when you allow a person to change that at will, you lose the > > continuity. > > > >> > >> If you need an ironclad guarantee that only particular things are > >> changed (e.g., if the login name hasn't changed, don't change the > >> login name), the code in GroupManager.actionPerformed() is what does > >> it. We'd gratefully accept a patch if you want it to work differently > >> (hint hint). > > > > A patch would probably be simple, but it seems pointless to provide a > > patch if we're going to allow the login name to be changed at will. > > > >> > >> This isn't a condition we test for as part of web unit tests, so I > >> can't tell if this is anomalous to you or not. If it's easy to > >> reproduce, then that would help members (and me) figure out if this > >> is > >> a bug or just local to your customizations. It would also be useful > >> if > >> we wanted to make a unit test out of it. > > > > I have no idea on how to make a standardized test for this condition. > > However, the problem is easily shown. When I login and go to My_Prefs > > and change my Name, if I return to My_prefs, I find that I no longer > > have membership in any groups (that I previously belonged to). > > However, > > after I logout and login again, My_Prefs now shows that the > > memberships > > are restored (using the new Name).
