On Feb 4, 2006, at 8:20 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi, I'm yet another newbie - sorry if these questions are out of
place...
Nope, the mailing list is the perfect place to ask any question
related to MochiKit. Plain old JavaScript discussions are fine too.
Q1) What's the relationship between the wiki and this list? i.e.
should discussions be posted here but code examples on the wiki? This
list seems "busier" than the wiki - hence this is where I posted.
However, IMO, the wiki (or perhaps a bulletin board) is a better
vehicle for long running topics (such as requests for screencasts -
see
below).
They're complementary. The wiki is where you put things that you
want to be persistent, and the list is where you have more ephemeral
discussions. Normally if you put something on the wiki you should
probably post a note to the list so that people know to look... not
everyone is subscribed to the RSS feed of the wiki.
Putting screencast suggestions on the wiki is a great idea, it's a
lot harder to lose track of suggestions if they're in one place :)
Q2) I'd like to suggest a screencast that takes the viewer through
developing a reasonably useful widget from an examination of the
widgets goals, through good design decisions to the implementation and
then leave the viewer with a few ideas of how the design could be
extended. Perhaps the ajax_tables example "built from the ground up".
OTOH, this might be too ambitious, but OTOH, it would serve a
number of
purposes:
a) demonstrate the capabilities
b) teach newbies the essence of Mochi style, patterns, norms
c) encourage us newbies to submit possible widgets to the project
At this time, MochiKit doesn't have any widgets, so it's not really
seeking out widget contributions. The only things that ship with
MochiKit remotely related to widgets are the examples. Once the
script.aculo.us branch is merged, it might make sense to start
tossing widgets in, though. Probably in a separate package, so that
users who don't need all the fluff don't get it.
As far as style and patterns go, there's some style guide notes in
the wiki:
http://trac.mochikit.com/wiki/StyleGuide
Other than that, it's just mostly just "pythonic". PEP-20 is
probably the best way to begin to understand what that means:
http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0020.html
Q3) I'm currently attempting to create a feature rich data grid
(multi-column sort, filtering, in-place editing to name but a few)
using the AJAX model with JSON and JSON-RPC. Aside from making the
darn thing work I'd like to get the code critiqued - is the best
way to
simply post it to the wiki and sit back and wait? Or can I more
proactively encourage a critique? (BTW, I've nothing to post yet -
all
I've done so far is hack at the sortable_table example before
progressing to "grokking" the ajax_table example.
Post it to the wiki, and let us know on the list. If it's a
relatively small snippet then you might want to just post it to the
list.
Q4) Is there any interest in creating a "community" section on the
wiki? Don't worry I'm not looking for a friendship service ;-)
however, I'd like to know and share relevant discussions involving
MochiKit and the blog seems to "belong" to Bob (so it doesn't seem
appropriate to post there).
The wiki *is* the community section. The wiki content is almost
entirely generated by other people. My outlets are primarily the
documentation and the blog (since it's currently just a tag on my
personal blog).
I'd certainly consider creating a blog where several people have
access to post, or changing the blog link to a "MochiKit Planet", but
as of yet I don't think there's enough people who consistently write
MochiKit-related blog entries to justify the effort. Please feel
free to prove me wrong, though :)
Lastly MochiKit looks really excellent - I'm excited about programming
again. Fwiw, I became a p.h.b. at work 3 years ago and have since
only
dabbled in programming - however now I'm attempting to start up some
personal development projects. 3 years feels like a lifetime - I used
to be a reasonably proficient C++ programmer.
Welcome to the world of agile programming languages. If you were
proficient in C++, you'll be getting a lot more done in less code
with a language like JavaScript (once you get used to its language
design quirks and implementation missteps). Hopefully MochiKit will
help flatten your learning curve by providing functionality that
makes sense and behaves consistently across the browser platforms!
-bob
