Mark, No date chosen yet -- we'll want to poll everyone as soon as we know that we'll be available in the beginning of January. Offers for help have been mostly private rather than on the list. I haven't put anything out to CF-Talk or CF-Community yet. Hopefully that will bring a few more to the project.
I think many are intimidated by the sheer size of Plum in all that it does, but in reality concentrating on a single part should be very digestible by an average developer. Respectfully, Adam Phillip Churvis Member of Team Macromedia Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Developer http://www.ProductivityEnhancement.com Download Plum and other cool development tools, and get advanced intensive Master-level training: * C# & ASP.NET for ColdFusion Developers * ColdFusion MX Master Class * Advanced Development with CFMX and SQL Server 2000 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Fuqua" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 2:06 PM Subject: RE: [plum] Taking Plum in a new direction > Good Afternoon Adam, > > I'm curious if you have setteled on a date for the meeting in Norcross and > if you have recieved much feedback/offers of help? > > Mark > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Adam > Churvis > Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 8:14 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [plum] Taking Plum in a new direction > > > You may have noticed that David and I haven't spent much time on the Plum > Discussion List over the past couple of months, but don't take that as a > sign that we're not active on Plum. To give you an idea of what we've > accomplished "off list," we've created a version of the Plum Framework for > BlueDragon.NET (with a customized PDF-capable Lucene indexing and search > system), and we've established the game plan for how we're going to > incorporate AJAX and Nifty Corners into Plum forms. > > We're gearing up for the next version of Plum, which all of you are shaping > via your comments, kudos, complaints, and recommendations. We collect every > single email message to the Plum Discussion List and decide how to change > Plum to make it better. > > Which brings me to the meat of the issue: taking Plum in a new direction. > In short, we're opening up Plum to cooperative public development from the > ColdFusion community. First I'll cover the "why," then I'll cover the > "how." > > > WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? > > During the past three years of developing and beta testing Plum, and using > Plum in production environments, we've learned a lot from all of you, and > even quite a bit from those who don't like Plum at all. In fact, I can > safely say that the majority of Plum as you now know it is the result of > suggestions from people other than David and me. The only way to make Plum > really great is to more actively involve these people (and you know who you > are). That's one point. > > Another point is that a spate of offerings has sprung up in the ColdFusion > application frameworks arena since we released Plum, and more people are > thinking seriously about using frameworks in their everyday work. Each > framework -- including Plum -- has its strong and weak points, and they all > have different scopes from simply arranging and calling code to providing > actual services and building blocks. > > The third point is that Plum is a massive product. Even if you split up > Plum into its three main pieces -- the Plum IDE (soon to be renamed Plum > Generator, as per suggestions), the Plum Framework, and the Plum > Documentation -- each piece by itself is still a huge piece of work. Sure, > we can handle all of it, but doing so requires this little two-man team to > set aside a big chunk of unpaid time for even the smallest release cycle. > > So David and I added up points 1, 2, and 3, and concluded that the only way > we're going to move Plum ahead as rapidly as everyone would like it is to > involve the ColdFusion developer community in actually developing certain > pieces of the Plum Framework portion of the Plum product. To facilitate > this and make everyone as happy as possible, we're going to make a couple of > radical changes to how Plum will be delivered. > > First, the Plum Framework will be uncoupled from Plum Generator. In the > next and future versions, there will be a subdirectory named "Frameworks" > that will contain any number of Zip files. Each zip file will be a version > of the Plum Framework. If the Plum Generator sees more than one, it will > prompt you to choose it by name. > > This not only enables you to have multiple customized versions of the Plum > Framework from which to start your project, it enables non-Windows customers > to separately download and use the Plum Framework independently of the > .NET-based Plum Generator. This also lets us release updates to the Plum > Framework independently of the rest of the product, which enables us to > release updates and fixes as frequently as we like. More importantly, it > lets you update your own customized Plum Framework as often as you like. > We'll even let you to put your own modifications on the > ProductivityEnhancement.com website for others to download. > > Second, David and I are going to expand the plug-in interface to make it > easier for .NET developers to write their own plug-ins for the Plum > Generator. Current menu bar items like the unit test generator, stored > procedure generator, and component generator will be migrated to plug-ins, > as will many future enhancements. Developing new features around the Plum > plug-in architecture will give developers the ability to directly (and > safely) extend the Plum project file to incorporate new features and > functionality without affecting existing features and functionality. This, > too, enables us to release targeted improvements as individual plug-ins > rather than a new release of the entire product. > > Decoupling the Plum Framework, improving the plug-in interface, and > increasing community involvement will make Plum into a continually-released > product that rapidly changes to meet developers' needs. > > > HOW ARE WE GOING TO ACCOMPLISH THIS? > > Step 1: Make your voice heard > > Though we already have thousands of Plum Discussion List messages detailing > what people like, don't like, issues they've had, etc, and have already used > these to determine the upgrade path of Plum features and functionality (as > per the previously-published release order document), we now want to open > discussion up to incorporate what you like better about other development > frameworks (not just ColdFusion frameworks). > > If you like Ruby on Rails, tell us what tickles your fancy (or other parts > of you, as you care to share). If you're enamored with Fusebox, Model-Glue, > Mach-ii, onTap, etc, then don't be shy -- let us know the details. There > might be a feature here or a useful element there that we're missing, and > that might work really well in Plum. We certainly won't be stealing from > other frameworks, but if in your opinion there is something general in > nature that would lend itself well to Plum, we want to know about it. > > Step 2: Meet us in Atlanta > > For the die-hard among you, we're going to have a free "Gathering of Plums" > in Atlanta around the first of the year, where we'll all sit down and > finalize as a team how we want to proceed and who will build what part. > General discussion on all the action items will have already taken place on > the Plum Discussion List by this time, so during the meeting we'll triage, > finalize details, and assign volunteers. > > David and I will go over some of the pertinent details of the code and how > it should change according to what everyone has experienced so far, and > anyone who wants to present anything relevant to the upcoming version of > Plum (including things about competing frameworks) will be able to do so. > We'll also show you the internals of the Plum Generator and finalize as a > team how its interface might change to better suit developers' needs. > > This will be an informal two-day weekend event where you can fly in cheap on > AirTran, hop a $1.75 train at the airport, and we'll arrange transportation > from the train station to the venue. If you can't make it to Atlanta we'll > still be happy (and honored) to recruit you, but nothing beats a > face-to-face meeting where technical details are the crux of the content. > > Step 3: Releases > > Soon after we all meet, David and I will kick things off with the release of > the new Plum Generator and uncoupled Plum Framework, which will serve as the > foundation for everything else being worked on by the community. At first > we'll concentrate solely on getting the new product architecture in place as > quickly as possible so that we don't hold up anyone else's efforts. > > Then as each team member submits a new piece, we'll incorporate it into a > new release of the Plum Framework, which will be simultaneously posted to > the website and announced on the Plum Discussion List. > > > MOVING FORWARD > > For those of you who are moving away from HomeSite or the older ColdFusion > Studio product, we'll spawn small targeted projects like tag editors for > Dreamweaver and similar tools for PrimalScript and CFEclipse -- all we need > is someone who can help make it happen. > > We're also looking into a method for archiving our mailing list, making the > archive Googleable, and hopefully adding all the past messages to the > archive. > > David and I (and many of you) have a very exciting vision for Plum, which > incorporates everything you guys have told us and requested, but there's > just so much of it and we want to ensure that we continue moving forward. > Plum has always been made better through the input of the ColdFusion > developer community; it's time to move that community closer to creating > Plum itself. > > And you're just the person we're looking for. > > Respectfully, > > Adam Phillip Churvis > Member of Team Macromedia > Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Developer > http://www.ProductivityEnhancement.com > > Download Plum and other cool development tools, > and get advanced intensive Master-level training: > > * C# & ASP.NET for ColdFusion Developers > * ColdFusion MX Master Class > * Advanced Development with CFMX and SQL Server 2000 > > > ********************************************************************** > You can subscribe to and unsubscribe from lists, and you can change > your subscriptions between normal and digest modes here: > > http://www.productivityenhancement.com/support/DiscussionListsForm.cfm > ********************************************************************** > > > > ********************************************************************** > You can subscribe to and unsubscribe from lists, and you can change > your subscriptions between normal and digest modes here: > > http://www.productivityenhancement.com/support/DiscussionListsForm.cfm > ********************************************************************** > ********************************************************************** You can subscribe to and unsubscribe from lists, and you can change your subscriptions between normal and digest modes here: http://www.productivityenhancement.com/support/DiscussionListsForm.cfm **********************************************************************
