This is now more than one year I'm using qooxdoo for our innovative software project in a start'up called Novlog. I'm very happy and satisfied with my choice, even one year after.
Despite I really appreciate qooxdoo, I think something could/should be improved : community size. We are all using qooxdoo for something or someone. Currently, due to the small community size, it would be nearly impossible to make qooxdoo a possible choice in some company. Again, some of you may feel that's not important, but it is. It is when we think to the economical ecosystem around qooxdoo : really poor and quasi empty in France for example. As an example, finding, in France, paid help, consultancy, freelancer was impossible (I try). This could cause some company not to choose qooxdoo. A shame when we know the technical value of qooxdoo. So, what prevent some people to adopt, choose or recommend qooxdoo ? Let's examine the steps people discovering qooxdoo go through : 0. read article, blog, ... something *with nice screenshot* and the fact its all on web 1. goto www.qooxdoo.org (site style could probably be improved, this is so important at that step) 2. goto the demo browser. Thanks to the demo browser, you can have an idea of what is possible. Look great and powerfull. Let's check that on the next step. 3. Use the playground. Thanks to the playground ! This is a wonderful place to start *with nothing to install* understanding the technical power of qooxdoo : no tag, all js ! => Ok, I give a try on my machine ! 4. And there the disaster : Python is mandatory, obscure tool chain mandatory (tool chain *not mentioned* in step 0, 1, 2, 3 so its a bad surprise) , all in command line ... Where was my simple but yet very powerful js file of the playground ? Gone ! You now have to invest few days fighting with tool chain to continue choosing qooxdoo. We are losing exactly here *a lot* of people. I propose the following path : 1, 2, 3 : the playground 4 : use qxbuild : you will just have to include a big js file and you are at very few minutes from your previous js tested in the playground. You can enjoy qooxdoo power but ok, files are big. At that time, it is not important, its not deployed on production, isn't it ? 5. after few days, weeks or months, *once you are convinced*, once you have time, once the choice is done, you want more power and mor eoptimization and, good news ! it is possible ! Use the Python tool chain. Invest few days (maybe hours for good people) but now you are ready to do that. In fact, including qxbuild as an official qooxdoo possibility will not prevent people who would like to drop the step 4 and go directly to step 5 with tool chain. So what ? Why did I take that time to write this email ? This is because I feel qxbuild had simplified a lot my work when I started with qooxdoo, thank you Petr. This is also to say I'm happy now to see the loading time and size improvement for my code (without changing the code, except class name with find & replace) , thanks to the Python tool chain, I feel I could now deploy to production without shame. This is also to say I'd like to see the qxbuild included in qooxdoo with a special status : more than a contribution => something that let people to just download a ziped qooxdoo.js and start coding. This will allow community to grow. @Petr : who care you code is a hack : it works. Please use qooxdoo to let people benefit from qxbuild. Don't use google or other stuff. @qooxdoo team : please consider qxbuild as a simpler alternative to Python tool chain, fully include it as a possible step 4. Let people aware about the qxbuild pro and cons, including lack of optimizations. I prefer seeing people complaing about qxbuild optimization than choosing Dojo or JQuery or other lib apparently simpler to use at first sight. Peace. JBB. On Sep 18, 2009, at 11:47 , Petr Kobalíček wrote: > Hi qooxdoo list, > > I'd like to introduce 2 projects I created at google code I want to > share with qooxdoo community. > > > > 1. QxBuild ( http://code.google.com/p/qxbuild/ ) > > QxBuild is all-in-one package that allows to use qooxdoo as other > javascript libraries, just include it and go. After Jean said that > it's chaos without project page I created it at google code. All > people experienced with this solution can get access to SVN and > improve this package in the central place. > > Currently there is downloadable prebuilt qooxdoo called rc0 to catch > all problems. > > Currently there is problem related to this bug (or enhancement): > http://bugzilla.qooxdoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2116 > Vote for it:-) > > NOTE: QxBuild is unsupported by qooxdoo developers, so if there will > be problems I can create related discussion group at google code. > > > > 2. QxEt - Qooxdoo Extended Theme Package ( http://code.google.com/p/qxet/ > ) > > This is my latest contribution to qooxdoo. I created this theme some > time ago for 0.8.1 version and this is ported to current 0.8.3. It > includes very simple backgrounds used for tabs and theme looks like > old 0.7.3 qooxdoo. In theme are not used grid decorators and I think > it's currently one of fastest available theme for qooxdoo. Theme uses > some graphics from Classic qooxdoo theme (it shares it, not > duplicates). > > Currenty SVN access only (I expect bugs). > > NOTE 1: I'm using this theme in our app. I can provide screenshots how > it looks later (but it's standard non-rounded theme which look better > than Classic one:) ). > > NOTE 2: I will be happy if there are others that can share their > themes or modify Light theme in QxEt. It's not perfect and I'd like to > work on it. > > > > Cheers, I welcome critics about these projects > > - Petr > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA > is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart > your > developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and > stay > ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register > now! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf > _______________________________________________ > qooxdoo-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/qooxdoo-devel > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf _______________________________________________ qooxdoo-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/qooxdoo-devel
