Andrew (Ballantine), As with everything OfBiz, progress is dictated by demand. With adoptees coming from such varied backgrounds and with such disparate requirements. It would be hard to create such a roadmap that would be relevant to all.
Given that problem the obvious solution is to create free-standing documents that allow people the entry point of their choice. The key to success isn't where you enter, or how you progress, but rather that you do it in a thorough manner. So take a part of the code that is of interest to you (you'll need relevance to stay motivated) and then work through artifact by artifact making sure you read all the free-standing documents you can lay your hands on as you go of course! I'm not advocating that you avoid creating a roadmap, in fact I'm sure lots of people would be very grateful to you. But in the absence of one, the steep learning curve doesn't need to be addressed in a hap-hazard manner. I hope that helps... - Andrew (Sykes) On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 16:34 +0000, Andrew Ballantine wrote: > Chris Howe wrote: > > >There's a funny point in learning OFBiz. You start > >out looking at it as this huge monstrosity that's just > >too much to figure out and you get frustrated with the > >lack of documentation available (even given the sites > >linked off of ofbiz.apache.org and the tens of > >thousands of mailing list posts available and the > >number of video tutorials available). But you start > >playing with it a bit, and you pass an "aha" moment. > >You don't realize the moment that you pass it but when > >you look back and think "how can I make the learning > >curve easier for the next guy", you realize everything > >was there, and it's difficult to figure out what you > >can add to those websites that could make it any > >clearer. > > A clear roadmap would be most useful so that the essential stuff gets read > first. And yes, there are already How to documents, architecture documents, > but there is too much to read plus every document starts with a brief resume > of OFBiz rather than getting down to the business at hand. Basically it > appears that every document has been written to stand alone and therefore > feels the need to fill in the back ground on OFBiz. I haven't yet read a > great deal of the available documentation, but there is a trend there. > > Please don't take offence at these comments, they are only intended to help. > I also find that there is a lack of structure in the documents in that there > tends to be paragraph after paragraph of text which is neither reference nor > tutorial. And as I progress along the road to OFBiz heaven I will try to > document my path. In the mean time it might be useful to thrash out a style > and structure to the whole documentation suite. Heck I know this can be > difficult in the open source environment. > > I would favour a wiki approach to doing documents provided the wiki is > restricted to named members to stop spammers wrecking it. In the wiki, users > should use a colour, perhaps blue to indicate a question or need for further > detail in the flow of the document and the remainder of the contents in > black. I am quite willing to start up a tutorial document if you are all > willing to contribute to it with David acting as umpire. > > Kind regards, > > Andrew Ballantine. > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.14/636 - Release Date: 18/01/2007 > 04:00 > > > > ***************************************************************** > This email has been checked by the altohiway Mailcontroller Service > ***************************************************************** -- Kind Regards Andrew Sykes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sykes Development Ltd http://www.sykesdevelopment.com
