Hi Adrian:
Thanks for your comments.
Your email exemplifies exactly what I've been trying to say: There is
way too much confusion and conflicting guidance about what a new user
should do. If I step back for a minute and put myself in an OFBiz
novice's shoes and then answer the question again...well maybe you can
see where I'm coming from.
Anyhow, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment.
Regards,
Ruth
Adrian Crum wrote:
I agree with most of what David said.
I disagree that the trunk is more bug free than a release. There have
been many times where a trunk revision won't even compile. At least a
release has a better chance of compiling.
Not too long ago, I upgraded our production server to the trunk and I
ended up having to fix a dozen or so regressions in the Work Effort
application - regressions that don't exist in the 9.04 release.
So, if you choose to use the trunk, you have to time your checkout
very carefully. You have to be sure to check out a revision that
hasn't introduced new bugs.
For someone who doesn't have the time to monitor the trunk closely,
the release is the best choice.
-Adrian
David E Jones wrote:
I wouldn't say release4.0 or release09.04 have "been proven either
through formal release management practices or through actual
experience in the field." In fact, 4.0 was a much more arbitrary
cutoff point and not planned or acted on as much as 09.04.
You mentioned issues in 09.04, could you be more specific?
Unfortunately I think many issues are related to the theme, and
pretty or not it really does cause problems and it's probably better
to use it with the old flatgrey theme. There could certainly be other
problems, but in general I'd say 09.04 is more solid and certainly
much more feature complete.
As far as "ad advertised" goes, I wasn't aware there was anything
advertised either way... ;) One nice thing about 09.04 is that the
business processes are much more complete. In other words you can run
through a business process and not find the big functional gaps that
exist in 4.0. A LOT happened in the 2 years between the two releases,
and probably around 50 man-years of effort went into things. This
really isn't a small difference. When doing gap analysis based on a
set of requirements I haven't seen any business looking for anything,
ever, where the feature set of 4.0 would hit even close to the
percentage of overlap that 09.04 does.
Whatever the case, depending on the circumstances I'd still recommend
going with the trunk. For reasons we've discussed before in many
cases the trunk is actually more bug-free than any release branch as
long as you stay updated with it, of course with the release branches
you have to stay updated with them too if you want bug fixes (ie that
is the "patching" process for them and it's BAD BAD BAD to not update
when using the release branches).
That said, the basic idea behind the releases and what to choose
still holds pretty true, and the release branches are definitely more
"stable" (meaning they don't change, not meaning more bug-free, but
it does help some with that), see the "How Do I Decide What To Use"
section here:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Apache+OFBiz+Getting+Started
-David
On Sep 24, 2009, at 9:49 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Jacques:
I understand and respect where both of you are coming from. But I
think you need to consider that for new users (and this is only for
new users), they should be guided towards using a stable, proven
release. The 4.x release is the only release that is proven and
works out-of-the-box as advertised.
Your reference to beginner documentation aside (and, BTW, this is
developer documentation not end-user documentation), I can't in good
conscience suggest to anyone to use code that hasn't been proven
either through formal release management practices or through actual
experience in the field.
Just my 2 cents.
Ruth
Jacques Le Roux wrote:
I totally agree with Ashish (not surprising) but Ruth is also right
to say that we have still some bugs in R9.04, but it's improving
day after day and have a lot more features and a better
architecture. For instance there is still issues with Minerva in
R4. And IMO, the main reason is you will not get much help (if any)
from the community with R4. We are almost all turned to the future,
not the past...
Jacques
From: "Ashish Vijaywargiya" <[email protected]>
-1 for starting with OFBiz 4.0 release.
Instead of this I will recommend to start with either Release
branch 9.04 or trunk and report any bug found.
The main reason of my recommendation is that the beginner
document(http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/UBE) and some other document best
support to Release Branch 9.04 & trunk.
PS: "4.x trunk release" - Ruth, If I am not wrong "trunk" word is
used for the repository on which current development is going on.
--
Regards
Ashish Vijaywargiya
HotWax Media Pvt. Ltd.
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
Helping hand around the World ...
USA | Italy | India | New Zealand
Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hello Olindo:
IMHO - and not to ruffle any feathers - there are a number of
minor but very visible bugs (mostly in the presentation layer) in
the 9.04 release that could easily discourage and frustrate a
first time user. I found this out the hard way while trying to
use the 9.04 release as a basis for screen shots in my 2 books
(and for the myofbiz.com website.)
My advice for what it is worth: if you are a beginner, start with
the 4.x trunk release (it's rock solid and proven) and then, when
you understand how OFBiz should work, move on to 9.04 if needed.
Again,
Just my 2 cents.
Ruth
Olindo Pindaro wrote:
What is the difference beetween this 2 branches?
TNX
