That's an interesting way of looking at it. What is your goal with
those books, or what do you think they will cause to happen from a
"big picture" perspective? What effect do you think they will have on
OFBiz itself, especially since they document a version that is 2.5
years old?
-David
On Sep 24, 2009, at 12:55 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi David:
Well, I for one care or I wouldn't have spent much of my very
valuable summer writing two books about OFBiz. BTW, I intend to keep
writing with the goal of getting new users connected with OFBiz. My
target audience is new users and not necessarily project committers.
If the project can figure out how to control releases, all the
better. If not, then I stick to my guns. 4.x is still better than
anything else I've seen.
Ruth
David E Jones wrote:
It really is a bad sign. In a community driven project what this
means is that no one cares enough about it to do anything about
it... and I guess that's sad. Too much committing without testing,
or even running, things. Too much not caring about existing
functionality and creating new things that steamroll and break
existing things. All in all, the stuff I tried to guide away from
when I wrote the stuff here in the General Responsibilities of
Committers:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Committers+Roles+and+Responsibilities
Like I've said recently on another topic... if no one else cares
what can I do about it? I guess like everyone else I'll just keep
doing my own thing... and collaborate with others when I can, and
when they'll let me.
-David
On Sep 24, 2009, at 11:23 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi David:
Thanks for your comments. As usually, they are well thought out
and invaluable in helping furthering the understanding of the
OFBiz project. IMHO, project releases are a really important
concern for new users. By new users, I mean new users of the many
and varied applications that come with the OFBiz distribution.
Maybe we could call these users new "end-users". I don't mean
users intent on building new applications and/or modifying
existing project files (i.e. Java code, CSS, HTML, Javascript,
Groovy, XML etc.). New users may get to a point where they feel
compelled to modify project files...but I suggest we don't put the
cart before the horse.
Please see my comments below:
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.
OK, point well taken. Maybe I should have said "...through time in
service..."? Regardless, the applications as they exist in the 4.x
release work. Maybe the framework is not as advanced as the
current trunk or 9.04 release, but the demo store works and the
supporting applications work.
Just out of curiosity, have there been any bugs reported after the
9.04 branch, that would make me believe that the Catalog Manager,
Order Manager and eCommerce component are not stable and reliable
in the 4.x release?
You mentioned issues in 09.04, could you be more specific?
Unfortunately I think many issues are related to the theme,
Yes - themes seem to be problematic. And, since the very first
encounter with OFBiz out-of-the-box is the presentation as
rendered by the theme - I think there is a big issue here. In
fact, IMHO this is what we use to call a "show stopper" and makes
the release unstable. Doesn't matter how good the underlying
product is, first impressions always count. Again, this is just my
opinion.
Back to themes: not only are themes problematic, I would point out
the documentation concerning how to work around theme based issues
with the flatgrey theme was vague and contradictory (as was
discussed here on this mailing list.)
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.
How about Jira #2602 - the very first thing you see when you start
up the demo store is broken (in my book and in my browser). Sorry,
but this does not bode well for the remainder of the demonstration
and for a successful outcome should one be a new user testing the
waters.
As far as "ad advertised" goes, I wasn't aware there was anything
advertised either way... ;)
Exactly my point! Its all implied. And since we have nothing else
to work with, older is better in this case.
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.
Actually, the devil is in the details. I'm not "dissing" 50 man-
years of work, but how many years of work went into the code base
prior to the 9.x release? And how many implementations are there
of 4.x code vs. trunk releases since the branch?
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.
That is good to know. Sounds like OFBiz is moving in the right
direction.
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).
I guess this is where we differ. I'd say a new user - out to kick
the tires - is not interested in updating or reporting bugs. They
just want to get started with a minimum of frustration and a
maximum of success.
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
