Hi BJ:
My suggestion - as I have said many times before - is for the official
Apache OFBiz download page (http://ofbiz.apache.org/download.html) to
provide a link to download of a "stable released" version of OFBiz that is:
Pre-built (all jar files included)
Has the seed, demo and all other available data loaded into the
currently distributed database - which is Derby
And the name of this file should have the SVN version number
included in it. (This is just in case someone like me would like to
participate and provide JIRA posts.)
I'm not concerned with developer's site or the snapshot site. IMHO, no
new user should ever be downloading from these sites unless they
understand upfront how all this works. [To keep this all in perspective:
You don't see the Tomcat people pointing new users to the
development/source code site.]
Prettty simple.
Regards,
Ruth
BJ Freeman wrote:
for the sake of discussion lets say you have the equivalent of a
nightly build for the release, which btw you can get now, not just as
a release.
what do you propose for those that decide to make use ofbiz? Mind you
the demo is running in derby.
=========================
BJ Freeman <http://bjfreeman.elance.com>
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation
<http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
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Ruth Hoffman sent the following on 8/26/2010 9:40 AM:
Hi BJ:
Sorry, my mistake. Yes, I meant seed and demo data. IMHO, the OFBiz
Release that is on the official download page should be fully functional
out-of-the-box. For example, if you download a version of Tomcat or the
Apache web server, you get a fully functional demonstration of how these
work out-of-the-box. The value in this is that if the user attempts to
install Tomcat and does not get the index.html page (or whatever the
startup page is these days) then they know something is wrong with the
download and/or with the unpacking of the code.
In the OFBiz case, because is at least one additional step is involved
and at least 2 more variables are thrown in the mix: Java and building
jar files & loading demo data - if something goes wrong, well, for a
seasoned user such as yourself, no big deal. But for inexperienced OFBiz
users, it may mean the difference between giving up and going to another
project or simply downloading it again.
Maybe no big deal to the developers who frequent this list. But
certainly a big deal to potential new users.
Just my 2cents.
Regards,
Ruth
BJ Freeman wrote:
did you mean Demo data.
with seed data alone you can not even login to ofbiz.
=========================
BJ Freeman <http://bjfreeman.elance.com>
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation
<http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Ruth Hoffman sent the following on 8/26/2010 9:04 AM:
Hi All:
I respectfully beg to differ here:
There is no reason for a small business to have to use SVN in order to
implement OFBiz. While it is nice to have that functionality, and I
miss
the SVN version information that is no longer available in the recent
"releases" from the download site, I've successfully implement many an
OFBiz application without ever using the SVN functionality. Of course,
I'm just one developer - SVN really shines when you have multiple
developers working on the same code.
Secondly, why would the compiled binary always be updated? I thought
once a "Release" was released, the only updates are bug fixes. And
from
past conversations on this list, those only happen - maybe once a
quarter.
This is not rocket science. The proposal to re-instate the binary jar
files and install the seed-data for a fully functional version of
OFBiz
- one that runs out-of-the-box, is what was available as an official
Apache OFBiz Release and download as recently as 4 months ago. Then,
someone decided (ok Adrian, say what you must) to change this.
Regards,
Ruth
Matt Warnock wrote:
I have to agree with Scott, there is no big effort required here.
OFBiz
is a development platform, it is constantly being updated, and
even the
branches are getting new fixes constantly. It is inefficient to
download a "compiled binary distribution" which is constantly being
updated, so learning to use SVN, even for branches, is really a must.
And that means recompiling the code.
As someone pointed out earlier, the instructions just need to be
fixed
so that new user expectations are appropriately managed.
As to the effort of creating a binary distribution, I would much
rather
see that same effort spent on solving the in-place database upgrade
issues that have been discussed here for some time, for example.
Those bit me on the butt this week. :-)
