Glenn, Thanks for your feedback! We're certainly glad that you like ServiceMix 4, but I also agree that we need a lot of work on the documentation. A list like the one you're sending us here is invaluable for us to know where to start documenting stuff. Looking at the list, we probably want to do a few small quickstart tutorials that show people how to deploy and create a simple Spring XML file and a simple OSGi bundle.
After that, we can look into the more advanced use cases and more technical documentation you mentioned. Anyway, any kind of contribution to the documentation would be highly appreciated and we'll be more than happy to assist you in any way we can. Also, if you have any more ideas or suggestions on documentation (or anything else), just let us know or feel free to raise JIRA issues for requesting those enhancements. Thanks once again for the feedback, Gert Vanthienen ------------------------ Open Source SOA: http://fusesource.com Blog: http://gertvanthienen.blogspot.com/ 2009/4/3 Glenn Macgregor <[email protected]>: > Hello ServiceMix Users, > > Let me start by saying that I was/am very excited to begin using ServiceMix > for a major project here. I have been evaluating SMX4 for over a week, > looking at the documentation (which there is not much) and getting a handle > on the concepts and implementation. I am impressed by the design work and > thought that went into SMX4, it seems to be quite reliable. I realize this is > a complex piece of software which integrates other complex libraries which > takes much longer than one or two weeks to understand. I know I have > bombarded this list with question after question about seemingly simple > operations and I am sorry for that. I applaud all the folks who tirelessly > answered each and every question very timely and certainly accurate, thank > you all. > > As I can see now, the lack of documentation is really a thorn in the side of > ServiceMix, many of the issues I am having could (and should) be solved by > reading basic documentation. I would like to join the team to help in > documenting ServiceMix but I can't even get past these small hurdles. > > Some items I think should be documented: > > > 1. Detailed explanation of a simple spring XML file > > 2. Anatomy of an OSGi bundle > > 3. Detailed example of building an OSGi bundle from scratch > > a. I have watched Ade webcasts which are great, but lack written > documentation > > 4. Detailed example of how to adapt legacy code into a bundle > > a. I have a fix for an imap problem which I can not test because I have > no idea how to make a bundle from the geronimo-javamail source > > 5. Anatomy of the source tree > > a. This is a bit more than beginner docs > > > > > > I don't mean to rant I really do think ServiceMix is a great project with > myriad uses. I would like to get involved by making SMX4 easier to understand > for new users in the development space. > > > > We are now coming down to the time where the decision on which ESB is going > to be made, this is between a couple Open Source and a couple commercial > options. Unfortunately SMX4 is lagging behind due to some the issues listed > above. We can not properly evaluate SMX4 against the others because we have > not yet finished the use cases for evaluation. > > > > Thanks for a great product and all the help over the last couple of weeks. > > > > Glenn >
