[Grok-dev] music tutorial incomplete

Wed Feb 16 12:53:38 EST 2011

Dear Steve,
Thank you for the reply! I have used several frameworks in the past, bu 
Grok looks so promising because as you've said, it can do alot with just 
a few lines of code. I have a little time before my next project really 
takes off and I have to produce real code, so I think I will continue to 
invest some time looking into ZCA and some of the other tutorials on the 
Grok site.
Jose

On 02/16/2011 12:16 PM, Steve Schmechel wrote:
> Hello Jose,
>
> I am the original author of the tutorial.  It did work at one time and I
> can confirm that currently it does not work.  I have not had time to fix
> it or move it to the new document repository and I am not sure when
> that time will be available.
>
> I am sorry to hear that it has caused you frustration, but for the
> moment all I can offer is empathy.
>
> I made the tutorial for the same reasons you express, I *really* like
> Grok, but somewhere between all the howto's and actually setting out to
> do something reasonably complicated, there is still a steep hill to
> climb.
>
> How to set up the environment, organize source code/templates/static
> files, get the whole project under source control, establish unit
> testing up front, understand what the development cycle should look
> like, how to package it for production, etc.
>
> All of these topics (in sets of one or two) are covered in various
> howto's and tutorials.  However, each one leaves out the rest for
> clarity or convenience and there is no official roadmap or template for
> the overall development cycle.
>
> In reality, there are many individual roadmaps for developers that are
> familiar with Zope/ZCA/Plone architecture and they are all valid and
> Grok helps each of these developers be more productive.
>
> For myself, Grok development goes in fits and starts; I discover some
> new trick and I am amazed at how fast things progress with just "a few
> lines of code".  Then I try to add one more feature and spend hours
> looking at six-page stack-trace dumps and searching Google.  The hard
> part is that, I can never estimate how long it will take to implement
> something, and without asking for help from the community, I would
> probably end up hopelessly stuck.
>
> Unfortunately, if you are leaving an environment that has a clear (or
> mandatory) opinion about the whole development cycle (Django, Rails,
> ASP.NET, Web2Py, etc.) and which optional components are "officially"
> supported, the only thing you can be sure of is that your previous
> techniques likely won't work efficiently with Grok, and the idea that
> "you can do it any way you want" is not very comforting.
>
> It seems that you need to really invest the time to struggle and
> understand the ZCA and come up with your own difficult development
> process, before you can really see Grok and his club as your liberating
> hero.  I am sure that there is a class of application where the
> cost-to-benefit ratio for climbing the learning curve is just too good
> to resist.  (Content management systems, customer extensible and
> integrated applications, multi-developer enterprise apps, etc.)
>
> Unfortunately, for the type of small web applications I have needed to
> create I generally end up reaching for something simpler and less
> powerful, where I can make slow, steady progress, understand my
> mistakes, and often re-implement a needed feature from scratch in the
> same time it takes for me to figure out how to use and configure an
> existing ZCA component.
>
> If you are really looking to work on a project where the benefits of
> Grok will pay off, please don't let my failings make you lose heart.
> The people in the Grok community are very helpful and have done great
> work in reducing the previous "Z-shaped" learning curve to sort of an
> "M-shaped" learning curve.
>
> If you are having specific problems or questions with my tutorial, ask
> and I will try to answer them.  Overall, it may be too full of bad
> practices to make it worth carrying forward.  Some Grok-guru could
> probably re implement the whole set of requirements in under a half hour
> on a screen-cast, using better coding techniques and without ever
> breaking a sweat.  That would be the thing to watch!
>
> Unfortunately, the Grok/Zope culture is not that keen on doing
> screen-casts for new users.  It is more of a professional association,
> meeting and helping one another on IRC and on mailing lists.  You might
> be best served by simply starting on the project you want to work on,
> and establish a dialog on IRC, asking questions as you go.
>
> That seems to be how other successful, new Grok developers have
> conducted their business.
>
> Best of luck,
> Steve
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 2/16/11, Jose Galvez<jose at cybergalvez.com>  wrote:
>
>> From: Jose Galvez<jose at cybergalvez.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Grok-dev] music tutorial incomplete
>> To: grok-dev at zope.org
>> Date: Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 9:17 AM
>> Thanks for the reply. Sorry if my
>> post sounded hot headed, I was just
>> frustrated last night. I plan on trying to work through a
>> couple more of
>> the tutorials. There is something very appealing about Grok
>> that I am
>> not willing to give up on yet. Given the recent
>> improvements are there
>> any tutorials that I should try first? any resources /
>> documentation
>> that will make learning grok easier?
>> Jose
>>
>> On 02/16/2011 03:48 AM, Jan-Wijbrand Kolman wrote:
>>> On 2/16/11 4:11 AM, Jose Galvez wrote:
>>>> I have been trying for the last couple of days to
>> complete the music
>>>> tutorial, and I think it is incomplete. If you
>> follow the instructions
>>>> as printed the application is incomplete.
>> Specifically where it breaks
>>>> down is adding songs, there is no logical linkage
>> from a song to a
>>>> performance, nor is it explained to use song.py,
>> here is the url for
>>>> songs mapped? This tutorial is very frustrating
>> and should either be
>>>> fixed or removed.
>>> This is *very* unfortunate, my apologies.
>>>
>>> Thank you for reporting this - we're in the process of
>> updating Grok's
>>> documentation, but it is quite a bit of work. I hope
>> you're not too put
>>> off by this not to try Grok a bit more.
>>>
>>> Maybe the original author of the tutorial could spend
>> a few minutes
>>> getting you up to speed?
>>>
>>> regards, jw
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Grok-dev mailing list
>>> Grok-dev at zope.org
>>> https://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/grok-dev
>>>
>>>
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>
>
>
>