[Zope-PTK] Re: Wizards

[Paul Everitt]

Andrew wrote:
> Zope has a steep learning curve for developing products, so 
> it will take
> time to grow a developer community with the skills to help 
> develop things
> at the PTK level.  I've been using the system for five months 
> and I'm only
> now starting to see the ramifications of things like the 
> interaction of
> acquisition with the security system.
>  
> DC appears to be very successful at creating much amazing 
> software :)  The
> downside of this is that if you say you're going to create 
> something like
> PTK, my first reaction is great, I'll let *you* do that, and 
> use it when
> it's done.  Talk more about Zope limitations, gaps, bugs, 
> missing features,
> problems, and work that needs to be done...
> 
> Open up the Collector.  If you want a developer community, 
> this has got to

Though I seriously doubt this is more important to that community than a
documented API, it is still important.  I believe that making Collector
entries public is being done this week.

> be a priority.  By keeping unresolved issues hidden, you get a triple
> whammy:  first, you foster the impression that DC is taking 
> ownership of
> fixing things and implementing features, so you discourage 
> participation.
> second, you lose out on other developers finding out about 
> problems and
> maybe knowing how to fix them.  third, I'm personally discouraged from
> entering issues into the collector when they just disappear 
> into the black
> hole of unresolved issues (I was looking up a proxy permission bug the
> other day and came across entries from last May that were 
> still hidden); if
> the things I put in were visible then at least I would have 
> the hope that
> my information might be useful to someone else who is running 
> into the same
> problem.
> 
> Documentation... the "interfaces" directory in PTK is 
> *wonderful*.  You
> know last week I ran across a btree implementation hiding 
> away in Zope?
> Completely undocumented of course, that's expected :), but I 
> didn't even
> know it existed...  I can't think of anything to suggest in 
> addition to the
> many documentation projects underway, but only to provide 
> encouragement to
> stay the course: developer documentation will breed more 
> developers in time.

Documenting the programmer API and creating a comprehensive tutorial for
newbies are the two highest priorities for docs.

Thanks for the comments (and off to read your wiki notes).

--Paul