[Zope-dev] Zope BackTalk Working Session Invite

[Chris McDonough]

(details also available via
http://www.mindview.net/Seminars/BackTalkWorkingSession/)

INTRODUCTION

If you're a seasoned Zope, Python, or collaborative technology
developer,
you're invited to Crested Butte, Colorado between July 7 (Sat) - 10th
(Tues)
to help in a "working session" which has as a goal developing a 1.0
version
of a "BackTalk" implementation for Zope.  The working session is
primarily a
time for quickly iterating against an existing implementation, adding
features and hardening as we go.  If you come, you'll have an
opportunity to
meet other Zope and Python developers and have some fun hacking around
on a
neat project.

This is *not* a seminar or teaching exercise, and thus is unstructured.
We'll likely use some of the concepts from Extreme Programming (pairing,
short iterations, etc), to keep us busy during the working session.

Ideally, participants will have built Zope Products in the past.

COST

 Free

WHO WILL BE ATTENDING

 - Bruce Eckel (President, MindView, and author of Thinking In
(Java|C++)
   and other books)

 - Chris McDonough (developer, Digital Creations)

 - You!

WHAT IS BACKTALK

"BackTalk" is an annotation and collaboration system devised by Bruce
Eckel
and Bill Venners.  It is described at
http://www.mindview.net/Books/BackTalk
and http://www.mindview.net/Private/BackTalk .  It is first and foremost
a
system which allows for inline commenting on prestructured content.  It
is
close in sprit to systems such as Crit (http://www.crit.org) and
Andamooka
(http://www.andamooka.org).

** note: although the MindView documentation talks about BackTalk as
nonfree
software, it is describing the Java implementation.  The Zope software
produced as a result of the working session will be free **

 BackTalk has two major design goals:

 - dramatically lower the bar for readers to provide inline comments
   on booklike content.

 - provide mechanisms for original document authors to fold
contributions in
   the way of comments into the mainline document.

IMPLEMENTATION GOALS

Produce a Zope implementation of BackTalk which makes use of Zope-only
features such as Structured Text
(http://cmf.zope.org/doc/user/UsingStructuredText.txt/view), and the
Zope
object database [ZODB]
(http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Articles/ZODB1).

A prototype Zope implementation is (hopefully) accessible at
http://serenade.4-am.com/BackTalkSandbox/ .  If you have difficulty
accessing the prototype, please let me know via email (it's a
development
box).

IMPLEMENTATION HIT LIST (we might need you if you know anything
about...)

 - BackTalk "back/forward" navigation system (DTML/Python)

 - BackTalk document end-of-document index generation (Python)

 - Table of contents generation (DTML/Python)

 - RTF-to-StructuredText converter (Python/C/whatever)

 - BackTalk-to-RTF converter (Python)

 - BackTalk-to-PDF converter (Python)

 - Javascript form elements (JavaScript)

WHEN DOES THE SESSION START/END

  From:  Saturday, July 7, 2001
    To:  Tuesday, July 10, 2001

  session days begin at 9, end at 5.

WHERE IS THE SESSION

  Crested Butte, Colorado
  (exact location in town to be announced)

  Directions and location details are available from  
 
http://www.mindview.net/Seminars/Locations/CrestedButte/CrestedButte.html

HOW DO I SIGN UP

  Sign up via the registration system at
http://www.mindview.net/Seminars/BackTalkWorkingSession.

We have as a limit about 15 people.

Hopefully, I'll see you there!

- C