[ZWeb] Howdy

[Casey Duncan]

On Friday 30 November 2001 01:41 pm, seb bacon allegedly wrote:
> First, metazope looked great, and would be a really good basis for the
> look and feel, IMO.  What other work did you folks do apart from the
> skin?

That was where most of the effort went. One feature I really liked (which is 
really just a base CMF thing), was that nearly everything could have 
discussion associated with it. 

Public feedback, and addendums, etc to contributions to zope.org, like 
how-tos, proposals, whatever would be wonderful. The ability to "subscribe" 
to an item as it changes would too. And would probably make Chris Withers 
your best friend in the process 8^)

>
> Second, what process have zope.org and metazope followed?  Are there
> any assets we should all be reading - requirements, architecture,
> whatever?

The process for metazope was:

1) I downloaded an IRC client for my Mac at home
2) I was testing it using #zope, and I noticed some people were there that I 
knew.
3) One thing led to another and I had several people hosting this thing.
4) Alan incorporated and enhanced his Plone skin.
5) I wrote a few proposals
6) I moved across the country, and the thing died.

So, in short it was a typical open-source project 8^)
>
> I'm a big fan of high ceremony project processes, personally.  Would
> it be a good idea to settle on a process first (unless it's already
> been done)?  Here's my ideal process:
>
>  - 1. Define roles
>  - 2. Requirements: aims of site, audience, success criteria
>  - 3. Functional spec: use cases, etc
>  - 4. Information Architecture: resolve conflicts of information
>       requirements, prioritise content, site map...
>  - 5. Technical Architecture: class diagrams, risks...
>  - 6. Design brief
>  - 7. Build
>  - 8. Test

Such a thing would be wonderful, in some form. One of the biggest drawbacks 
(and benefits) of Wiki is that there is absolutely no enforcement of business 
rules or format.

We need a process that is supported by the infrastructure so that less time 
is spent paying attention to the rules or wondering what to do next.

>
> I believe that without this kind of ceremony, we'll end up with
> piecemeal results at best.  We need to schedule the limited amount of
> time people have available.  Well that's what I think anyway.  I'm
> sure we'll never come to an agreement on it though ;-)

I got flamed for suggesting such a thing on another open-source project I 
worked on for a brief time. It died. I think one of the reasons I haven't 
used my commit privs yet is that I don't know what needs attention besides 
everything.

Everything I can think to do is a huge project, that I don't have the time 
for. But, I think some type of delegation system (which I think the collector 
is beginning to have) where people can volunteer to complete things big and 
small would go a long way.

The closest thing I got to doing core work so far was when Paul asked: "Who 
wants to work on PUT handling". Unfortunately the timing was bad for me (I 
was out of town for the week following), but otherwise I would have jumped on 
it (and still might).

>
> seb
>
> * Paul Everitt <paul@zope.com> [011130 17:36]:
> > Two points:
> >
> > 1) Is it possible to merge Metazope and zope.org, combining the
> > leadership from both efforts?
> >
> > 2) As for scripting, if we did (1) and the new leadership agreed (and
> > moreover, would do the sysadmin to support it), then I'll accede to
> > their wishes.  As long as the commitment was there to support the
> > decision (otherwise it's a hit-and-run and were left holding the bag).
> >
> > --Paul

/---------------------------------------------------\
  Casey Duncan, Sr. Web Developer
  National Legal Aid and Defender Association
  c.duncan@nlada.org
\---------------------------------------------------/