I completely agree with Argyn's and John's comments here. But, I don't think the sentiments expressed are unique to the cocoon project.
I'm a big proponent of open source software. I try to use it and recommend it whenever I can. However, I can't spend two weeks just getting up to speed on something. I have to be productive quite soon after picking it up. I'm busying 50 to 60 hours a week doing what my job demands of me, so I don't have a lot of extra time to devote to learning how to use a product, much less debugging or coding one. I still want to stay ahead of the curve, and learn new things and use new technologies. But, many open source projects make this very difficult. So if I could be presumptuous, here are some suggestions I'll offer to make life a little easier on us early adopters: (1) Don't create a new nomenclature, language or jargon to describe your project. The world has enough acronyms, marketing-speak and inpenetrable software descriptions. Don't add to it. When describing your project, compare and contrast it with other products the reader may be familiar with. (2) Don't assume the people who use a product or ask questions on a mailing list are the second coming of James Gosling or Bill Joy. If you answer a question posed on the list, go a little bit more in depth so that others who may be reading the threads might be able to learn something. (3) Don't skimp on documentation, and in doing so, be mindful of (1) and (2). When providing examples, do something a bit more useful than yet another "Hello, World" example. Provide more than one example, and make them progessively more complex, building on previous examples as you go. (4) Don't get overly defensive when responding to criticism. And, don't respond with the typical open source developer knee-jerk reaction of "Why don't you help out?" Not everyone is in a position to provide the time and effort necessary for a meaningful contribution. Don't dismiss the concerns of those who don't or can't participate. (5) Beware of the warning signs, like those expressed in John's message. He obviously isn't an idiot, and has invested some time and effort trying to learn and use cocoon. Yet, he's having trouble making cocoon useful. That should be a wake up call. (6) Don't assume that everyone should use a product because it's open source, and that it's better than closed source or commercial products because it's open. If a product doesn't perform well or is difficult to learn, use or implement, what good does being open source? Before answering, refer to (4). These points are based on observations of the Apache project I've made over the last several years. I applaud the efforts of those who've invested the time and effort on the various subprojects. Many are among the most useful pieces of software in my arsenal, like ant, log4j and struts. Others have finally come around, like tomcat which I found unusable until v3. Cocoon is an intriguing product. But, who will use it if they can't understand how? Eric -- On Thu, 27 Jun 2002 17:41:18 Piroumian Konstantin wrote: >> From: Argyn Kuketayev [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >> >> Good post :) >> >> Wake up, guys! John raised a real issue. You can't simply say >> "Don't give >> up, be patient, read mailing-list, look into sources..." and >> so on. If you >> want this framework to catch the train, then there must be >> better support > >What do you mean by "better support"? > >> and better documentation. >> >> I'm not complaining, by the way. I'd love Cocoon become a mainstream >> framework. > >So, help us make it better. >If you have ideas on how to improve Cocoon iself then welcome to cocoon-dev >mail list, if you are willing to have/provide suggestions on making the docs >better or write some then join the Forrest project. > >Konstantin > >> >> > -----Original Message----- >> > From: John Austin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >> > Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 10:41 PM >> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > Subject: Giving up! Cocoon too big, slow and confusing >> > >> > >> > I'm back from a short vacation in beautiful Chicago (it >> > really is much >> > nicer than Toronto or Montreal) and have waded back in to >> > Cocoon for a >> > couple of days. >> > >> > After just a few hours of poking around I have decided that >> > it will be >> > much simpler for me to simply hand-code a whole hat-full of >> servlets >> > than to try and pull any meaning out of Cocoon and it's >> documentation. >> >> Two days is absolutely not enough to get a grasp of Cocoon, >> definitely. >> Unless, you are a twin brother of Stephano :) >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the >> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> >> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >Please check that your question has not already been answered in the >FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> > >To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > ____________________________________________________________ Win a first-class trip to New Orleans and vacation Elvis Style!. 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