> Messy or poor documentation is a reason why some open-source software > around here at my new job (a large regional medical care network) gets > disqualified from use. If it takes the devs around here too long to > figure out how to use it, out the door it goes.
And it's totally normal because the main goal in that kind of structure is efficiency and profitability so if the money you save on the license has to be used twice to pay specialized dev's or give them more time to figure things out, proprietary solutions remain the best solution. > One of my long-term goals here is to introduce everybody to Cocoon and > possibly even use it in at least one project successfully. All of the > development right now is done with Struts and JSP/Taglibs. Despite > this, there's still too much complexity and it's hard to figure out > where everything happens. If I had Cocoon/CForms + Hibernate/Spring, I > could probably develop stuff pretty fast. We already use Spring, and I > think we're on the cusp of actually adpoting Hibernate, but right now > I'm pretty skeptical about getting Cocoon in the door with the > documentation the way it is, so now I'm motivated to "do." :) And have you tried, Cocoon/Hibernate/Spring designed with AndroMDA ? This is wonderful the time you save. You just compile your UML model, write your business methods, create your forms, templates and flowscript and there you go. It's high-level, it's wonderful... as soon as you understand how Cocoon works. BTW at AndroMDA they already have a BPM4Struts cartridge which includes presentation-tier design in the MDA process and I'm planning on trying to write a BPM4Cocoon cartridge when I have more time so it could become interesting. > I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again: PHP's > documentation is superior. We need to follow their model. It's part of the ideas we've come out with : take other OSS documentations as an example and try to extract what's good or bad to define our own rules and structures. So be sure to keep in touch with PlanetCocoon's brainstorming forum to share your experience with PHP documentation with us. > - Tony (Who's been *way* too busy with new job after graduating to work > on anything remotely fun anymore. I know what you mean. This should come soon for me too. ;-) Cheers -- Sebastien ARBOGAST
