Re: marketing Defoe (was: another nose for the grindstone)
Peter, it's ok if you make other people aware of your project but the way you did that in your last post disturbs me. We know that you disagree with FOP's approach, but I would have preferred a more constructive form of making Mark aware of Defoe. Maybe I'm overreacting... On 17.01.2005 06:01:27 Peter B. West wrote: Mark, Project Defoe http://defoe.sourceforge.net/, formerly Fop alt-design, is focussed on a Java 2D renderer, robust and complete. By complete I mean, in particular, able to correctly handle last-page, keeps, table auto-layout and large files. Don't make the mistake of thinking that, because FOP has been around for a long time, it is only the place to be for open source XSL-FO development. Rather, ask why, if it has been around for such a long time, these problems haven't been solved. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all software problems are solved by simply applying more resources. Having said that, let me add that the project seems to have found its shepherd, in the form of Finn Bock. Many of the long-standing innovations of alt-design in the property handling have at last been introduced by Finn, who has the happy knack of being able to completely rewrite large chunks of FOP by applying a wide-ranging but complete set of changes. He may well solve FOP's remaining critical problems in the same way. The point is, that FOP needs a major design overhaul. I'm doing that at Defoe, and Finn is doing it, piecemeal, at FOP. His focus though is not on Java 2D, and getting a complete and robust implementation of the 2D renderer will depend on Finn's new design. If you want to know more about where FOP is headed, ask Finn. Defoe is Java 5.0 based. If that doesn't work for you, don't bother with Defoe. Otherwise, if you are interested in avenues for your XSL-FO development efforts, I am happy to talk to you. Jeremias Maerki
Re: marketing Defoe
Jeremias, Do you disagree with the assessment? Clearly people might, but I didn't say anything I don't believe is the truth about the state of FOP. If it is true, isn't it fair to let newcomers know the state of play? Finn has already talked about a radically different approach in order to solve the large files problem, and I'm sure he will present you with a swag of patches to do just that at some time in the future. I just hope he doesn't do it so soon as to render Defoe moot. One of its underlying features will be what is effectively a stream parsing mechanism. It's acceptance, which I take to be a fait accompli, there being no other design contenders, will be particularly galling for me, in light of the the blanket refusal to consider it when I proposed it, as I still do. I think I have earned the right to speak my mind on these issues. Peter Jeremias Maerki wrote: Peter, it's ok if you make other people aware of your project but the way you did that in your last post disturbs me. We know that you disagree with FOP's approach, but I would have preferred a more constructive form of making Mark aware of Defoe. Maybe I'm overreacting...
Re: marketing Defoe
Peter, this is not about the question whether I disagree with the assessment. You might be right, you might be wrong. I can't tell, yet, because I'm still working my way into the new layout engine. My reaction was triggered by the way you said these things, not by any technical statement. But as I said, I may be overreacting and I may not have filtered everything through all the is-written and is-in-foreign-language filters. On 17.01.2005 12:07:47 Peter B. West wrote: Jeremias, Do you disagree with the assessment? Clearly people might, but I didn't say anything I don't believe is the truth about the state of FOP. If it is true, isn't it fair to let newcomers know the state of play? Finn has already talked about a radically different approach in order to solve the large files problem, and I'm sure he will present you with a swag of patches to do just that at some time in the future. I just hope he doesn't do it so soon as to render Defoe moot. One of its underlying features will be what is effectively a stream parsing mechanism. It's acceptance, which I take to be a fait accompli, there being no other design contenders, will be particularly galling for me, in light of the the blanket refusal to consider it when I proposed it, as I still do. I think I have earned the right to speak my mind on these issues. Peter Jeremias Maerki wrote: Peter, it's ok if you make other people aware of your project but the way you did that in your last post disturbs me. We know that you disagree with FOP's approach, but I would have preferred a more constructive form of making Mark aware of Defoe. Maybe I'm overreacting... Jeremias Maerki
Re: marketing Defoe
Peter, FWIW, I was shocked by the tone of your statement as well. Not so much by any misleading or such. Rather, it was more in the way that I'm shocked by the manner that, in the US companies can discuss differences with other products in their advertisements. Had you also 'advertised' FOray in the same way you promoted Defoe, it might've taken a bit of the tone down (I don't know--you didn't mention FOray so I don't *know* how it would've come off). In any case, as I suspect is true for with the rest of the FOP team, I am grateful to your continued contributions to the FOP project, and I hope your contribution will continue. Web Maestro Clay On Jan 17, 2005, at 3:07 AM, Peter B. West wrote: Jeremias, Do you disagree with the assessment? Clearly people might, but I didn't say anything I don't believe is the truth about the state of FOP. If it is true, isn't it fair to let newcomers know the state of play? Finn has already talked about a radically different approach in order to solve the large files problem, and I'm sure he will present you with a swag of patches to do just that at some time in the future. I just hope he doesn't do it so soon as to render Defoe moot. One of its underlying features will be what is effectively a stream parsing mechanism. It's acceptance, which I take to be a fait accompli, there being no other design contenders, will be particularly galling for me, in light of the the blanket refusal to consider it when I proposed it, as I still do. I think I have earned the right to speak my mind on these issues. Peter Jeremias Maerki wrote: Peter, it's ok if you make other people aware of your project but the way you did that in your last post disturbs me. We know that you disagree with FOP's approach, but I would have preferred a more constructive form of making Mark aware of Defoe. Maybe I'm overreacting... Web Maestro Clay -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://homepage.mac.com/webmaestro/ My religion is simple. My religion is kindness. - HH The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet
Re: marketing Defoe
(Don't let Peter rattle you, Jeremias--he's just jealous that I've found more XSL spec bugs than him. ;) Our delays are mostly related to advanced issues concerning layout, and the type of parser used doesn't have much effect on this issue. So I don't share Peter's conviction that FOP is in need of a major design overhaul--or that Defoe's layout is as complete as it needs to be either, for the matter. Both sides have a lot of work to do. Glen --- Jeremias Maerki [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Peter, this is not about the question whether I disagree with the assessment. You might be right, you might be wrong. I can't tell, yet, because I'm still working my way into the new layout engine. My reaction was triggered by the way you said these things, not by any technical statement. But as I said, I may be overreacting and I may not have filtered everything through all the is-written and is-in-foreign-language filters.
Re: marketing Defoe
Glen Mazza wrote: (Don't let Peter rattle you, Jeremias--he's just jealous that I've found more XSL spec bugs than him. ;) You have a lead I am unlikely to overhaul. Our delays are mostly related to advanced issues concerning layout, and the type of parser used doesn't have much effect on this issue. Time will tell. So I don't share Peter's conviction that FOP is in need of a major design overhaul--or that Defoe's layout is as complete as it needs to be either, for the matter. There is no Defoe layout ... yet... Both sides have a lot of work to do. ...so yes, there is a lot of work to be done on Defoe. Glen Peter PS Thanks to Clay for the feedback.
RE: Defoe
Peter B. West wrote: I've started a blog as a diary of Defoe development and, at the moment, my learning experiences with Java 5.0, especially Typesafe Enums and Generics. If you drop in there from time to time, you can see what I am up to. Have you considered one for FOray? I actually spent some time on your blog yesterday, and I think it is probably useful for the kind of work that you are doing. My work is much more mundane, and, between commit logs and project documentation and announcements, a blog would be pretty redundant for me (although the commit log will be more useful when we are using Subversion). Probably the closest thing to a blog that I have is: http://www.foray.org/release.html I haven't really craved the 5.0 features yet, but did finally decide a few days ago to use 1.4 as a minimum, primarily to eliminate preprocessing (developer productivity) and to use assert. Victor Mote
Re: Defoe
I think it would be helpful for you both to include an 'examples' section on your site to display the fruits of your labor (w links to the FOs that generated them!). On Oct 29, 2004, at 5:02 AM, Victor Mote wrote: Peter B. West wrote: I've started a blog as a diary of Defoe development and, at the moment, my learning experiences with Java 5.0, especially Typesafe Enums and Generics. If you drop in there from time to time, you can see what I am up to. Have you considered one for FOray? I actually spent some time on your blog yesterday, and I think it is probably useful for the kind of work that you are doing. My work is much more mundane, and, between commit logs and project documentation and announcements, a blog would be pretty redundant for me (although the commit log will be more useful when we are using Subversion). Probably the closest thing to a blog that I have is: http://www.foray.org/release.html I haven't really craved the 5.0 features yet, but did finally decide a few days ago to use 1.4 as a minimum, primarily to eliminate preprocessing (developer productivity) and to use assert. Victor Mote Web Maestro Clay -- Clay Leeds - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webmaster/Developer - Medata, Inc. - http://www.medata.com/ PGP Public Key: https://mail.medata.com/pgp/cleeds.asc
RE: Defoe
Clay Leeds wrote: I think it would be helpful for you both to include an 'examples' section on your site to display the fruits of your labor (w links to the FOs that generated them!). That is a good idea. The FOray web site started out thinking of itself as an extension of the FOP website (and therefore referring to it for basics like example), and it still has that perspective. Changing that to a turnkey operation is one of the reasons FOray 0.2 has been delayed. Victor Mote
Re: Defoe
I'd meant to comment on this before, but was hoping for a little discussion from other FOP committers. Perhaps I was waiting until the body got even 'colder'... Speaking for myself, I want to be clear that I (and I assume others) feel very fortunate to have had the benefit of the work of Peter B. West on the alt.design portion of FOP. With the possibility of Peter moving on to work with Defoe, I just wanted to thank you personally, Peter, for your hard work and always welcome (IMHO) contributions. Glen's lead off below (jokingly 'not waiting until the body is cold...' as it were) is probably an appropriate course of action to take (although I would've tried to find a way to sugar-coat it ;-)). But I want to be clear, that (at least in my eyes) Peter (and for that matter Victor and other inactive committers) are welcome--nay encouraged--to comment and contribute to FOP development now and in the future. Web Maestro Clay On Oct 23, 2004, at 12:11 PM, Glen Mazza wrote: Best of luck with Defoe! And, ummm, if you could pardon me for not waiting until the body is cold (Well OK...98.3...98.1...97.9--there! Practically an ice cube now... ;), I think we should have the Alt-Design tab moved off the FOP website and on to Defoe's, and place a link instead on our resources page to Defoe. This would help reduce the size of our website and make it easier to modify/maintain, but perhaps more importantly, give visitors to FOP the indication that we're better settled on the architecture of our next release. Glen --- Peter B. West [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: alt-design should probably be noted as a dormant branch, and me as an inactive committer. Peter Web Maestro Clay -- Clay Leeds - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webmaster/Developer - Medata, Inc. - http://www.medata.com/ PGP Public Key: https://mail.medata.com/pgp/cleeds.asc
Re: Defoe
Clay, Thanks for the comments. I would be interested to see the alt-design doco running under the new Forrest regime before it is removed, because I would like to take advantage of your hard work in coming to terms with Forrest. It was difficult to get the documentation working in the original Forrest-based version, and I would like to see if, and how, it can be done in a newer Forrest. Peter
Re: Defoe
I'd be happy to help out! Of course, since it appears to be moving anyway, it might be easier for me to move your documentation to a new forrest install and go from there. Either way, I'm happy to do what I can. (IOW pile it on! :-p) Web Maestro Clay On Oct 28, 2004, at 2:00 PM, Peter B. West wrote Clay, Thanks for the comments. I would be interested to see the alt-design doco running under the new Forrest regime before it is removed, because I would like to take advantage of your hard work in coming to terms with Forrest. It was difficult to get the documentation working in the original Forrest-based version, and I would like to see if, and how, it can be done in a newer Forrest. Peter Web Maestro Clay -- Clay Leeds - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webmaster/Developer - Medata, Inc. - http://www.medata.com/ PGP Public Key: https://mail.medata.com/pgp/cleeds.asc
Re: Defoe
Thanks Clay. Please disregard deeply unworthy comment on a previous message. Peter Clay Leeds wrote: I'd be happy to help out! Of course, since it appears to be moving anyway, it might be easier for me to move your documentation to a new forrest install and go from there. Either way, I'm happy to do what I can. (IOW pile it on! :-p)
Re: Defoe
--- Clay Leeds [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Speaking for myself, I want to be clear that I (and I assume others) feel very fortunate to have had the benefit of the work of Peter B. West on the alt.design portion of FOP. With the possibility of Peter moving on to work with Defoe, I just wanted to thank you personally, Peter, for your hard work and always welcome (IMHO) contributions. Me too. Remember, I nominated and voted for Peter West for XML Graphics chair. I thought he would have represented XML Graphics quite well. I do want to reduce the number of pages on our website though--making it smaller will facilitate getting it translated into Japanese. (Tokyo-based AntennaHouse already has an extensive Japanese language site.) It's too early now, but I'm looking forward to a translated site of our own. Glen
Re: Defoe
On Oct 28, 2004, at 3:21 PM, Glen Mazza wrote: --- Clay Leeds [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Speaking for myself, I want to be clear that I (and I assume others) feel very fortunate to have had the benefit of the work of Peter B. West on the alt.design portion of FOP. With the possibility of Peter moving on to work with Defoe, I just wanted to thank you personally, Peter, for your hard work and always welcome (IMHO) contributions. Me too. Remember, I nominated and voted for Peter West for XML Graphics chair. I thought he would have represented XML Graphics quite well. I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me! :-D I do want to reduce the number of pages on our website though--making it smaller will facilitate getting it translated into Japanese. (Tokyo-based AntennaHouse already has an extensive Japanese language site.) It's too early now, but I'm looking forward to a translated site of our own. Glen I'm looking forward to that release! The more languages we have, the more users we can get (and perhaps, the more code-heavy java developers we can get! w00t!) Web Maestro Clay -- Clay Leeds - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webmaster/Developer - Medata, Inc. - http://www.medata.com/ PGP Public Key: https://mail.medata.com/pgp/cleeds.asc
RE: Defoe
Peter: I too wish you the best of luck with Defoe and with whatever your future FOP involvement may be. One of my motivations with the modularization work was to make room for the competing ideas, mostly yours, to share what could be shared. This may help explain my frustration at your opposition to it (I didn't catch on until too late that your deal was all-or-nothing). At any rate, I wish to make it clear that I have high personal regard for you, and I consider it an honor and privilege to have worked with you. I thought of you a few days ago as I was building (again) a little event system for the FOTree system (in FOray this time). When I built it in FOP head over a year ago, it threw events for end-of-pageSequence and end-of-Document. When I built it on FOray a few days ago, I added an event for end-of-FObj. That way a really eager layout system like yours can grab it and go if it wants to. Its not exactly pull parsing, but it seems like a guy could build his queue from that and do whatever he wants to. That is the theory anyway. It took just a few minutes to implement. I am knee-deep in modularization (again), and although it will be a while before I get there, I am eager to either prove or disprove my theory about using an interface for the grafting of reference areas. I'll try to keep you posted through fop-dev as (or if) I make any progress. I certainly wish you great success with Defoe. Barring all of us working together with one mind (which has I think been well-enough tested), what could be better than to have multiple successful open-source implementations? Victor Mote
Re: Defoe
Victor, Thank you for the compliments. It's interesting to see the development of a multiple approaches, and the strength with which differing views are held. I've started a blog as a diary of Defoe development and, at the moment, my learning experiences with Java 5.0, especially Typesafe Enums and Generics. If you drop in there from time to time, you can see what I am up to. Have you considered one for FOray? Peter Victor Mote wrote: Peter: I too wish you the best of luck with Defoe and with whatever your future FOP involvement may be. One of my motivations with the modularization work was to make room for the competing ideas, mostly yours, to share what could be shared. This may help explain my frustration at your opposition to it (I didn't catch on until too late that your deal was all-or-nothing). At any rate, I wish to make it clear that I have high personal regard for you, and I consider it an honor and privilege to have worked with you. I thought of you a few days ago as I was building (again) a little event system for the FOTree system (in FOray this time). When I built it in FOP head over a year ago, it threw events for end-of-pageSequence and end-of-Document. When I built it on FOray a few days ago, I added an event for end-of-FObj. That way a really eager layout system like yours can grab it and go if it wants to. Its not exactly pull parsing, but it seems like a guy could build his queue from that and do whatever he wants to. That is the theory anyway. It took just a few minutes to implement. I am knee-deep in modularization (again), and although it will be a while before I get there, I am eager to either prove or disprove my theory about using an interface for the grafting of reference areas. I'll try to keep you posted through fop-dev as (or if) I make any progress. I certainly wish you great success with Defoe. Barring all of us working together with one mind (which has I think been well-enough tested), what could be better than to have multiple successful open-source implementations?
Re: Defoe
Best of luck with Defoe! And, ummm, if you could pardon me for not waiting until the body is cold (Well OK...98.3...98.1...97.9--there! Practically an ice cube now... ;), I think we should have the Alt-Design tab moved off the FOP website and on to Defoe's, and place a link instead on our resources page to Defoe. This would help reduce the size of our website and make it easier to modify/maintain, but perhaps more importantly, give visitors to FOP the indication that we're better settled on the architecture of our next release. Glen --- Peter B. West [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: alt-design should probably be noted as a dormant branch, and me as an inactive committer. Peter
Re: Defoe
Fops, I originally thought I was replying to an offline message here. Hence the unusual tone. Peter Peter B. West wrote: Finn, No, it hasn't been made yet. ... Finn Bock wrote: Hi Peter, Did I miss the announcement? http://defoe.sourceforge.net/ regards, finn
Defoe
Hi Peter, Did I miss the announcement? http://defoe.sourceforge.net/ regards, finn
Re: Defoe
Finn, No, it hasn't been made yet. I don't see much point in announcing it until I have a more substantial framework. The other developers are guys who have expressed an interest, but haven't actually become involved yet, so it's all pretty new. I've just set up a blog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/pbw/, but have not had time to bring the alt-design documentation across. NetBeans 4.0beta is still pretty raw, but apart from the evaluation version of JBuilder 2005, it's the only freebie that supports 1.5, so I'm running off CVS versions of that for now. I've mentioned Defoe to Jeremias and to Jrg in passing during other conversations. I don't want to be seen to be distracting Foppers, but it looks as though it's time to let the dev list know. You're doing fabulous work on FOP, btw. I'm jealous of your talent. Peter Finn Bock wrote: Hi Peter, Did I miss the announcement? http://defoe.sourceforge.net/ regards, finn -- Peter B. West http://cv.pbw.id.au/
Defoe
Fopsters, While I haven't wanted to make a fuss about it at this stage, given Finn's question, I guess it's time to let you guys (and Karen ?) formally know that I am in the process of setting up project Defoe on SourceForge. http://defoe.sourceforge.net/ It's alt-design under another name, but it is based on 1.5/5.0/Tiger, so it will be of no direct benefit to FOP in the near future, except as a test-bed for the alt-design processing structure. alt-design should probably be noted as a dormant branch, and me as an inactive committer. Peter
