RE: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie
-into tiles. The questions would really be ... where could it be hosted, any articles would need to be vetted but where better than this list, who decides on which howtos to write. OK, resources like theserverside (and many others) already does this kind of thing but most I've read are more like mini books again - nice to read - I've printed 5,000 sheets of paper (to read in the bath) to get up-to-speed over the last 6 months - hence our reason for compiling our own KB. Ok, I've probably bored you now - any comments or anyone else have any comments? Ok, I appreciate this is different to what you're proposing but I'd be prepared to spend an hour a day composing articles on common threads that keep on occurring - once this is up-and-running - admittedly on the stuff I understand on this list - which is about 80%. I'm trying not to duplicate stuff already done - but as a newbie I must state the volume of articles out there is vast and sometimes I'm just trying to get an answer to a question which has been asked before. Yes - I know the mail archives can easily be used for this and there is much more to be learned in following a thread of discussion. When we have an answer - we do try to write this up in a way that may be re-usable - admittedly for our own internal use - but can anyone else see any value in this? Any comments appreciated - including don't reinvent the wheel... H. For and on behalf of Open Action Limited. Orwell House, Cowley Road, Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge, CB4 0PP Tel: +44 (0)1223 500100Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: +44 (0)1223 566023Web: http://www.openAction.net *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* This electronic message contains information from Open Action Limited which may be privileged and confidential. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic message in error, please immediately notify us by replying to the message sender or alternatively to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The views expressed in this message are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Open Action Limited. Open Action Limited reserves the right to monitor any and all e-mail communications using any part of its network. -Original Message- From: Jeff Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 07 March 2003 20:12 To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie Having started the thread, I would be cowardly indeed if I did not offer my time. But being a newbie, my efforts are probably best focused on vetting the implemented solution, rather than writing it. (I just don't know enough about all this stuff yet to contribute much there.) Jefficus - Original Message - From: Van Riper, Mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Struts Users Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 11:56 AM Subject: RE: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie I think the Java Tutorial trail approach would be a good fit for this: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/reallybigindex.html For example, there already is a Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/index.html Similar to this in concept, there could be a Building a webapp with Struts trail. Granted, this may not belong in the reallybigindex maintained by Sun because Struts is under the Apache umbrella. However, it might be time to setup a reallybigindex for an online Apache Tutorial comprised of trails similar to the way trails are used in Sun's online Java Tutorial. Specifically with respect to learning Struts though, there is already a significant amount of online learning material to be found directly or indirectly from here: http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/learning.html Still, I do see the value in having trails that organize some of the online information in various trails to follow through this wealth of information. I'm not sure how to go about initiating such a project at Apache, but, I am willing to volunteer some time to contribute to the creation of a Building a webapp with Struts trail. Does anyone else think this would be a good idea? Anyone else interested in volunteering some time to build a Struts trail? If there is enough interest, I would be glad to setup a separate mailing list for further discussion among interested volunteers on creation of this trail. Thanks, Mike Van Riper mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Simon Kelly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 1:01 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie Jeff you are not alone
[OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie
I have to confess, I'm a newbie. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 20 years, but after dinking around for a few months with ASP, VBScript, PHP and a few other technologies, I decided that Java was the language to build my web apps in. A month ago I was completely cold. Didn't know the first thing about any of this stuff. But I knew I wanted to learn it, so off I went, marching into the high weeds. First I had to learn Java. Then came servlets and JSPs and Tomcat. And along that path I also had to absorb Ant. And JUnit. And Log4J. And then there was a bunch of time lost exploring NetBeans/Eclipse/WebSphere before settling on JEdit as my environment of choice. Then came Struts, and all the various taglibs. An experiment with Cayenne. And Cactus. And god-knows what else I've explored. And through it all, I am continually amazed at the strength and breadth of the resources and support available. And equally frustrated by it. I can never remember where I saw a particular bit of information. So when I finally learn enough to understand what Ted was talking about in his monograph on Connection Pooling, I can't remember where I saw it. And when I want to learn enough about EJBs to figure out if I need to care about them, or if they are relevant to my planned project, I have to wade through another day of voluminous coverage before I have enough of a handle on what they are to make some intelligent guesses about where to look next. My point is that I believe the Apache/Java/Struts/... universe is quickly reaching a point where its very breadth is becoming a barrier to entry for people who don't have a couple of months to devote to bootstrapping themselves. Is there any thought being given to creating a higher-level resource interface that could serve as a single point of reference for all things Apache? (I realize that all things java would be going way too far.) As a simple solution, if every document in the Apache infrastructure had a meta tag that listed the questions answered by the document, then a very powerful, automated FAQ could be maintained. And such a system would make it much easier (I believe) to find things quickly than simply searching the site for key words. This may not be the best (or only) solution, but I do believe that for all the very specific support and discussions there are, there is really very little over-view material to assist newcomers or people looking for information outside of their core area. Or maybe I'm the only one who feels overwhelmed by it all. :-) Jefficus
Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie
Jeff you are not alone in this. I've been at this for six months and have gone through pretty much the same set of problems. The thing with what you are suggesting (and this is only my opinion) is, Who will do it *AND* look after it?. The trouble is (and I have found this through searching the net) the shear volume of papers, documents, examples and postings (150+ per day) that would have to be referenced and collected to make this of any use to people. And I have to say, I DO NOT want the job :-) Cheers Simon - Original Message - From: Jeff Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Struts Users Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 9:05 AM Subject: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie I have to confess, I'm a newbie. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 20 years, but after dinking around for a few months with ASP, VBScript, PHP and a few other technologies, I decided that Java was the language to build my web apps in. A month ago I was completely cold. Didn't know the first thing about any of this stuff. But I knew I wanted to learn it, so off I went, marching into the high weeds. First I had to learn Java. Then came servlets and JSPs and Tomcat. And along that path I also had to absorb Ant. And JUnit. And Log4J. And then there was a bunch of time lost exploring NetBeans/Eclipse/WebSphere before settling on JEdit as my environment of choice. Then came Struts, and all the various taglibs. An experiment with Cayenne. And Cactus. And god-knows what else I've explored. And through it all, I am continually amazed at the strength and breadth of the resources and support available. And equally frustrated by it. I can never remember where I saw a particular bit of information. So when I finally learn enough to understand what Ted was talking about in his monograph on Connection Pooling, I can't remember where I saw it. And when I want to learn enough about EJBs to figure out if I need to care about them, or if they are relevant to my planned project, I have to wade through another day of voluminous coverage before I have enough of a handle on what they are to make some intelligent guesses about where to look next. My point is that I believe the Apache/Java/Struts/... universe is quickly reaching a point where its very breadth is becoming a barrier to entry for people who don't have a couple of months to devote to bootstrapping themselves. Is there any thought being given to creating a higher-level resource interface that could serve as a single point of reference for all things Apache? (I realize that all things java would be going way too far.) As a simple solution, if every document in the Apache infrastructure had a meta tag that listed the questions answered by the document, then a very powerful, automated FAQ could be maintained. And such a system would make it much easier (I believe) to find things quickly than simply searching the site for key words. This may not be the best (or only) solution, but I do believe that for all the very specific support and discussions there are, there is really very little over-view material to assist newcomers or people looking for information outside of their core area. Or maybe I'm the only one who feels overwhelmed by it all. :-) Jefficus - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie
I understand the problem of volume. I'm not suggesting that we try to index the entire internet for all apache-related information. I'm suggesting that we explore a mechanism that ensures that everything hosted directly in the apache infrastructure be tagged at creation/posting time so that an automated FAQ engine can index it on a more meaningful level than a simple key-word search. I call it a key-question search. Imagine the difference between searching the apache site for all documents containing the words logging, ant and config. You would get spanked by the number of hits. But now consider how many responses you would get if you were searching the site for all the QUESTIONS (in that what questions are answered by what documents index) that contained those words. Suddenly your response volumes go way down. Furthermore, the site could tag each document with a Add another question answered by this document feature that would allow people to log the questions they are finding usefully answered by particular documents. Such a system is not particularly complex. And it relies on existing business processes to populate and manage the index, once the comparatively simple engine is integrated. I have created similar systems in the past for integration with help systems in desktop software packages. It allows a corporate user to develop context-specific help for their staff that is more directly relevant to their business and job functions than a developer can possibly hope to anticipate at help-writing time. And when you think about it, one way to view the apache site infrastructure is as a giant help system. Jefficus - Original Message - From: Simon Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Struts Users Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 2:01 AM Subject: Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie Jeff you are not alone in this. I've been at this for six months and have gone through pretty much the same set of problems. The thing with what you are suggesting (and this is only my opinion) is, Who will do it *AND* look after it?. The trouble is (and I have found this through searching the net) the shear volume of papers, documents, examples and postings (150+ per day) that would have to be referenced and collected to make this of any use to people. And I have to say, I DO NOT want the job :-) Cheers Simon - Original Message - From: Jeff Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Struts Users Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 9:05 AM Subject: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie I have to confess, I'm a newbie. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 20 years, but after dinking around for a few months with ASP, VBScript, PHP and a few other technologies, I decided that Java was the language to build my web apps in. A month ago I was completely cold. Didn't know the first thing about any of this stuff. But I knew I wanted to learn it, so off I went, marching into the high weeds. First I had to learn Java. Then came servlets and JSPs and Tomcat. And along that path I also had to absorb Ant. And JUnit. And Log4J. And then there was a bunch of time lost exploring NetBeans/Eclipse/WebSphere before settling on JEdit as my environment of choice. Then came Struts, and all the various taglibs. An experiment with Cayenne. And Cactus. And god-knows what else I've explored. And through it all, I am continually amazed at the strength and breadth of the resources and support available. And equally frustrated by it. I can never remember where I saw a particular bit of information. So when I finally learn enough to understand what Ted was talking about in his monograph on Connection Pooling, I can't remember where I saw it. And when I want to learn enough about EJBs to figure out if I need to care about them, or if they are relevant to my planned project, I have to wade through another day of voluminous coverage before I have enough of a handle on what they are to make some intelligent guesses about where to look next. My point is that I believe the Apache/Java/Struts/... universe is quickly reaching a point where its very breadth is becoming a barrier to entry for people who don't have a couple of months to devote to bootstrapping themselves. Is there any thought being given to creating a higher-level resource interface that could serve as a single point of reference for all things Apache? (I realize that all things java would be going way too far.) As a simple solution, if every document in the Apache infrastructure had a meta tag that listed the questions answered by the document, then a very powerful, automated FAQ could be maintained. And such a system would make it much easier (I believe) to find things quickly than simply searching the site for key words. This may not be the best (or only) solution, but I do believe that for all the very specific support and discussions
RE: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie
I think the Java Tutorial trail approach would be a good fit for this: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/reallybigindex.html For example, there already is a Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/index.html Similar to this in concept, there could be a Building a webapp with Struts trail. Granted, this may not belong in the reallybigindex maintained by Sun because Struts is under the Apache umbrella. However, it might be time to setup a reallybigindex for an online Apache Tutorial comprised of trails similar to the way trails are used in Sun's online Java Tutorial. Specifically with respect to learning Struts though, there is already a significant amount of online learning material to be found directly or indirectly from here: http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/learning.html Still, I do see the value in having trails that organize some of the online information in various trails to follow through this wealth of information. I'm not sure how to go about initiating such a project at Apache, but, I am willing to volunteer some time to contribute to the creation of a Building a webapp with Struts trail. Does anyone else think this would be a good idea? Anyone else interested in volunteering some time to build a Struts trail? If there is enough interest, I would be glad to setup a separate mailing list for further discussion among interested volunteers on creation of this trail. Thanks, Mike Van Riper mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Simon Kelly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 1:01 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie Jeff you are not alone in this. I've been at this for six months and have gone through pretty much the same set of problems. The thing with what you are suggesting (and this is only my opinion) is, Who will do it *AND* look after it?. The trouble is (and I have found this through searching the net) the shear volume of papers, documents, examples and postings (150+ per day) that would have to be referenced and collected to make this of any use to people. And I have to say, I DO NOT want the job :-) Cheers Simon - Original Message - From: Jeff Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Struts Users Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 9:05 AM Subject: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie I have to confess, I'm a newbie. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 20 years, but after dinking around for a few months with ASP, VBScript, PHP and a few other technologies, I decided that Java was the language to build my web apps in. A month ago I was completely cold. Didn't know the first thing about any of this stuff. But I knew I wanted to learn it, so off I went, marching into the high weeds. First I had to learn Java. Then came servlets and JSPs and Tomcat. And along that path I also had to absorb Ant. And JUnit. And Log4J. And then there was a bunch of time lost exploring NetBeans/Eclipse/WebSphere before settling on JEdit as my environment of choice. Then came Struts, and all the various taglibs. An experiment with Cayenne. And Cactus. And god-knows what else I've explored. And through it all, I am continually amazed at the strength and breadth of the resources and support available. And equally frustrated by it. I can never remember where I saw a particular bit of information. So when I finally learn enough to understand what Ted was talking about in his monograph on Connection Pooling, I can't remember where I saw it. And when I want to learn enough about EJBs to figure out if I need to care about them, or if they are relevant to my planned project, I have to wade through another day of voluminous coverage before I have enough of a handle on what they are to make some intelligent guesses about where to look next. My point is that I believe the Apache/Java/Struts/... universe is quickly reaching a point where its very breadth is becoming a barrier to entry for people who don't have a couple of months to devote to bootstrapping themselves. Is there any thought being given to creating a higher-level resource interface that could serve as a single point of reference for all things Apache? (I realize that all things java would be going way too far.) As a simple solution, if every document in the Apache infrastructure had a meta tag that listed the questions answered by the document, then a very powerful, automated FAQ could be maintained. And such a system would make it much easier (I believe) to find things quickly than simply searching the site for key words. This may not be the best (or only) solution, but I do believe that for all the very specific support and discussions there are, there is really very little over-view material to assist
Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie
No, you are right. This is an ongoing problem. The truth is, however, I think, that there is no easy solution. Java is easy enough to learn and open enough to all that there is just a lot there. No way to change that. At 01:05 AM 3/7/03 -0700, you wrote: I have to confess, I'm a newbie. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 20 years, but after dinking around for a few months with ASP, VBScript, PHP and a few other technologies, I decided that Java was the language to build my web apps in. A month ago I was completely cold. Didn't know the first thing about any of this stuff. But I knew I wanted to learn it, so off I went, marching into the high weeds. First I had to learn Java. Then came servlets and JSPs and Tomcat. And along that path I also had to absorb Ant. And JUnit. And Log4J. And then there was a bunch of time lost exploring NetBeans/Eclipse/WebSphere before settling on JEdit as my environment of choice. Then came Struts, and all the various taglibs. An experiment with Cayenne. And Cactus. And god-knows what else I've explored. And through it all, I am continually amazed at the strength and breadth of the resources and support available. And equally frustrated by it. I can never remember where I saw a particular bit of information. So when I finally learn enough to understand what Ted was talking about in his monograph on Connection Pooling, I can't remember where I saw it. And when I want to learn enough about EJBs to figure out if I need to care about them, or if they are relevant to my planned project, I have to wade through another day of voluminous coverage before I have enough of a handle on what they are to make some intelligent guesses about where to look next. My point is that I believe the Apache/Java/Struts/... universe is quickly reaching a point where its very breadth is becoming a barrier to entry for people who don't have a couple of months to devote to bootstrapping themselves. Is there any thought being given to creating a higher-level resource interface that could serve as a single point of reference for all things Apache? (I realize that all things java would be going way too far.) As a simple solution, if every document in the Apache infrastructure had a meta tag that listed the questions answered by the document, then a very powerful, automated FAQ could be maintained. And such a system would make it much easier (I believe) to find things quickly than simply searching the site for key words. This may not be the best (or only) solution, but I do believe that for all the very specific support and discussions there are, there is really very little over-view material to assist newcomers or people looking for information outside of their core area. Or maybe I'm the only one who feels overwhelmed by it all. :-) Jefficus LEGAL NOTICE This electronic mail transmission and any accompanying documents contain information belonging to the sender which may be confidential and legally privileged. This information is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom this electronic mail transmission was sent as indicated above. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or action taken in reliance on the contents of the information contained in this transmission is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete the message. Thank you - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie
Having started the thread, I would be cowardly indeed if I did not offer my time. But being a newbie, my efforts are probably best focused on vetting the implemented solution, rather than writing it. (I just don't know enough about all this stuff yet to contribute much there.) Jefficus - Original Message - From: Van Riper, Mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Struts Users Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 11:56 AM Subject: RE: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie I think the Java Tutorial trail approach would be a good fit for this: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/reallybigindex.html For example, there already is a Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/index.html Similar to this in concept, there could be a Building a webapp with Struts trail. Granted, this may not belong in the reallybigindex maintained by Sun because Struts is under the Apache umbrella. However, it might be time to setup a reallybigindex for an online Apache Tutorial comprised of trails similar to the way trails are used in Sun's online Java Tutorial. Specifically with respect to learning Struts though, there is already a significant amount of online learning material to be found directly or indirectly from here: http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/learning.html Still, I do see the value in having trails that organize some of the online information in various trails to follow through this wealth of information. I'm not sure how to go about initiating such a project at Apache, but, I am willing to volunteer some time to contribute to the creation of a Building a webapp with Struts trail. Does anyone else think this would be a good idea? Anyone else interested in volunteering some time to build a Struts trail? If there is enough interest, I would be glad to setup a separate mailing list for further discussion among interested volunteers on creation of this trail. Thanks, Mike Van Riper mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Simon Kelly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 1:01 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie Jeff you are not alone in this. I've been at this for six months and have gone through pretty much the same set of problems. The thing with what you are suggesting (and this is only my opinion) is, Who will do it *AND* look after it?. The trouble is (and I have found this through searching the net) the shear volume of papers, documents, examples and postings (150+ per day) that would have to be referenced and collected to make this of any use to people. And I have to say, I DO NOT want the job :-) Cheers Simon - Original Message - From: Jeff Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Struts Users Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 9:05 AM Subject: [OT] Learning Curve Management or Confusions of a Newbie I have to confess, I'm a newbie. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 20 years, but after dinking around for a few months with ASP, VBScript, PHP and a few other technologies, I decided that Java was the language to build my web apps in. A month ago I was completely cold. Didn't know the first thing about any of this stuff. But I knew I wanted to learn it, so off I went, marching into the high weeds. First I had to learn Java. Then came servlets and JSPs and Tomcat. And along that path I also had to absorb Ant. And JUnit. And Log4J. And then there was a bunch of time lost exploring NetBeans/Eclipse/WebSphere before settling on JEdit as my environment of choice. Then came Struts, and all the various taglibs. An experiment with Cayenne. And Cactus. And god-knows what else I've explored. And through it all, I am continually amazed at the strength and breadth of the resources and support available. And equally frustrated by it. I can never remember where I saw a particular bit of information. So when I finally learn enough to understand what Ted was talking about in his monograph on Connection Pooling, I can't remember where I saw it. And when I want to learn enough about EJBs to figure out if I need to care about them, or if they are relevant to my planned project, I have to wade through another day of voluminous coverage before I have enough of a handle on what they are to make some intelligent guesses about where to look next. My point is that I believe the Apache/Java/Struts/... universe is quickly reaching a point where its very breadth is becoming a barrier to entry for people who don't have a couple of months to devote to bootstrapping themselves. Is there any thought being given to creating a higher-level resource interface that could serve as a single point of reference for all things Apache? (I
