Re: Entity engine, "many" relations, foreign keys

[David E Jones]

On Dec 4, 2007, at 3:07 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Ah well, "undocumented" is probably not the right word given that we all have the source. Perhaps "hidden" might be better? But no, that would imply the intent to hide something which is surely not the case. Perhaps

"unpublished"?


feature that went un-noticed by me after looking through all the
documentation and a substantial part of the source code, including the
documentation in the link you provided.  Someone added this feature,

existance.

This is all tongue-in-cheek David. My point is that here is a really cool apparently a couple of years ago, but did not take the 5 minutes to note its

You think that's all it takes? Then why don't you do it? ;)

It is a simple matter to request that submitters provide at least minimal documentation for new features that the committers can then include in the base documentation, especially in the entity and widget and other "engines".

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBTECH/Framework+Introduction+Videos+and+Diagrams

I'm pushing 80 hours a week trying to stay on top of earning a living and doing what little I can to keep OFBiz moving. Why should I also take on the responsibility of speculatively training every possible user? Oh wait, I did that, but in order to afford my own over-encumbered time it is only available for a charge, and yes this and much more information is in it, hence this link: Follow the link to the more complete package, that's just an introduction.

There is no value in any software if the implementer has to spend countless hours experimenting and digging through source code to implement some new

feature, fun as such an exercise may be.

Oh yeah, then why does OFBiz exist with NO central organization that sponsors it and pays people to work on it? Why do so many people use it in spite of this fatal weakness?

And who sez that "Documented features are somewhat the exception, not the norm." in open source software. I can point you to scads of open source software with excellent documention, and some of it used by Ofbiz itself

(ftl and tomcat come instantly to mind).

Did I say that was the norm for open source software?

Again to paraphrase Johnny Depp in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: "you're funny".

Also, have an overview look at the most successful open soure projects. All (that I know of) are very well documented. The success of any open source project is determined by its committers and the quality of their code. The more committers, the more successful the project becomes. You get more

committers with good documentation.

Wouldn't that be nice! I may have a jaded view, but I think marketing and such have a stronger effect when it comes to mass adoption. I really agree though that more committers and good code quality are important for a community-driven project. This might seem funny, but I don't agree that good documentation attracts more committers. If people can stay distanced from the project and be only a consumer and not a collaborator, many will just do that and not see the value in learning more about the software or contributing to it.

This is not so say that Ofbiz documentation is bad. It's just not as good

(read that complete) as it could be with a few policy changes.

No thanks, I'd like OFBiz contributions to increase, not decrease.











-David

Policy changes? You mean don't accept contributions without full documentation? Are you saying you'd rather this feature did NOT exist, than to exist with documentation that doesn't meet your standards? BTW, my opinion on docs: forget them, they are slow and in efficient, I want to look at the XSD file and see what exists as it's way faster and usually my XML editor looks up the options and their in-line docs for me. And where do you see yourself in this picture Skip? A critic and user who is outside the community and can help most effectively by complaining? Something else? How do the people behave who are contributor-users of OFBiz, ie the ones that have created all the stuff you are complaining about? If I had $50 million in the bank and wanted to create something like you are dreaming about then maybe it would exist... but it's not that way... I'm just a broke programmer and business analyst working with others to create something that is cool and useful for all of us involved, and as unencumbered as possible so that it remains that way and makes a difference in the world. Nothing personal about you, BTW, lots of people misunderstand what a community-driven software project means. I think it's mostly because of the mountains of manure that "open source" companies push on the world, ie the ones with traditionally developed products that are partially open source (dual-licensed, etc, etc) for the sake of marketing.

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