I'm want to be part of this, I've use tapestry for over two years now and created many J2EE solutions with it. My most recently battle was when I wanted to create a CMS using a WYSIWYG editor called TinyMCE with tapestry and I was stuck until I discover the outputraw component.
Regards, Marcelo Rodrigues Howard Lewis Ship wrote: > > It is certainly an interesting idea. > > I think HIbernate follows a similar approach; they have a Wiki > (Confluence, perhaps) and they "scrape" it to get the packaged > documentation. > > We could look into running a more involved Wiki, perhaps from > tapestry.formos.com. Confluence would be reasonable, as I can get an > open-source project license for any of the Atlassian products. > > The problem with this is oversight; writing a book in any format > consists of a lot of dull work. In an open community its hard to > motivate people, without a direct stake, to do that kind of dull work. > > On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 9:03 AM, Alex Kotchnev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> First of all, I apologize for the long post in advance, I couldn't figure >> out how to make it shorter. >> >> I've been thinking about how much I miss the unborn "T5 in Action" book. >> I >> spoke to Howard a while back and he said that it's unlikely that a new >> revision of the "Tapestry In Action" (from Manning) would happen : >> understandably, he has the framework to worry about, not the books, and >> it's >> unlikely that he'd have 1 year to take away from work and write a book. >> >> Thus, I've been trying to figure out ways to substitute for the missing >> manuscript. Here are my impressions so far: >> >> * The T5 book from PacktPub is a nice intro, but it's out of date and >> it's >> kinda shallow >> * The wiki has some nice content on it, but it's disorganized and a >> little >> too random: you may find something useful on a subject, and then, you >> may >> not >> * The project docs are often quite useful and often times quite deep, but >> they don't have enough examples to put things in context >> * The tutorials are all focused around "getting started", and don't have >> enough substance >> * Finally, the example apps (e.g. JumpStart, t5-acegi example, shams, >> etc) >> are extremely useful; however, (by design) there's little narrative >> surrounding them to explain how and why things work the way they do. >> >> Thus, the bottom line is that one has to hunt down 5 different resources >> (possibly more) to pull together a coherent picture , especially when one >> goes deeper than the "getting started" stage. >> >> Now, I clearly don't know enough about T5 yet to write a book myself (as >> much as that sounds appealing to the ego) and it's unlikely that I could >> possibly dedicate the time and effort to do it all. So, I had the idea >> for a >> while that it would be extremely cool and useful if a bunch of the people >> interested in T5 could get together (incl. myself) and write a book on >> the >> subject. Tim Sweetser jumped in with the idea on the IRC channel that we >> could do a "collaborative online book" : put together a rough outline of >> the potential content (chapter and section-wise), then let users >> contribute >> to the effort by filling in the blanks (with some editorial oversight). >> So, >> if something like this were possible, a bunch of people can get their >> minds >> together, each one contribute a chapter or two and kick off the effort. >> This >> way, each one person can focus on a subset of the problem, describe it in >> sufficient depth (e.g. research the areas that he/she is unfamiliar >> with), >> and not weigh down anyone in particular with an enormous amount of effort >> (such as writing a whole book). >> >> Surveying the landscape, similar things already exist. Tim Sweetser >> mentioned that Django did something like this. I know that Grails has >> quite >> a thorough user manual that covers most of the important areas of the >> framework. I also remember bumping into the PHP manual where people could >> comment and add relevant examples and such. So, in conclusion, this is >> possible, people have definitely done it, and it's HUGE for the community >> around the project. >> >> So, the next question is, how should something like this be done ? >> * The Wiki seems like a no brainer to start with, add the TOC and then >> allow >> people to contribute. The potential problem with it is that code and the >> examples can easily become stale. I know that the examples of the Grails >> user manual are somehow compiled and checked that they run before a new >> version of the manual is published. >> * Another option seems to be putting a bunch of Docbook files in SVN and >> collaborating through SVN to move the book forward. The upside of doing >> something like this is that it gives us an immediate perk of being able >> to >> export a printable version of the book. Downside is that contributing to >> the >> book is not all that easy (e.g. some DocBook knowledge needed, SVN >> access, >> etc) >> * Yet another option could possibly be Google Docs. The upside of this is >> that the learning curve is about 0 and publishing it in some decent >> format >> is easy. The downsides are that possibly can be a PITA to share the doc >> w/ >> the right people >> * Tim mentioned that maybe some kind of CMS would be nice, but at the >> same >> time, it might be a bit of an overkill. >> >> So, in summary, here are a laundry list of requirements: >> * The book should have thorough coverage of the different aspects of >> working >> w/ T5 : from getting started to components and advanced topics (e.g. IoC >> magic) >> * The book should be easy to contribute to - comments, code examples >> * It would be nice if there is a decent printable version >> * It would be great if we can leverage some of the existing resources: >> e.g. >> wiki, example apps, tutorials, etc. >> * It would be nice if we can come up with a way to keep the code in the >> book >> in working order (e.g. if we reference some of the example apps, that >> could >> do wonders in keeping a runnable version of the examples) >> * There should be some structure in the book (e.g. more than just the >> flat >> wiki namespace) >> * There probably should be some editorial oversight to prevent one of the >> known trolls from putting garbage in. >> >> >> So, here come the questions: >> 1. Does this sound like a good idea ? Maybe I don't know the right places >> to >> look or my mind is too shallow to keep them all together... >> 2. Is there an existing place where this effort can be channeled better, >> instead of creating something new ? >> 3. If this could be a new effort (e.g. a project tapestry-doc, maybe??), >> what are any additional requirements for doing it (in addition to some of >> the ones listed above). >> 4. If this is to be done, what's the best way of doing it ? I'll research >> to >> see if I can find out how Django did their, but general feedback & ideas >> on >> the technicalities would be very useful. E.g. how do people collaborate >> best >> on writing a book ? Is there an existing service that might make this >> easier >> ? >> >> Any comments and feedback on any of the topics above would be greatly >> appreciated. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Alex Kotchnev >> > > > > -- > Howard M. Lewis Ship > > Creator Apache Tapestry and Apache HiveMind > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/T5-%3A-Let%27s-write-a-book-%21-tp19146710p19148673.html Sent from the Tapestry - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
