Insight for post-GA

[Drak]

On 30 April 2010 05:30, Paul W. Frields <stickster at gmail.com> wrote:

> * When should we set up our Insight meetings so that we can guarantee
>  attendance from you and other Zikula members starting in the next
>  week or two?
>

The problem for me is I am currently in Nepal which makes participation in
real chats difficult for me.


> * In what ways can we attract not only Zikula but PHP expertise to
>  complement our current group of Python experts in the Infrastructure
>  and Websites teams?
>

I am not entirely sure, this is a problem even we face - the level of PHP
experience in any community based PHP projects is usually very low because
contributors by nature are hobbyists and not professional (trained) PHP
programmers.  I am not sure the kind of users Fedora attracts and how much
they are interested in web applications given Fedora is primarily an
computer operating system.

Our strategy is to raise the bar of the codebase.  Since Zikula's origins
were way back in the PHP 4 days, modern programmers could write off Zikula
1.x at first glance (even though most enterprise patterns are there, but in
procedural code rather than OOP) - so that can be a barrier even for us to
attracting modern talent.  To tackle this, my plan is to produce training
videos, of which I've already completed several - the plan is to give
training on modern PHP programming, step by step, and then use that as a
basis to introduce writing applications in Zikula.

My belief is that by a) raising the bar, and b) providing training to raise
our developer community understanding of modern PHP programming we will be
able to attract more talent.

For us, we can do this directly because our main focus is something written
in PHP - for Fedora, I really don't know how that would be so easy, and as I
said before, if you look around at most community based PHP projects, the
level of understanding of PHP is generally quite low which is maintained by
the fact they often have large userbases and cannot afford to break
backward-compatibility, thus perpetuating poor quality (old PHP4 code has
lots of dependencies due to lack of OO design and is therefor difficult to
comprehend and further develop).

>From my own experience, enthusiasm is something that breeds from seeing
amazing.  If we (Zikula people) can just give you the all signing bells and
whistles for Insight first, then that will surely inspire people.
 Unfortunately, the Insight project seems to have dragged on and possibly
there is less enthusiasm because of this.  It's must easier to get to
understand Zikula from a fully working example.

Objectively speaking, Zikula is flat out, one of the most powerful web
application platforms in existance and really does provide a 'full-stack'.
 The level of customisability is beyond anything of other competitors and
the truth is, mostly all Zikula is missing is a UI to that advanced
customisability.  Modules like Pagemaster are actually a one stop shop for
just about anything you could ever want to do on the web.  Once you guys
have a kickass system and once your people start using it, it will surely
breed enthusiasm and interest, which is the first step to raising the bar.
 When I joined OSS some 10 years ago, I didnt know the first thing about
PHP, but it was the enthusiasm for what I saw was possible that drove me to
learn more.  I think this is surely a starting point for bringing more PHP
talents to the project.

Anyway, I think I might have digressed :-P


> We have ideas for milestones we'd like to set.  You'll see them in our
> meeting minutes:
>
>  * AGREED: We should take Drak up on his offer, set up our weekly
>    Insight meeting at a time where he can participate, and then work
>    toward a June 15th milestone. At that point, anyone should be able
>    to type in "fedoraproject.org/insight" into a web browser and see
>    the latest FWN issue and get to any archives we have available at
>    that point.  (stickster, 18:39:35)
>

I have talked with Mateo about taking on this responsibility because Mateo
has an unusual combination of talents.  Not only is he an awesome programmer
but he's a highly talented web designer with professional HTML/CSS skills
(usually you either program or design, but never both).  Mateo is in a
more amenable timezone (Columbia) so he should be able to attend meetings
more easily.  Mateo will probably not be available for a week due to moving
house, but I think he would be the best option for you guys to push Insight
into production.

 * AGREED: 30 days following we have a way to (1) promote a Planet
>    story to a separate Insight feed without having to copy/paste or
>    retype it, and (2) both this content stream and the FWN can be
>    visible/RSS at once  (stickster, 18:51:14)


 Piece of cake ;-)

Drak
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