Category Programming

LinuxTag 2003: Doc Web App – "Give it a try"

Sandro Groganz Leave a comment

Rasmus is in favour of a Web app for the PHP documentation group. “Let’s give it a try”, he said at the PHP documentation group meeting at LinuxTag. Christian from Bitflux and me will see how the Bitflux Editor Next Generation can be used for Mozilla-based online translation of the manual inside of a Web app that fits the workflow requirements of the PHP documentation group (sepcifically the synchronisation of CVS and documentation Web app).

UPDATE

Just talking to Goba at LinuxTag, he sits next to me (hi :). These are the points we have to take care of:

– URLs are referenced with entities anywhere in the DocBook XML, see http://cvs.php.net/co.php/phpdoc/entities/global.ent?login=2&r=1.120

– some more entities are used for ready made paragrpahs (e.g. “This function is experimental…”), see http://cvs.php.net/co.php/phpdoc/en/language-snippets.ent?login=2&r=1.55

– taking a look at Livedocs, we should take care that we use the css definition attributes created by the PHP parsing the DocBook XML to format output in BXE NG

– browsing in the document is provided via Livedocs ToC. The idea is that translators choose a page from the ToC, and click on “edit” at the page. Then BXE NG will pop up an everything will be fine 🙂

UPDATe

Christian has a blog entry on this topic, too.

Prevayler OO DB

Sandro Groganz Leave a comment

From the Prevayler Web site [1]:

“Prevayler is the most reliable Free Software Prevalence layer we are capable of providing for Java.”

“With Prevalence we are finally free to create true object servers and use objects the way they were intended all along.

We are able to use any algorithm, data-structure and query language we please. We are no longer constrained to the ones provided by database and application servers which must run on disk data-blocks.

We believe the whole OO community is finally free to recover from the atrophy caused by database and application server restraints. We no longer have to distort and maim our object models to satisfy their limitations.

We no longer have DBAs imposing us database layout restrictions. We have freed them to do something more useful.

We have set fire to the table-models on our walls. We have deleted our database creation scripts. We no longer have to keep them updated.

We no longer have to license, install, configure and maintain a database and application server every single time we want to develop, demonstrate or deploy our systems for any of our clients. Give us a Java VM and we are good to go.”

via Reto Bachmann-Gmuer, private email

[1] http://www.prevayler.org/

PEAR::OAI 0.4.0 Released

Sandro Groganz Leave a comment

The latest release of PEAR::OAI has just been announced [1].

PEAR::OAI is a PHP class library for the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting [2]. This library provides a Server (= Repository) and in the future also a Client (= Harvester) interface. This package is conformant to and makes use of PEAR [3] classes.

[1] http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=288894
[2] http://www.openarchives.org
[3] http://pear.php.net

Interop and Unified Content

Sandro Groganz Leave a comment

The Java Specification Request 170 [1], which defines a uniform application programming interface (API) for access to content repositories, might be a way to go for Open Source Content Management interoperability [2]?

Some analysts say that “June 2003 will see a reshuffling in the content management industry with final adoption of the Java Specification Request 170 (JSR 170) standard” because it addresses the main problem of CMS:

” Web applications such as Web sites, portals, shops or catalogues interact with content. These are held in content repositories, which are generally part of a content management system. The e-business sector has been faced with major challenges, because each CMS manufacturer uses its own repository API. It is not easy to exchange applications (for example, a database conforming to SQL), so integrators are forced to master various APIs, work with different application developers such as portal manufacturers, and adapt their products to a very wide range of APIs. This situation is not satisfactory for customers either – once you’ve decided on a content management system, it’s not easy to change your mind.” [3]

[1] http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=170&showPrint
[2] http://blog.bitflux.ch/p625.html
[3] http://www.serverworldmagazine.com/monthly/2003/01/java.shtml

Hacking and Refactoring

Sandro Groganz Leave a comment

Eric S. Raymond on the correlations between open source and agile software development:

“Ever since, though, I’ve been sensing a growing convergence between agile programming and the open-source movement. I’ve seen agile concepts and terminology being adopted rapidly and enthusiastically by my colleagues in open-source-land – especially ideas like refactoring, unit testing, and design from stories and personas. From the other side, key agile-movement figures like Kent Beck and Martin Fowler have expressed strong interest in open source both in published works and to me personally. Fowler has gone so far as to include open source on his list of agile-movement schools.”

“I’ve already given an example of what the agile movement has to teach the hackers, in pointing out that repeated redesign by refactoring is a precise description of hacking. Another thing we can stand to learn from agile-movement folks is how to behave so that we can actually develop requirements and deliver on them when the customer isn’t, ultimately, ourselves.”

[1] http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/[…]