[TYPO3-ect] lib/div: last milestone of alpha branch

[Elmar Hinz]

Johnny Peck wrote:

> Nice.  Thank you Elmar.  I refreshed my repo on the 27th but I am going
> to refresh again and play for a bit.  I have a question for you

Guess it's both the same. Now it's an official tag.

> regarding a particular project that is based on lib/div.  I recently
> delivered a project that included lib/div *TER* version, I believe is
> version *.24, but we are already working on upgrades and various (a ton
> it would seem) bugs. Those bugs are not necessarily within lib or div
> though, in fact the only things I have found are generally typos in
> naming or small performance issues that I can't even pin down on lib/div
> to be honest.  The quality of your work is no less than incredible.

Performance wasn't in the focus yet, but is scheduled for beta.

> 
> My question is, should I scratch the lib/div implementation as it
> currently stands and rebuild with the latest SVN tag?  I would like this
> project to mature into using the Beta eventually though we don't really
> have the funding for frequent changes.  Would you recommend using this
> release to do the rebuild?  Our timeline follows.

I would recommend to stay with the alpha branch for running projects and to
work with beta for new ones. 

There will be several changes for the final version of alpha. They are
mainly to enable the "TS configurable action pipeline". If you don't have a
special interest in that, stay with the current version. 

> 
> You mentioned that the timeline for lib/div Beta has changed regarding
> the road map.  I know that timelines are great when planning(or planning
> again) but can become the bane of development very easily even when you
> work non-stop, continuously learning new approaches, etc. The project I
> am about to discuss was nearly 3 months(!) behind schedule, but we won't
> get into client issues too much here.  Do you have a new timeline for
> Beta release or is the ECT still targeting the middle of September?

I will not change the roadmap, but name the delay for each milestone. That
is the best data for you, to estimate the real progress. In open source
development you can't give success garantees for future targtes, only for
the targets already reached. :-)

> 
> Most important, would it be worthwhile for the development of lib/div
> for me to move to use the SVN version for a large project, when our
> timeline for the next release to the customer is about 4-6 weeks?

I don't  exactly understand the sentence. Grammer?

> During this migration, if we get the funding we need, how could we best
> document our work (which, unfortunately, the client wishes to keep quiet
> for some reason or another even after our pleas) and do you have any
> thoughts on the best approach to contribute what we have learned?  Bug
> reports are easy and if we find any I will probably try to fix them
> myself and file them as needed to the bugtracker or just send you a mail
> via this list or directly.

The bugtracker is the better tool to keep the survey. If you find obvious
bugs, like typos, or you can improve performance by making a singleton
somewhere, you can do that directly in the SVN on sourceforge.

> 
> Documentation would be hard due to the non-disclosure issue though in
> reality our work should be GPL'd. I don't want to discuss the issues of
> confidentiality for clients as our work pretty much lays bare her entire
> company processes from tracking employees, receiving products, managing
> and tracking product, moving products, accounting for old or bad
> product, shipping, and interfacing with her accounting systems (a
> networked Intuit accounting situation and then some, ugh!), and a lot
> more.  I understand her decision as her industry is very competitive,
> JIT(just in time) inventory movement is the only option as the product
> is highly perishable, and forecasting inventory requirements is a
> serious advantage to her.  Having this software in the hands of
> competitors would not give her the advantage anymore, thus the situation
> I am in and the basis of her decision which I respect very much.  Given
> enough time though I do think we can convince her otherwise ;).

GPL doesn't request to publish all work. That is no problem. The mayority of
T3 extensions are "private". We only see the "tip of the iceberg" in TER.

> 
> I guess I brought up two points of interest/questions:
> 
> Do you have a new projection for the Beta release and how, given the
> circumstances, can we use our work to contribute thoughtfully?  I
> suppose only we can figure out the second part.

I will focus on the final alpha research now. The migration to beta is
leaded by Joerg. I will support the beta branch, when the alpha research is
done. The alpha-beta migration is diffical point for concrete planning of
customer projects. To many unknown factors. Better stay with alpha for
business plannings. Use the chance to implement your experiences into beta,
so that you get what you need for the next project.

> 
> and...
> 
> Where is the 'Business of TYPO3' mailing list?!? Yarr!!

I asked for something like this monthes ago. To set up something like this
immidiatly brings up many questions of law. Who could deal with that ....?

> 
> I suppose I should contact Micheal Stucki on the second one and start a
> wiki page though I don't know if I could satisfactorily attend to such a
> thing.  Thoughts are welcome and I am sorry, Elmar, for hijacking your
> thread as it would seem.  Please forgive me!
> 
> One small note.. I recently began work on another project that involves
> lib/div (0.0.24 as of yesterday, 0.0.25 today!) and the DAM to deliver
> records to various mediums including Flash/Flex/Adobe AIR using JSON,
> AMFPHP, XML, or a grouping of them for delivery.  I can, and will,
> deliver this work to the TER when it is completed, tested, and well out
> of my 'let's try this scenario for kicks' phase of software development.
> ;)  Don't expect this until the end of the year though, which is looming
> on the horizon :\, once again.  I think I am getting old, just don't
> tell anyone and Elmar, what are you planning for the new year and the
> new focus?  You have been remarking rather regularly about your
> departure.  Do you have another framework in mind?  A new field of
> interest?  Just curious.

When we started the extension coordiantion team I volunteered, to try to get
it rolling, but it's not my mission to lead it for years. It's rather the
coorner of the T3 community with structure that are open, where everbody
takes his piece of the pie without much registration. I need to spend more
time in the next year earning money. With lib/div I did my journeyman's
piece and my investment into the future of T3.


Regards

Elmar