Why people are so hesitant with Revolution

At the beginning, when I dive into ajaxsearch, I used PSPad as editor. But I quickly understand that echo statements wasn’t enought; So since the version 1.8 of AS, I used Eclipse PDT + Xdebug. And without this kind of iDE and debugger I don’t know how I could deliver AS 1.8 so quickly.

For the code release management I have a local SVN repository on my laptop.
For Js, I still use firebug and web developper firefox plugins.

And as I don’t work in the web IT domain and as I am not a professionnal developper (most part of my time I manage people ,projects and financial stuff), this do reassure everybody on the feasability to use these powerfull tools.

I have installed Aptana, but not really used.

Regarding code documentation ... After a long break, as all the comments of AS are in the code source, I will now know if the code is well documented and if my English is pretty understandable

What is SPKT ? a quick google search give me this definition :
SPKT : Simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant and I am pretty sure that It ’s not linked

Quote from: coroico at Sep 02, 2008, 03:48 PM

What is SPKT ? a quick google search give me this definition :
SPKT : Simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant and I am pretty sure that It ’s not linked

That’s Spket (I corrected my most recent reference to it), see http://www.spket.com/ (it comes as a standalone IDE or as an Eclipse plugin).

What hold me from testing are a number of things
1. Time thats my problem I know its hard to focus when other projects involving 096 are running tru my mind
2. I am looking for a download spot its hard to find I gave up and tryed to get the svn aso now I need a client for mac searchin for that trying lots of them.
3. one installed I am missing the demo content and the snippets I get when installing 096.
4. Just afraid to get lost in the new way of thinking.

If there would be a way to explain me (and others) how things relate to 096 not even realy technical but just like" a in 096 is similar to b in revolution"
also in all projects I make I need to custom build / adapt snippets plugins etc. now I just know how the old db api and api works I have to start over again in learning the new way of thinking. I love to do that I have some problems 1 is I am dislectic (however you right that) I have ADHD (not that I am hiding behind that but it takes a lot of energy to read and focus, even with Ritalin) and English is not my first language that makes it even harder to understand the more technical English.
I know that most of the above does not relate to anyone else but this is why I find it hard to start testing revolution.

Better would be If there are people close to me (like in my city) that likes to dive into this on a regular basis with me, that way I can stay focust longer and learning together goes way better for me that alone.

So that are the blockages I walk against

Dimmy

lolo,

1.) I had to search forums to find a link to the download area. I didn’t see it on the regular pages.
2.) Installation is/was seems/seemed to be targetting a more "geeky" crowd.
3.) I’m too lazy to build templates and what not to get something up and going.
4.) I’m having installation problems on my home machine. (this is what stopped me a few alphas back too.)

Yes, I know this is alpha-ware but ... I figured I’d throw in a few thoughts.

Actually, I really want to see what is going on!!!

How about a demo area?

Why people are so hesitant with Revolution?

Hi, This is my opinion;

There are three group of MODx users:
Group1 : The site builders and designers. they are not programmer or do not like to program in MODx.
Group2 : The users who know coding, they are not advanced programmers but love it in MODx [like me ].
Group3 : and Advanced programmers.


For Group1, Revo is only an in-development version and it is not interesting for them because Evolution is stable and (more beautiful) with a lot of addons and Revo almost has not so they are waiting for final release to start using.
I think if Revo has a default site after install is very good. a site with some documents for showing and introducing new features such as contexts, symlinks, tags, components and etc in action. it gets a playground to users to find out migrating to Revolution.

For Group2, programming in Revo is intricate! I(at least) have no experience in MVC and advanced OO programing so need more time to get familiar to it.
near 2 years ago, when i installed MODx as first CMS, i only knew HTML and even hadn’t heard about PHP and CSS. I worked with MODx, i learned CSS by working on MODx templates and learned PHP for using addons better. I learned using MODx APIs from wiki, the API documentation in wiki with usage example is very suitable for starting coding by users like me. this means MODx is enough lovely to try learning and understanding it.
There is no place like wiki for Revo. xPDO and modX documentations confuse me
Splittingred’s blog is good but is only an introducing and less. now i am reading Revo manager and processors codes as example of using xPDO in action. summary Revo needs more tutorials to involve users. Revo coding is stronger and there is no reason to not use it IF users learn it.

And For Group3, nothing. they are enjoying now!






I reviewed MODx Next board topics titles briefly, this board has 155 topics. I calssified topics and got results below:

29.03% of topics are about Using Revolution and problems while working.
25.80% of topics are about Understanding Revolution and getting info.
19.35% of topics are about Reporting bugs and problems. it can be part of Using because happens while using.
12.90% of topics are about Introducing Revolution and it’s parts and features.
6.45% of topics are about Installing issues.
6.45% of topics are about Suggesting and ideas for Revelation.



this stat tells that:

Using: Revo USERs are most of board users, so near 1/3 of board users are using Revo and have been involved.
Understanding: 1/4 of board users try to UNDERSTANDing Revo and the 25% shows that Revo has created many questions for users OR has not been introduced well and tutorials are not enough. these kind of topics are average in board and decreased in recently board pages.
Reporting: 1/5 of boards are bug reporting. reporting bugs shows that Revo growing is vary important for users. the 20% means that new version is very beloved.
Introducing: 1/8 of topics are introducing. I think 12% is less.
Installing: it is about 1/15 of topics and tells nothing
Suggesting: the less percents here tells that Revo is great and a lot of thoughts and ideas are behind of it so it’s not easy to give new idea only by testing.



and finally 155 topics among a lot of topics in all forums tells that users are using Evolution and Revo needs to display it’s better features to knock out Evo!



Good luck REVOLUTION developers!

Wow you did your homework there... I think this sums things up pretty well though I am not so sure about interpreting statistics, a hard exercise but nonetheless food for thoughts...

resurrecting an old thread here, but i think it’s important.

i’m as keen to see revolution released asap as everyone else, and i’m happy enough to do some coding too, the problem for me though is that there isn’t clear enough design documentation (or if there is, i haven’t found it). also, issues in jira don’t have any indication of how they should be solved.

if i have a couple of hours free, and want to do something constructive, i want to be able to easily dip into jira, work on a bug fix/new feature/whatever, and contribute it back. but it’s not as easy as that.

i appreciate that with only a handful of developers working on the code it might seem to make more sense to concentrate on coding instead of documenting, but i think that by making it easy for people to contribute, more people will be encouraged to do so. i’m sure i could chat to you guys on irc about development issues, but we’re in different timezones and it might not be convenient.

what i’m suggesting is that we spend a bit of time setting things up to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute. if i could check jira and see a bug, and it had a description of the issue along with a top-level suggestion (or detailed instructions) of how to fix it, i’d feel confident spending time working on it, and that the way i fixed it was inline with the overall design goals.

occasionally revolution has changed its course while i’ve been monitoring it, which has discouraged me because i don’t want to spend time working on something that isn’t going to make it into the code.

surely i can’t be alone in feeling like this amongst the community - and this may lead to the perception that people just want to take instead of contribute, when in actual fact, it’s (in my perception) too difficult to contribute.

any thoughts?

Good points. I’ve often felt the same way myself.

Quote from: redman at Jan 24, 2009, 06:13 AM

the problem for me though is that there isn’t clear enough design documentation (or if there is, i haven’t found it).

I agree 100%; the problem is I am terrible at producing useful design artifacts. I think some kind of collaboration is essential to solve this problem; someone with interest and skills in interpreting my abstract descriptions and turning them into useful documentation would be invaluable to the project at this point. That person has just never materialized.

That said, I will do my best to produce some useful artifacts to help resolve this situation as best I can in the meantime.

Quote from: redman at Jan 24, 2009, 06:13 AM

also, issues in jira don’t have any indication of how they should be solved.

I agree it would be nice if everyone submitted solutions with their problems, but is that realistic? Even I don’t know how I’m gonna solve something until I get into the process of researching, refactoring and testing.

Quote from: redman at Jan 24, 2009, 06:13 AM

i appreciate that with only a handful of developers working on the code it might seem to make more sense to concentrate on coding instead of documenting, but i think that by making it easy for people to contribute, more people will be encouraged to do so. i’m sure i could chat to you guys on irc about development issues, but we’re in different timezones and it might not be convenient.

Forums, IRC, IM, Skype, Crucible code reviews, whatever it takes; I still say collaboration is essential whatever the form it takes, and we have the tools available. We just need the willingness of more folks to get intimately involved more frequently.

Quote from: redman at Jan 24, 2009, 06:13 AM

what i’m suggesting is that we spend a bit of time setting things up to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute. if i could check jira and see a bug, and it had a description of the issue along with a top-level suggestion (or detailed instructions) of how to fix it, i’d feel confident spending time working on it, and that the way i fixed it was inline with the overall design goals.

This problem goes back to collaboration (even if in the Jira comments) and the conveying of design goals; once we resolve that I think this is less of an issue. Let’s focus on solving the central design conveyance issue, as I believe that is a more important and tangible goal.

Quote from: redman at Jan 24, 2009, 06:13 AM

occasionally revolution has changed its course while i’ve been monitoring it, which has discouraged me because i don’t want to spend time working on something that isn’t going to make it into the code.

Voice your concerns over whatever refactorings are going on and we’ll be glad to address that head-on. As this is pre-initial release of this product (I consider this a complete rewrite), I’d rather have all major refactorings done before beta release, and this is why some bigger changes have been taking place. This will stabilize a little in this release cycle, and even more as the releases mature past the first few.

Quote from: redman at Jan 24, 2009, 06:13 AM

surely i can’t be alone in feeling like this amongst the community - and this may lead to the perception that people just want to take instead of contribute, when in actual fact, it’s (in my perception) too difficult to contribute.

No, you are spot on with your observations and I’m sure they will help us create a more productive environment for contributors. Thanks for voicing these thoughts.

One thing I’ve discovered is that by trying to port existing sites to Revolution, I inevitably run into bugs when I try to do things that haven’t been tried by the developers. In trying to discover how to fix the bugs before reporting them, I’m gradually learning how Revo works. I’m not at a point where I could do serious coding on the Revo core, but little by little I’m getting closer.

One thing that the main developers could to do that might help bring people along is to post comments on Jira suggesting where the problem code is likely to be found with hints about what needs to change, then wait a while before fixing the problem (for non-critical bugs).

Having been on the other side of the fence, I know the feeling of "I can fix this a whole lot faster than I can tell someone else how to fix it." Teaching us to fish, however, would have long-term benefits.