"Extra" developers would benefit from a partner, and from a "review board."

I'm not sure where to post this, so I'll post it here and one of the moderators can move it if necessary.

This is open source, and we're all human. "Stuff" happens. Our lives take twists and turns. We have good intentions, but are unable to complete a task or follow through. It's reality.

Knowing that, I would like to suggest that when someone wants to make an "Extra", that they find a partner. This shares the load, and allows one person to keep going while "stuff" happening may be stopping the other partner. I know it's easier to work solo. (I have worked as a developer both in teams and solo, and I know I prefer solo.) But look at the "Extras" that are buggy, half-finished, nearly-finished, very promising but just not ready for release yet... it is a problem that denigrates MODX reputation, and wastes the time of unsuspecting web developers that assume that a MODX "official" downloadable Extra will work.

Maybe the Extra developer met their own needs, and the community is clamoring for additional features, and the developer then tries, and fails...and then the development languishes or is abandoned entirely.

Whatever the reason for the problems, Extras (and new versions of Extras) that are not ready should not be offered to the community. So, in addition to the suggestion to take-on a partner in development to greatly increase the odds of completing the Extra, it would be great if there was a submission process, where volunteers could check out the Extra, and perhaps make recommendations as to the minimum features that have to be working before MODX will include the Extra in downloads.

I apologize if this comes off as a rant. The first Extra I tried does not work, and the author appears to have abandoned development. It has been extremely frustrating. I spent a lot of time trying to get it to work. I want to help MODX community, and I am not yet ready/skilled to help in development of either core code or in creating Extras, so what I am able to do right now is testing and suggestions.

Any other thoughts on protocol for Extra development, testing, and whether Extras should be required to be tested before including them in downloads?

Dennis Leahy

What extra did you try? There may be other more actively supported extras that do much the same thing. And it's not unusual for a community member to be interested in "orphaned" extras and take it on to further develop it.

mxCalendar 1.1.10-pl

..and I should add, it looks like a tremendous events calendar, when someone gets it working.

Dennis

As far as I am aware Charles is still supporting mxCalendar and the last update to it was only 4 months ago and his last forum post for that addon was only a month ago, did you try asking for support it the mxCalendar forum ? http://forums.modx.com/board?board=272

Quote from: paulp at Apr 25, 2014, 06:35 PM

As far as I am aware Charles is still supporting mxCalendar and the last update to it was only 4 months ago and his last forum post for that addon was only a month ago, did you try asking for support it the mxCalendar forum ? http://forums.modx.com/board?board=272

Hi Paul.

Yes, I did try in that forum, about 4 weeks ago: mxCalendar: partially working?

Dennis

Dennis,

Your plight is not unheard of. I don't think we can enforce a requirement for partnership. I think the best case is to employ ratings and reviews like you might see in the various book and application websites and marketplaces around the world. We do want to have the possibility for adoption for abandoned Extras as well we want to ensure that developers have links to their issues or an email. If extras are unsupported for x period of time, we may opt to put a warning on it. If people commented on it that it was no longer working, you'd know not to use it. If not corrected in short order we could ultimately remove it for abandonment.

On readiness, I think all we can do is create guidelines and enforce through the creation process with a combination of requirements and policy. With all the important work to be done inside the MODX company and in the community relating to documentation, events and etc. I don't know if people would be interested in reviewing Extras to see if they work before they can be published. In addition, it would require some form of guidelines and rules for the reviewing committee. We could suggest to people that they package it and have a friend or ask a colleague to make sure it works.

On your specific issue with mxCalendar, I know Charles and he's busy, however, his extras, as far as I know, are not abandoned but perhaps in need of attention. I've used a number of his extras and they've worked well. He's still in the MODX community and still works regularly with MODX.

We are definitely interested in making the Extras better and soon.

All the best,

Jay

Thanks, Jay.

A rating system is a good idea, but I have to admit, I am very reluctant to click "unlike" after all the hard work to get that particular Extra to that point. I don't really "unlike" it - that's not fair; it's closer to "I love it!" (if all of it worked.)

I see what you're saying about the difficulty in setting up any sort of guidelines and enforcing them, but rather than a partner being a "requirement", I am simply recommending it. For some Extras, a partner would be ridiculous - the programmer may have an idea, and hammer out the code much faster than they could even explain it to someone else. However, for an Extra with a number of bells and whistles, a partner could mean the difference between "almost" and "wonderful!"

Another consideration is the percentage of MODX users likely to need a specific Extra. For example, the Pet Clinic Template is a narrow niche, whereas the incorporation of CKEditor into a site is wide. So, Extra authors embarking on an Extra that is likely going to have broad use may also benefit from a partner (unless, again, the code for the Extra is whiz-bang simple for a coding wizard to whip out. Some things are brilliantly simple; some things are brilliant and complex.)

Dennis

I don't know if people would be interested in reviewing Extras to see if they work before they can be published

This was something that was discussed a couple of years ago and the overall opinion was that it wouldn't work, however I was a reviewer for skins submitted on a IPB forum and that worked very well ( they also did it for the extras ).

In my opinion it would improve the quality of the extras submitted and should be done, I'd be happy to help test them.

I think at the time we previously discussed it it was also regarding the documentation ( IE: proper documentation when submitting a extra ) which may have been the downfall of testing before appearing in the package manager, however the documentation has vastly improved so maybe this is something that could be addressed again ?

same opinion here, I think a rating system could help prevent wasting time on not working exras, but as I mainly get extras trough the package manager, it would be nice if we could also rate and maybe even comment there (not just like/dislike, but stars maybe?). That information could then be used for the extras repository to create these warnings etc.

I like the idea of a more descriptive rating system (rather than the binary thumbs up or thumbs down), and especially if we could comment. That way, if something worked but has a perceived deficiency, the next guy would know specifically what functionality was seen as missing (or non-working) and that particular feature may not be a deal breaker for another website.

If not a strict policy of pre-testing "Extras", how about a group of volunteers that would test new Extras? Authors could then voluntarily submit their new Extra to this group before publishing. Once tested, the Extra could then be published along with the specific version number that had been tested and found to be working. Nothing would appear if the Extra was not (yet) tested.

So, instead of this:



If tested, maybe we would see this:



And, if tested AND rated, maybe we would see this:



Dennis

p.s. What does the "SOLID" insignia represent?