API?
Rolo D. Monkey
systems. I keep hearing about ColdSpring, but the website is not
impressive. There are numerous broken links. The content that is
available is sparse and often out-of-date. The most glaring problem
is a ColdFusion error page when I try to access the API.
Let me know when you have fixed these problems and then I will take
another look at ColdSpring.
Dan Wilson
Thank you for taking the time to post to the mailing list. We apologize for the sad state of the ColdSpring website. Clearly the ColdSpring guys are more interested in spending all the money received from ColdSpring software licenses on beer and fast women and haven't properly allocated the funds/resources needed to keep the website in proper working order. This is regrettable. Let me assure you there are certainly less bugs in the ColdSpring framework than on the website.
Your usage and impression of the ColdSpring framework is key. We really regret the unfavorable position presented by the egregious mismanagement of the ColdSpring web properties and resources. I'll assign someone right away to fix the problems you mentioned. When they are fixed, would you please reconsider the ColdSpring framework?
I've taken your name, email and number. Once we get everything back up to your standards, I'll be sure and contact you.
Idiot.
DW
"Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew."
Guillaume Apollinaire quotes
Rolo D. Monkey
that maintains ColdSpring, then believe me, I won't be bothering you.
On Apr 17, 3:56 pm, "Dan Wilson" <sipac...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Rolo.
>
> Thank you for taking the time to post to the mailing list. We apologize for
> the sad state of the ColdSpring website. Clearly the ColdSpring guys are
> more interested in spending all the money received from ColdSpring software
> licenses on beer and fast women and haven't properly allocated the
> funds/resources needed to keep the website in proper working order. This is
> regrettable. Let me assure you there are certainly less bugs in the
> ColdSpring framework than on the website.
>
> Your usage and impression of the ColdSpring framework is key. We really
> regret the unfavorable position presented by the egregious mismanagement of
> the ColdSpring web properties and resources. I'll assign someone right away
> to fix the problems you mentioned. When they are fixed, would you please
> reconsider the ColdSpring framework?
>
> I've taken your name, email and number. Once we get everything back up to
> your standards, I'll be sure and contact you.
>
> Idiot.
>
> DW
>
Charlie Griefer
>
> If this puerile attempt at humor is representative of the community
> that maintains ColdSpring, then believe me, I won't be bothering you.
and who loses out?
seriously. dan may have come across as just a tad sarcastic, but his
points remain valid. ColdSpring is an amazing time-saving tool that
the authors and contributors make available to the community at the
expense of their own time, and they ask for nothing in return.
personally, i'd prefer that they focus their energies on the product,
rather than worrying about the state of the web site. in an ideal
world, sure. the web site would be up to date and answer every
question imaginable. in the real world, there are only so many hours
in the day.
if the web site doesn't answer all of your questions, i think you'll
find a very responsive community right here. but when you make a
statement like "Let me know when you have fixed these problems and
then I will take another look at ColdSpring.", i think you're asking
for a response drenched in sarcasm. are you actually suggesting that
the authors and contributors stop the work that they're doing in order
to fix the web site simply to appease you? c'mon.
whether or not you look at ColdSpring is obviously your choice. but
let's all be very clear about who loses out if you choose not to.
--
Evelyn the dog, having undergone further modification pondered the
significance of short-person behaviour in pedal depressed,
pan-chromatic resonance, and other highly ambient domains. "Arf," she
said.
Jared Rypka-Hauer
and, well, it sucks. All anyone had to say was "You know, you're
right, but we just don't have time to do anything about it right
now." Followed with an explanation of the fact that everyone involved
has full-time jobs and works on ColdSpring as a labor of love for the
community, it would have given Rolo an opportunity to perhaps get
involved.
It's not like we have so much power and money that we can afford to
be turning people off... in fact "we" don't exist, per-se, and we
certainly dont have any money as a collective. So we need volunteers.
Rolo, just let me say that Dan's response isn't typical of the
community and your feedback is appreciated. I can't really apologize
for anyone on anyone else's behalf, but let me say that most of us
aren't snide and crass and actually care about the impression that we
make on n00bs. I understand that your first impression of anything is
the site involved and that the site for ColdSpring doesn't represent
the framework particularly well.
If the site is any reflection of the framework, then the framework
must be unfinished and crappy, right? It's not true, really, but
arguably the site does suck... we just don't have the resources to do
much about it right now. There are MANY blogs and other resources for
CS out there if you want to take the time to look for them. People
here can certainly help you find any information you might need.
I hope you'll consider it, because CS can really make a difference in
your development efforts.
Laterz,
J
On Apr 17, 2008, at 3:08 PM, Charlie Griefer wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Rolo D. Monkey <ro...@irolo.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> If this puerile attempt at humor is representative of the community
>> that maintains ColdSpring, then believe me, I won't be bothering
>> you.
>
> and who loses out?
>
> seriously. dan may have come across as just a tad sarcastic, but his
> points remain valid. ColdSpring is an amazing time-saving tool that
> the authors and contributors make available to the community at the
> expense of their own time, and they ask for nothing in return. ...
Matt Woodward
<charlie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> seriously. dan may have come across as just a tad sarcastic, but his
> points remain valid. ColdSpring is an amazing time-saving tool that
> the authors and contributors make available to the community at the
> expense of their own time, and they ask for nothing in return.
All good points, but are the points about the web site needing some
attention not also valid? Seems to me all these points could have been
made without jumping down someone's throat and calling them an idiot.
Not a great way to build community.
Don't get me wrong--as someone who spends a lot of hours on open
source projects myself, I totally get the sentiment. I just think the
reaction wasn't warranted at all. Plenty of open source projects get
abandoned and the web sites stay up with, frankly, broken links,
outdated information, etc., not unlike the ColdSpring web site (no
offense Dave and Chris--you guys rock!). From that perspective asking
about the status of the project (which granted, probably could have
been done in a better way) is perfectly legitimate and responding in a
negative way only sheds an even more negative light on the project.
--
Matt Woodward
mpwoo...@gmail.com
http://www.mattwoodward.com
Please do not send me proprietary file formats such as Word,
PowerPoint, etc. as attachments.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
Chris Scott
In fact, there has been an increase in contribution in the past few months, and moving the lists over to google was a first step in re working our community presence. As stated already, these things take time, because the contributers all have full time jobs. But we will get it done. At that time Rolo can take a fresh look at ColdSpring.
-Chris
Charlie Griefer
>
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Charlie Griefer
> <charlie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > seriously. dan may have come across as just a tad sarcastic, but his
> > points remain valid. ColdSpring is an amazing time-saving tool that
> > the authors and contributors make available to the community at the
> > expense of their own time, and they ask for nothing in return.
>
> All good points, but are the points about the web site needing some
> attention not also valid? Seems to me all these points could have been
> made without jumping down someone's throat and calling them an idiot.
> Not a great way to build community.
>
> Don't get me wrong--as someone who spends a lot of hours on open
> source projects myself, I totally get the sentiment. I just think the
> reaction wasn't warranted at all. Plenty of open source projects get
> abandoned and the web sites stay up with, frankly, broken links,
> outdated information, etc., not unlike the ColdSpring web site (no
> offense Dave and Chris--you guys rock!). From that perspective asking
> about the status of the project (which granted, probably could have
> been done in a better way) is perfectly legitimate and responding in a
> negative way only sheds an even more negative light on the project.
Matt -
You're absolutely correct. The points about the web site needing some
TLC are completely valid.
In my (very humble) opinion, the entire first paragraph of the
original post was quite valid. However, wrapping it up with "Let me
know when you have fixed these problems and then I will take another
look at ColdSpring." comes off as slightly confrontational. Had that
last line not been there, I think this thread would have gone in a
completely different (and probably preferred) direction.
Let's all just do a virtual group-hug. Deep, cleansing breaths, and
start fresh.
Peter Bell
Firstly, what are your objectives for your project? Content management
systems, front controller MVC frameworks, and back end frameworks like
ColdSpring are very different things and would not be used to solve
the same class of problems. If you are writing object oriented
applications using ColdFusion, you will want to check out ColdSpring
as it is a Dependency Injection framework. There is lots of publicly
accessible information about what they are and how they work. Also,
unless you plan to manually wire your dependencies or to roll your own
factory or DI engine, I can absolutely guarantee that ColdSpring has
better documentation, a larger community and a better website than the
only other DI project available within ColdFusion :->
Secondly, if you were to invite me over to your house based on a
casual encounter and I was to start by pointing out what horrible
taste you had in decor, the trash in your back yard and the fact that
I thought your family members were extremely ugly, you might be a
little less civil and gracious than I'm sure you would otherwise be.
The comments you made - whether factually accurate or not (hey, maybe
your family *is* ugly) is the equivalent and if you did want to get
help from any open source framework community might not be the most
efficient way to achieve your outcome.
Good luck with the project.
Best Wishes
Peter
Rolo D. Monkey
To answer your question: Who loses out? You do.
If you can't even provide enough information for people to make an
informed decision about your offering, and you respond to someone's
first post in a newsgroup with a flat-out insult. Don't expect people
to join your community and help it grow.
Your website is the first impression many people are going to get
about your product. Since your product is primarily used on the web,
it is doubly important that your website showcases your abilities.
Are you saying that no one has the time to fix the error on you API
pages? In my experience, an API reference is a fundamental part of
any framework and if you are actually working with the application you
should complaining a lot louder than me that you can't access it.
Instead of just moving on, I bothered to point out these problems to
your group. Again, I apologize if my post seemed condescending.
However, Dan decided to turn this opportunity to welcome a new member
into a juvenile insult. I am an active member of many development
communities and I have never seen such behavior from a well-known
representative of said communities.
Dan had a chance to turn a poor impression into a good one. In doing
so, your community would have benefited. Instead, Dan decided to make
my impression worse. Your community does not benefit from his hostile
behavior.
If you think that I am the only one who would lose if I don't
participate, think about how many people might be turning away because
of your website. Think about how many might see Dan's response to my
post and decided not to bother. I may lose a little, but I think you
are losing a lot more.
On Apr 17, 4:08 pm, "Charlie Griefer" <charlie.grie...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Jared Rypka-Hauer
Chris and Dave and Brian and everyone else have done something great,
and the state of the website is pretty much irrelevant to the state
of the framework. The real issue is that it's the first impression
people have an I can just hear them:
If the site reflects the condition of the framework, it can't be good.
We need to get a bit more organized (like Fusebox is) and get a
website committee up and running so it can be taken care of without
Dave or Chris even needing to know what's happening. Volunteers? :D
J
On Apr 17, 2008, at 3:24 PM, Matt Woodward wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Charlie Griefer
> <charlie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> seriously. dan may have come across as just a tad sarcastic, but
>> his
>> points remain valid. ColdSpring is an amazing time-saving tool that
>> the authors and contributors make available to the community at the
>> expense of their own time, and they ask for nothing in return.
>
> All good points, but are the points about the web site needing some
> attention not also valid? Seems to me all these points could have been
> made without jumping down someone's throat and calling them an idiot.
> Not a great way to build community. ...
Brian Kotek
Charlie Griefer
<armcha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I should have made something more clear in my post:
>
> Chris and Dave and Brian and everyone else have done something great,
> and the state of the website is pretty much irrelevant to the state
> of the framework. The real issue is that it's the first impression
> people have an I can just hear them:
>
> If the site reflects the condition of the framework, it can't be good.
>
> We need to get a bit more organized (like Fusebox is) and get a
> website committee up and running so it can be taken care of without
> Dave or Chris even needing to know what's happening. Volunteers? :D
Does it have to be FarCry? nothing against FarCry, I just don't know
it, and don't have the time to learn it at the moment in order to help
out.
Dan Wilson
My post was in poor taste and I speak only for myself, not the community.
While I've got a special weakness as of late for a sense of entitlement that seemingly pervades the Internet and some people feel like much more is owed to them than really is, I could have done better.
ColdSpring is a volunteer based project run by people who sincerely want to help the community. Countless thousands of hours go into making the ColdSpring framework a most excellent tool for managing CFCs, their dependancies and other such important tasks. Like most things offered for free, it isn't perfect.
Regardless, accept my humble apology for my snarky email. I shouldn't have sent it.
DW
Paul Marcotte
If all it takes is an offer to help, then I'm in. Contact me off list and we can hash out the details. ColdSpring has been berry berry good to me. Since contributing to the framework proper is beyond my ability, I'll consider a little help with the website the next best thing.
Paul
Paul Marcotte
Fancy Bread - in the heart or in the head?
http://www.fancybread.com
Dan Wilson
DW
Kyle Hayes
Thanks again for giving us another shot.
-Kyle Hayes
Kyle Hayes
kylehayes.info/blog
www.linkedin.com/in/kylehayes
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." -Walt Disney
Jared Rypka-Hauer
can easily go ballistic on people and often for no real good reason.
So I know that sending this sort of an apology isn't easy.
Good onya, Dan.
J
On Apr 17, 2008, at 3:48 PM, Dan Wilson wrote:
> My bad.
>
> My post was in poor taste and I speak only for myself, not the
> community.
>
> While I've got a special weakness as of late for a sense of
> entitlement that seemingly pervades the Internet and some people
> feel like much more is owed to them than really is, I could have
> done better.
>
> ColdSpring is a volunteer based project run by people who sincerely
> want to help the community. Countless thousands of hours go into
> making the ColdSpring framework a most excellent tool for managing
> CFCs, their dependancies and other such important tasks. Like most
> things offered for free, it isn't perfect.
>
> Regardless, accept my humble apology for my snarky email. I
> shouldn't have sent it.
>
> DW ...
Dave Ross
The website is taking a lot of knocks in this thread and I'm kinda
surprised. Is it really that horrible. The docs are there and the code
is there (including nightly code builds). There is a link to the
mailing list. There are some old community articles - we could
probably add more.
And yes, the CFC docs are down. I really don't think they should be
there to begin with. The API for coldspring.beans.BeanProperty is
completely irrelevant to the ColdSpring user. The CFC API doesn't tell
you how to use ColdSpring, in fact - you shouldn't even know it exists
would consider most methods "private" to the framework). The *real*
API for ColdSpring is the bean definition XML, alongside a small
handful of core methods that are all covered thoroughly in the docs.
So, to fix this problem, I removed the link to the broken API docs.
There - that problem is now solved.
Additionally, I've updated the community page to remove the link to the forums.
Any other changes?
Anyone want to help? (includes free access to a 3-year old Farcry install!)
-Dave
Rolo D. Monkey
Thank you for your questions. I am writing websites in ColdFusion
that are heavily customized and, among other things, need to interact
with a lot of other services (Breeze, Blackboard, proprietary
databases, etc.). Although some the sites could be built with a CMS,
most of them require something more. The sites I am working on are
hand-coded mostly without an overarching design. I am hoping to
eventually eliminate a lot of the redundancies and hard-coded
dependencies that exist in the code. I was impressed by Sean
Corfield's white paper "Managing ColdFusion Components with Factories"
and that led me here. I am not going to be making these changes
immediately, but I would love to see some more documentation.
As for your analogy, please let me provide a different one. What if I
wanted to patronize a small local business instead of a corporate
megastore? What if when I walked in to the store, many of the lights
were burnt out and the shelves were half empty and dusty? What if
instead of just walking out, I said to the owner, "Hey, I'd like to
shop here, but right now I would be uncomfortable buying anything
because of the way the store looks right now."? I'm sure the owner
would be at least a little bit offended, but it won't help his
business to call me an idiot.
Kyle Hayes
last post lol.
On Apr 17, 1:56 pm, "Kyle Hayes" <mrkyleha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan, thank you for your apology, don't even mention it though. We
> (ColdFusion developers in general) are truly a passionate community. When
> you begin to delve into any of the frameworks you find the most passionate
> folks. We really do want to help you and we appreciate you putting the
> website as a pulse on our radar. Sometimes, certain communities need a
> message like that to encourage another volunteer to offer to update the
> website so as to lift the burden off of the developer's.
>
> Thanks again for giving us another shot.
>
> -Kyle Hayes
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Dan Wilson <sipac...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > My bad.
>
> > My post was in poor taste and I speak only for myself, not the community.
>
> > While I've got a special weakness as of late for a sense of entitlement
> > that seemingly pervades the Internet and some people feel like much more is
> > owed to them than really is, I could have done better.
>
> > ColdSpring is a volunteer based project run by people who sincerely want
> > to help the community. Countless thousands of hours go into making the
> > ColdSpring framework a most excellent tool for managing CFCs, their
> > dependancies and other such important tasks. Like most things offered for
> > free, it isn't perfect.
>
> > Regardless, accept my humble apology for my snarky email. I shouldn't have
> > sent it.
>
> > DW
>
Rolo D. Monkey
I accept your apology fully. Please accept mine in the same spirit.
I suspect that you and I are probably very much alike, passionate,
intelligent people that are sometimes very curt. When I am at
CFUnited this year, let me buy you a drink.
Yours, Andrew
On Apr 17, 4:48 pm, "Dan Wilson" <sipac...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My bad.
>
> My post was in poor taste and I speak only for myself, not the community.
>
> While I've got a special weakness as of late for a sense of entitlement that
> seemingly pervades the Internet and some people feel like much more is owed
> to them than really is, I could have done better.
>
> ColdSpring is a volunteer based project run by people who sincerely want to
> help the community. Countless thousands of hours go into making the
> ColdSpring framework a most excellent tool for managing CFCs, their
> dependancies and other such important tasks. Like most things offered for
> free, it isn't perfect.
>
> Regardless, accept my humble apology for my snarky email. I shouldn't have
> sent it.
>
> DW
>
Dave Ross
care as much. Regardless - I appreciate that you've stirred up a
response - and motivated people to potentially contribute to the
website.
-Dave
Peter Bell
Do you have any background in writing OO apps, and if so, what
languages? If you're comfortable with Java style OO with singletons
and Spring handling dependencies you're gonna feel right at home with
ColdSpring. If you've got more of a Python/Ruby/Smalltalk background,
unless you've used one of the fairly marginal DI engines in one of
them it's probably going to be a bit more confusing to get started but
it's worth reading up on DI - Martin Fowler wrote a pretty good piece
on it and it's an excellent approach to managing dependencies and
writing testable beans (it's gonna help with mocking out objects).
You may also want to look at a front controller for structuring your
code - Mach-II, Model Glue and ColdBox are currently the most popular
choices for OO development.
You may also want to consider an ORM framework for handling db
interactions. Two options currently are Transfer and Reactor with
Transfer having more obvious development recently, although that may
be because Reactor does what it needs to - I'm not sure! I think
Transfer certainly has the edge in terms of how active the community
is and how much documentation is available.
Best Wishes,
peter
Rolo D. Monkey
written an OO neural network program in C++, and I am comfortable with
Java. I am currently reading the original gang-of-four design
patterns book in my spare time. I have a lot of experience with
Drupal, and although it is not technically OO, its database
abstraction is similar to what is described in the paper I mentioned
above. I will definitely look into the applications you mentioned.
Thank you.
Jim Priest
> Anyone want to help? (includes free access to a 3-year old Farcry install!)
But having recently revamped the CFEclipse site I know how difficult
it can be to find the time to do this sort of stuff.
A good CMS helps if you have a lot of content. For a lot of sites
however I could easily see a nicely done splash page and then a
redirect to a wiki or someplace like RIAForge for documentation.
I know with the CFEclipse site - the wiki is a great spot for
documentation and the nice thing is the community can edit that as
well.
The other neat project I've been watching is Transfer - their new
documentation Wiki looks neat: http://docs.transfer-orm.com/. Love
to hear more about what that is running on...
Jim
Mark Mandel
(Tho' I don't know how you'll hear more about it... haven't worked
that bit out yet!)
Mark
sc...@boyzoid.com
I'd be willing to lend a hand with the website.
Scott Stroz
>
> The website is taking a lot of knocks in this thread and I'm kinda
> surprised. Is it really that horrible. The docs are there and the code
> is there (including nightly code builds). There is a link to the
> mailing list. There are some old community articles - we could
> probably add more.
>
> And yes, the CFC docs are down. I really don't think they should be
> there to begin with. The API for coldspring.beans.BeanProperty is
> completely irrelevant to the ColdSpring user. The CFC API doesn't tell
> you how to use ColdSpring, in fact - you shouldn't even know it exists
> would consider most methods "private" to the framework). The *real*
> API for ColdSpring is the bean definition XML, alongside a small
> handful of core methods that are all covered thoroughly in the docs.
>
> So, to fix this problem, I removed the link to the broken API docs.
> There - that problem is now solved.
>
> Additionally, I've updated the community page to remove the link to the forums.
>
> Any other changes?
>
> Anyone want to help? (includes free access to a 3-year old Farcry install!)
>
> -Dave
>
> > My bad.
>
> > My post was in poor taste and I speak only for myself, not the community.
>
> > While I've got a special weakness as of late for a sense of entitlement that
> > seemingly pervades the Internet and some people feel like much more is owed
> > to them than really is, I could have done better.
>
> > ColdSpring is a volunteer based project run by people who sincerely want to
> > help the community. Countless thousands of hours go into making the
> > ColdSpring framework a most excellent tool for managing CFCs, their
> > dependancies and other such important tasks. Like most things offered for
> > free, it isn't perfect.
>
> > Regardless, accept my humble apology for my snarky email. I shouldn't have
> > sent it.
>
> > DW
>
Sean Corfield
> dependencies that exist in the code. I was impressed by Sean
> Corfield's white paper "Managing ColdFusion Components with Factories"
> and that led me here. I am not going to be making these changes
> immediately, but I would love to see some more documentation.
Oooh, my name was invoked! Glad that my preso stirred some interest Rolo.
I have to say that "Rolo D. Monkey" does sound like a strange name and
that combined with your comment about looking at ColdSpring once the
website is fixed is probably what led Dan (and maybe others) to think
you were simply a troll...
So, explaining and learning ColdSpring... It's a little tricky because
ColdSpring is one of those things you don't really "get" until you've
built OO systems and experienced the pain that dependencies can bring.
I was very skeptical initially. I had a Mach-II app which was growing
more and more dependencies and more configuration data and I finally
switched to Model-Glue and it's built-in "ChiliBeans" factory (in the
1.0 version) so that I could externalize my configuration data and
simplify my dependencies. I still didn't "get" ColdSpring. Later I
switched from ChiliBeans to ColdSpring (perhaps when MG2 aka Unity
came around) and have never looked back.
Since you're a seasoned OO programmer, you will pick up ColdSpring
pretty quickly - it's like Spring for Java which you've probably used,
yes?
> As for your analogy, please let me provide a different one. What if I
> wanted to patronize a small local business instead of a corporate
> megastore? What if when I walked in to the store, many of the lights
> were burnt out and the shelves were half empty and dusty?
I'll repeat Dave Ross's comment that ColdSpring is free - like many of
the other open source frameworks in the CF community which people have
contributed 100s of hours to for no payment and donated to the
community for everyone's benefit. Criticizing an open source project
for having a deficient website is bound to spark some flames.
I've contributed code to pretty much every framework in CF (except
ColdBox - so far) and I'm the lead dev for Fusebox these days. I can
get a little defensive when someone comes on the list with a funky
name and makes a snide comment about the website or the code. I can't
even begin to count how much time I've invested in Fusebox - and I
don't even use that framework for my job! So have a little sensitivity
around open source projects.
--
Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/
"If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive."
-- Margaret Atwood
Mike Kear
on the framework, I opt for the framework every time.
It's not necessary to see the web site in order to know that ColdSpring is A
Good Thing.
I acknowledge that when I started looking at ColdSpring, I was a bit
disappointed that the web site didn't tell me everything I wanted to know.
But based on the enthusiastic comments about Coldspring by others I respect
on lists like CF-TALK, and on blogs, I was motivated to go digging for what
I needed to know. It didn't take long to find out what I needed to know,
so in my case even the total absence of a web site wouldn't have prevented
me from getting started on ColdSpring. Having an excellent web site would
have made it easier, that's all.
So lets not go beating ourselves up about this. Yes, it would be great if
we had a fantastic web site. But its far more important that ColdSpring is
as good at it's possible to be.
It's in Rolo's interest to find out about ColdSpring. If he makes the
effort to go looking, or follow threads on this list, downloads it (for how
much $$? Nothing!! ) he'll see how much it can help him. But if he never
comes to see that, how does that affect the rest of us? Answer: not at
all.
I'm not sure I know enough about the product to help with the website but
put me down as a volunteer if there's anything I can do. ColdSpring has
already saved me several hundred times more than it would cost me to work on
that site.
Rolo, I urge you to take that into consideration. I don't know how you go
about building sites, but in my case it revolutionised the architecture of
my sites. It's in your interest to persevere.
Cheers
Mike Kear
Windsor, NSW, Australia
0422 985 585
Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer
AFP Webworks Pty Ltd
http://afpwebworks.com
Full Scale ColdFusion hosting from A$15/month
Matthew Woodward
>
> It's in Rolo's interest to find out about ColdSpring. If he makes the
> effort to go looking, or follow threads on this list, downloads it
> (for how
> much $$? Nothing!! ) he'll see how much it can help him. But if he
> never
> comes to see that, how does that affect the rest of us? Answer:
> not at
> all.
And here's where the lack of a sense of community really comes to the
fore.
--
Matthew Woodward
mpwoo...@gmail.com
http://www.mattwoodward.com/blog
Rolo D. Monkey
Matt,
Thank you for saying that. I did not want to seem offensive, again,
but many of the posts on this thread have continued to be negative.
With the sole intent of making things better, I would like to address
some of the issues that have been brought up. Please understand that
I am impressed by the passion of the community and this is an active
attempt to help.
First, in response to the many posts that point out that the software
is free. Yes it is, and I appreciate that. I am a strong advocate of
Open Source and I will give OS projects more leeway when I am getting
a first impression. However even if someone offers me something for
free, I'm not going to take it if I don't know what it is.
In addition, there are lots of free tools for ColdFusion out there.
Imagine finding this list:
http://www.remotesynthesis.com/cfopensourcelist/
And then methodically going through it, looking at any pages that you
think might be useful to you. I did this last week, and a lot of
things I clicked on appeared to be abandoned projects. Honestly, last
week I put ColdSpring in this category. I did this because:
1. There were no dates on the release announcements. I couldn't tell
if they were from last month or last year.
2. Two of the articles linked to on the site were from 2006 and one
was a broken link.
3. The other broken links.
4. A forum with only 500 posts. I know now that this is only because
you just switched, but I didn't know that then.
It was Scott's presentation that made me reconsider the site. He
mentioned things I knew like "patterns" and "abstract factories". In
a previous post, someone mentioned "Dependency Injection Framework",
"Inversion of Control" and "Aspect-Oriented Programming". If these
things describe ColdSpring, then they should be featured prominently
on the site and there should be explanations of what they are. Yes
some of these are there, but I hadn't found them by the time my first
impression had been made.
For comparison, take a moment to look at some of the projects
mentioned in this thread: ColdSpring, Mach II, Model-Glue, ColdBox,
Transfer, Reactor, CFEclipse. The websites for these projects vary
widely in depth, quality and currency. Take a moment to visit each of
these and imagine what impression a first-time visitor gets. I know
that many people on this thread are also actively involved in these
other projects. I would encourage anyone who has the time to take a
look and honestly answer these questions:
Does the site look neat and organized? Is the navigation intuitive?
Does the layout, and "look and feel" stay the same? I know this seems
subjective, but it really does make a big difference.
Does the site explain the goals and methods of the project in a way
that can be easily understood by a first-time visitor?
Does the site appear to be active?
Have there been recent releases?
Is there active support? Are questions getting answered? Are support
tickets getting responses?
Is there documentation for first-time users? Is there advanced
documentation?
Again, I am only trying to help.
Yours, Andrew
Dominic Watson
Sean Corfield
> And then methodically going through it, looking at any pages that you
> think might be useful to you. I did this last week, and a lot of
> things I clicked on appeared to be abandoned projects. Honestly, last
> week I put ColdSpring in this category. I did this because:
It's true that most of the open source projects in the CF world have
pretty piss poor websites. I've gotten so used to pulling the latest
BER from SVN (or CVS in ColdSpring's case) and following the mailing
lists that I almost never visit the websites. ColdBox is a shining
example to all the other projects out there - Luis (and his
contributors) have done an amazing job with documentation. In the
past, with ColdSpring, there has been a tendency to say "It's just
like Spring for Java - go read that documentation" but the website
doesn't actually say that so, you're right, newbies wouldn't know
that...
One thing I tend to do with projects is to Google them. Googling for:
coldspring coldfusion
turns up a lot of information that indicates just how widespread
ColdSpring's use is and how much current activity there is around it.
> Does the site look neat and organized? Is the navigation intuitive?
> Does the layout, and "look and feel" stay the same? I know this seems
> subjective, but it really does make a big difference.
> Does the site explain the goals and methods of the project in a way
> that can be easily understood by a first-time visitor?
> Does the site appear to be active?
Most of the deficiencies in those areas - for all those projects - is
due to a lack of volunteers to help with documentation and "webmaster"
duties. I have said many times that the CF community does not "get"
open source yet and really doesn't have a mindset of contributing to
group projects. I'm hoping that will change - the signs are
encouraging but the community has a long way to go.
> Have there been recent releases?
ColdSpring's always been a bit weird about that. We had 0.5, 1.0 and
then a long, long gap and finally a 1.2 RC1 release. In the meantime,
most everyone has been using the CVS "head" version so folks inside
the ColdSpring community get lots of recent releases :)
> Is there active support? Are questions getting answered? Are support
> tickets getting responses?
Yup on all of those for ColdSpring. There are quite a few committers
and they're actively fixing bugs (as this mailing list will show).
> Is there documentation for first-time users? Is there advanced
> documentation?
Not really. Historically folks have been pointed at Spring for Java
which isn't entirely helpful (but works for the OO-savvy folks).
James Holmes
documentation?
On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 10:06 PM, Rolo D. Monkey <ro...@irolo.net> wrote:
>
> Again, I am only trying to help.
--
mxAjax / CFAjax docs and other useful articles:
http://www.bifrost.com.au/blog/
Rolo D. Monkey
I frequently answer questions, and contribute documentation to open
source projects that I use. If I were to become an active user of
ColdSpring I would gladly help out.
Yours, Rolo
On Apr 19, 4:22 am, "James Holmes" <james.hol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you offering to write tutorials, clean up the website or write
> documentation?
>