Announcement regarding framework separation

[Alex Kempkens]

Dear Mark,
Dear all,

First of all thank you for the detailed announcement regarding 1.7 today. In there the framework separation is mentioned briefly. It would be great if you could write a second post regarding the framework strategy some times soon. At the moment primarily some ideas regarding timelines are what I'm looking for.

Thank you very much and keep up the good work

Alex Kempkens
(Geschäftsführer)

Think Network GmbH
Rüdesheimer Str. 15, 80686 München

Register München: HRB 143491

[elin]

Hi Alex,

I think the announcement says specifically April 30 is the date for 11.1 to be merged and thus defined.

If you have work to contribute for 11.1 (or 11.2 or later)  make a fork at bitbucket and make sure you have unit tests; that's what has been said in past e-mails and blog posts.    

Elin

[Amy Stephen]

Elin -

I think I must have missed this announcement/blog post. Do you have a link?

Thanks.

[elin]

There was a major announcement about the framework plans as far back as the dev summit in Australia in 2009 but they were also announced as part of the summit this fall and you can read all about it on the discussions there as well as the interviews with Louis, Sam, Ian and others about the framework project available on the joomla channel. And as noted Mark announced the April 30 Day in his recent post.

http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/724-development-coordinator-summit-summary.html

http://www.slideshare.net/chrisdavenport/joomla-plt-summitpresentation

http://brian.teeman.net/joomla-1.6/reports-from-the-clt-and-plt-meetings-at-joomladay-west.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/joomla?blend=7&ob=5

Perhaps you have been busy on other things so missed all the action, although I notice you are following people on bigbucket so you certainly know that exciting things have been happening.

Elin

[Amy Stephen]

Elin -

Well, the post on the Community site is from Wilco back in January 2009 -- pretty focused on the start of 1.6.  I think I helped write that ;-)

I have seen Chris's slides on Slideshare about the Developer summit at JDay West (and Brian's post about the event, too).

Oddly enough, I accidentally found the bitbucket location in a Google search for something else. I believe my asking about that here in the framework list is the only discussion I have seen on the topic so far. Mark indicated it was the official project and that a blog post would follow from PLT members involved in the framework project.

That's the post to which I was hoping you might be referring. However, I don't believe that has happened quite yet. Details, like where the repo is, or what the plans are for the release, etc., will be helpful to share in a community post.

Thanks.
Amy

[elin]

Anyone who has expressed interest in contributing to framework development has been told how to do that. For example  recently WebAmoeba posted here and I explained it to him on list and  Arlen recently posted a pull request.  As always in open source, it's the work that speaks and no one is going to spoon feed you if you are not paying attention.

Elin

[Amy Stephen]

Elin -

Alex asked for information on the framework project and you referenced an announcement.  I asked for the link to the announcement you were talking about, nothing more.

So, to return to the question Alex raise, I am certain the PLT will communicate when they have information to share.

Thank you.

[Mark Dexter]

As I understand it, the platform will be on a quarterly release cycle.
So 11.1 is due out April 30, 11.2 is July 30, 11.3 is Oct 30, and 12.1
is Jan 30. Obviously, those dates are not written in stone, but
something along those lines is the plan. As far as the CMS, we will
base 1.7 on 11.1 and then base the January release on either 11.2 or
11.3. We will try to use the latest stable platform version for each
CMS version, unless there are backward compatibility or other issues.

Obviously, as I said in the blog, this is all new territory, so we
will be figuring some stuff out as we go. Members of the community are
invited to participate in either or both projects.

As I understand it, the main goal for 11.1 is to separate the platform
from the CMS. However, I also believe that they can't help themselves
and are building some cool new features into 11.1. I assume there will
be an announcement sometime after April 30. But of course, the code is
there for anyone to look at...

Mark

[rolandd]

Now I am a little confused as to what part of Joomla is exactly the framework. Is this the libraries/joomla folder?

Are users going to need to upgrade the framework and CMS separately?

[elin]

It's the libraries folder with both joomla and the remaining external libraries.

Mark's blog says that the 11.1 framework will be merged into the CMS trunk on 30 April. So the CMS packages will include the 11.1 framework. Some of us in the irc were confused about library changes that have happened in the CMS trunk since the platform repository was made, but we asked and Ian (I think) said that as part of the merge process it will all get reconciled. 

The whole thing should not even be noticeable to normal CMS users. Development oriented CMS site developers can update  to intermediate versions of the platform as they are released, just like people can do different versions of php as long as they understand what they are doing in terms of compatibility (like if you use php 5.3 features to build an extension you need to tell users that before they buy). The other thing is now that you can easily package and install a library directly if you need a newer library you can also just do that until the next CMS is released. 

People building new applications on the framework (and that's the whole point) will want to use the current version, presumably. Then they can choose their own cycle for updating what they ship, whether quarterly, semi annually, annually or (I guess) never. If they expect users to use the same copy of the framework as for the CMS and their application they would probably want to follow the CMS cycle. 

As a tracker team/jbs person I wanted to know where people will put platform bug reports and was told there will probably be a separate tracker on joomlacode although that could change. In fact as with anything new, I'd assume that things like that are tried and fiddled with until it's all working in a reasonable way. Of course it's not reasonable to expect CMS users to know what kind of bug is what but I would think that platform bugs will mainly come in from developers and not users.

Elin

[Mark Dexter]

Yes, it is the libraries/joomla folder more or less. A few things in that folder belong in the CMS, and a few things in the CMS belong in the platform. I believe that is one of the things being sorted out for version platform version 11.1.

The updates to the platform will be handled just like we handle other third-party libraries and code (such as Mootools, simplepie or TinyMCE), and it will be invisible to most CMS users. One of the benefits of the 6-month release cycle for Joomla is that we can stay current with all of the third-party code in the CMS without changing things in the middle of a release. This goes for the platform as well.

Also, as Elin says, with version 1.6+, it is easier if needed for you to install your own libraries. So, if there is a situation where you need a newer version of the platform than is bundled with the CMS, it should be easy to install.

I don't want to sound like a broken record (if people still understand that figure of speech these days), but I do want to repeat that this is new territory for all of us, so we may not have all of the answers and we may change some things as we work through the process.

Thanks. Mark

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[rolandd]

Hello Elin & Mark,

Thank you for the explanation. It clears most of it up for me. The final thing in my head still wandering around is that as a Joomla extension developer I will still be bound to the Joomla release schedule, regardless of framework or CMS release.

Including a full framework in my component seems a little too much unless it is just the framework I use for my application.

As for the broken record, I hear ya, I understand it is new territory but some of us seem to have a clearer vision on the whole thing. I am glad those ones are sharing :)

[Ian MacLennan]

The release schedule that extension developers should be paying attention to is the CMS release schedule.  The accelerated framework release schedule is so that we can innovate at a quicker pace.  What will be important to extension developers will be the platform version that is chosen for a given release.

Ian

[brian teeman]

.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/joomla?blend=7&ob=5
>

Is that the video that you meant to link to?

[elin]

I linked to the channel since there are at least three that discuss this.

Elin

[brian teeman]

I didnt see them please can you name them

[elin]

Brian, 

Seriously this is a mailing list for discussing coding he framework. You can simply look through the list of  videos on the channel for the ones featuring sam, ian, louis and mark at the summit in October. It's really not that hard--there are fewer than 50 videos total and 10 in the leadership play list and they are nicely categorized-- and would take you less time than it took you to post this message and me to reply to it. If you have a question about the joomla channel please ask over on the forums or the people site. 

I'm not going to do the looking for you because that just encourages learned helplessness.

Elin

[Amy Stephen]

Brian - I looked and found one interesting video with Sam and Ian where they mentioned the framework project. Really enjoyed hearing them talk - they have such a great sense of humor and you could see they enjoy one another's company. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlDrUVKBmHo&feature=channel_video_title There could be more, but I didn't see any.

I hope our interest and questions are seen as a positive indication of interest in this project. It's normally better to share links, rather than general comments, since the purpose is to answer the question. Also, in a case like this, it can be better to allow the PLT to answer since the question is directed to them, anyway.

I heard it said on the Bug Squad chat the 11.1 has been frozen for release. Pretty exciting.

Mark - I understand that it's the first time and you guys are learning. I think this is a very exciting and important advancement for our community. Thanks to those making it happen.

[brian teeman]

Dear Elin

Thank you so much for your very helpful reply. I am so grateful that after all these years you have not lost your ability to welcome and inform people and that you are working so hard to encourage transparency and openness by ensuring that everyone has access to the most important and direct information. The Joomla project is so lucky to have someone like you at the helm ensuring that values of the community are always considered first.

Brian

[elin]

Thanks Brian! One of the main values of open source is encouragement of learning and I hope I have helped you learn how to help yourself using YouTube and other similar internet resources and how to use the correct locations for asking support questions!  As you know, I answer hundreds of support questions  a month in the forums though even there I try to teach people how to fish rather than just handing them the fish all the time.

Elin

,

[brian teeman]

I am so encouraged thank you so much I dont know where the Joomla community would be without your encouragement and willingness to inform

[Amy Stephen]

On Friday, 22 April 2011 08:30:06 UTC-5, Mark Dexter wrote:

Yes, it is the libraries/joomla folder more or less. A few things in that folder belong in the CMS, and a few things in the CMS belong in the platform. I believe that is one of the things being sorted out for version platform version 11.1.

Mark - curious - why 11.1? Is it first quarter of 2011?

Also, are the include folders for site/admin included?

I am really excited about this project. There has been talk for all these years and it's almost here. 

[Ian MacLennan]

Please take this off list.  This is not the place for this discussion.

Regards

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:16 AM, brian teeman <br...@teeman.net> wrote:

I am so encouraged thank you so much I dont know where the Joomla community would be without your encouragement and willingness to inform

--

[Amy Stephen]

Or this.

[Chris Davenport]

The new numbering scheme for the Platform consists of the year number followed by a sequence number, so 11.1 is the first release in 2011.  The next release will be 11.2 no matter in which quarter it happens to land.

I don't think the /includes folders will be included, although there may be some stuff currently in those folders that will have to be moved elsewhere in order to achieve a clean separation between the platform and the CMS.

Chris.

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Joomla Documentation Coordinator

[Amy Stephen]

Super, Chris, thanks! Numbering scheme makes sense - nice and generic.

For Chris or anyone else on the PLT (at your leisure, no hurry):

Have there been decisions made on how and where the distribution will be shared? Any (optimistic) guess on when?

I am assuming it will still be GPL v 2, or later, rather than switching to LGPL at this juncture. Or, are there licensing changes under consideration at this time?
 
Thanks.
Amy

[Alex Kempkens]

Chris,

I'm wondering is there a kind of document regarding these definitions available yet? I have to admit have not read all the docs so far, but I think especially the reason for version numbers or a little kind of roadmap / wishes is helpful for others to orientate.

Thx in advanced for the effort.

Alex

[Chris Davenport]

Alex,

Good suggestion.  I'll see if I can add some more information to the developers wiki page soon.  I'm looking at re-organising it a bit anyway.

Chris.