RE: [Phpgroupware-users] phpgw v egw

[Matt]

1 - I agree fully with the inter project bickering being out of line, but
please hold off on the lies and exagerations.  This being an open
project without any full time paid developers means that "guess who"
is needed to make it great.... go on, guess.  (I'll give a hint,
you're one of them, and by "you" I mean everyone reading this list)

A - Yes, to be honest I wish my skills with PHP matched my understanding of
structure and design.

2 - imap, pop3, ical, vcal, vcard, webdav, xmlrpc, soap... these aren't
standards?  phpgroupware supports all.  I'm not an expert in each, but
I since they do operate with 3rd party services I don't see how they
are such hacks.  However, docs are lacking as are in many pre-1.0
applications.  Feel free to contribute. (this is another hint)

A - Actually I know there is a lot of instinctive use of standards and other
peoples but I was badly moaning about organisational standards the type of
methods where by someone writes down "I am going to try to do XYZ and
hopefully it will work like this: ABC" and then after they write down "I did
ABCXZY123 and here it is" so that documentation is an almost organic process
that works with the developer and happens almost as a by product.  These are
the standards I was bemoaning the lack of.

If you want that is something I might be able to get involved with.

3 - UI
A - Once you get used to it they are actually kind fun, I was just blowing
off steam.


4 -
> The error handling is a waste of time and 99% of the upload time was spent
> uploading junk that does nothing.
exaggeration doesn't help your case.  I do realize the amount of
images and apps that won't be used can feel like a waste of time to
upload.  If you'd like, drop in IRC and round up some folks to make a
little howto to put on wiki.phpgroupware.org on how to trim it down.
(i'm seeing a trend here)

A - I have an idea on this front.  Do a google on the XOOPS project.  It's
not in the same league as this but each "app" can be installed into the base
or not at any time.


5 -
> The back end of both is in dire need of a kick and if the best you
children
> can do by way of development is insult each other on my time I'm going to
> save me a hell of a lot of HDD space and time and purge that bleeding lot.
The back end of both do still share some code.  Yes, the code needs a
ground up rewrite.  We are in the middle of it, but since groupware is
complex it takes time to do it right.  Check out the proposal-branch

A - Actually I think it shows a great deal of unrealised potential if only
it could find it's way there.  There seem to be some slashed up bits that
are non-intuitive and undocumented.  This is more likely the real issue
along with when it errors it's like a data vomit on the screen and you never
know when it might happen.


6 - everything else is 3rd party that we
include as a convenience and do little to control the design.
A - One of my favourite methods of development but lots of HELP files are
needed to smooth the cracks fully.  BTW: the wiki is great were it works.

> Now I may be stuck putting up with this crud you guys are fighting over
for
> now but I am aware that the Open Source initiative is known to Windows ASP
> programmers as well and I wonder who's code might win then?  My windows
> using staff point out such projects as these as why I should get rid of
the
> *nix stuff.
care to share?  a target often makes things go faster.  (do I dare say it?)

I'm aiming for a Yahoo-a-like portal which is something like Geo-cities +
Community + XML + free eMail and I really hoped that this would be something
that I could use.  PHP apps have a rep for being fully working long before
beta testing where as ASP apps tend to develop slower.

I have to admit that if the email and website bit was there in XOOPS I'd be
using that.

On the ASP side there is the MaxWeb* projects and the Infinity Project both
of which I am now knew deep in as well.

both are dwarfed by the potential of this project but the realisation of the
short leap from here to there with PGW is beyond my skills.  I might cope
with say tuning an ASP app but only because I spent 3 years learning
VBscript.




7 - Or just make your own groupware suite and show us up.
Either way, the world will be a better place for it.

A - Just my point about the bickering.  Glad I'm not the only one that
understands that.


I'm sorry if I sounded offish at everyone in general I should have been more
targeted at the persons who have interrupted some serious talk on some bug
fixes.

I can offer in addition to some organisational and business standards both
*nix and windows accounts that have PHP that I am happy to do some testing
with.

In ref: point-7 if this other group has stuff that is good let us not be too
proud to use it and if we have stuff that's good let us not be too proud to
share it.  This is after all what is at the heart of the Open Source
ideology.

It might be a plan to create two versions.

The main one were ALL development happens and a second "lite" version
stripped according to strictly documented rules down to that which works
very well.

Thus we have the plug and go version and the dev version.

I've seen this do wonders for projects before as the documentation required
often highlights redundant legacy stuff that must be purged.

let me know what you think.

-Matt