Developers Conference, early 2007

[David E Jones-2]

Hello All,

During the Users Conference this past November the idea of a  
developers conference came up, and being something I had discussed  
with others before this seemed to be a great idea and something I'd  
be happy to host here at the same place where we had the user  
conference in Nov 2006 (ie the old hotel where my home and office are  
right now, in Ephraim, UT).

The general idea is to get together and basically just work on stuff.  
We'd like to get as many of the committers and regular contributors  
here as possible, and maybe even pool some funds to help mitigate the  
expense for far away people like Jacopo, Jacques, Hans, and perhaps  
various others.

We may have some presentations on general topics, but the main point  
will be to pick a few objectives for the project and push them  
forward. We will definitely want feedback on the projects we want to  
attach, and I'm thinking we'll have one person champion each  
objective, and then everyone can split into groups and rotate around  
and just work on stuff. We'll have a couple of projectors available,  
plenty of chairs and table space and facilities for everyone's  
laptops, and then we'll get some snacks and a mountain of bottled  
water and we should be good to go.

As we talked about this the hope is certainly to help move certain  
part of the OFBiz project forward, but also to work on anything that  
at least a couple of people need for clients and hopefully have  
funding for to help them be able to attend and collaborate.

Ephraim is a small town and rather conservative, but we managed to  
find pretty good diversion in the evenings, including "imbibing"  
mountains of pasta, or getting in some beer and bowling at the local  
alley (which surprisingly, even to me, was pretty decent). For those  
staying longer in the area there are some national parks within a few  
hours, and lots of mountain roads that are groomed and marked for  
snowmobiling and back-country skiing and such (or other things during  
the summer). We also have games and stuff in the building, like ping  
pong, foosball, and air hockey types of things.

The 2 main things I think we need to discuss are:

1. when to do it
2. what objectives to pursue

For #1 we're thinking about doing this as a full week late February  
or early March with 3 possibilities, including: Feb 19 - 23, Feb 26 -  
Mar 2, or Mar 5 - 9.

These are all about 2 months away and should hopefully give everyone  
time to get organized and make arrangements.

Before getting into topics to cover, here are a few details about  
arrangements:

1. this will be sponsored and organized by the new and improved  
Hotwax Media, and the cost will be minimal and intended to just cover  
expenses (including meeting room facilities, food/snacks/drinks, and  
in some cases even lodging); the conference alone (without lodging or  
meals included) will probably run around $150 per person and as  
mentioned lodging in the building can be added on very affordably,  
and the meals dining in the area should be around $20-30 per day  
depending on how crazy you want to get ;)

2. the location will be old Ephraim Hotel at 24 West Center, Ephraim,  
UT 84627; we'll have meeting/working space for a maximum of around 25  
people and we might be able to arrange for another adjacent room to  
handle a few more; there will be around 10 very affordable (~$25-30  
per night) lodging rooms available in the building, and beyond that  
we have other rooms that aren't fixed up yet but there are other  
lodging options in town including a pretty nice mid-range hotel that  
costs around $80 per night

3. for travel: Ephraim is about a 2 hour drive from the Salt Lake  
City airport (code: SLC); alternatively, it is about a 4.5 to 5 hour  
(340 miles) drive from Las Vegas, NV; for real flexibility renting a  
car is a good idea, but we plan to arrange for rides with various  
local people or perhaps even a rented van or something for a ride  
share; we will need feedback on what people need or want in this area  
too

So, for anyone interested in coming, please contact me (directly, off  
the list) with your preferences on the following:

1. when to have the conference: Feb 19 - 23, Feb 26 - Mar 2, or Mar 5  
- 9

2. your travel and accommodation preferences: need a ride from the  
SLC airport? prefer to stay at the building or in a nearby hotel?

3. would you be interested and able to contribute to help core people  
from farther away make it to the conference? if so how much?

4. would you be interested in intermediate level training before the  
conference (we are considering this, but haven't decided yet), or  
perhaps even more mentoring oriented sessions during the conference?

5. which objectives most interest you (select from below, and include  
your own too):

a. testing infrastructure (finishing this up)

b. kick-start a body of automated tests based on (a)

c. project management build out so many of us as services companies  
can use it to run our businesses, and so that once it matures we can  
run/manage OFBiz on it too (this would be an alternative to things  
like Jira, XPlanner, gForge, etc); this could include a number of sub-
objectives, even things like ical, etc features to integrate with  
desktop calendar and contact and such software; should also include  
reports, handy UIs for common tasks, short process docs for how we  
recommend the various tools be used together, etc

d. content solutions: this could/would include stuff built on the  
current OFBiz content management data model and services, and/or the  
really cool Webslinger stuff from Brainfood (beyond whatever happens  
before the conference!)

e. begin development on the human resources application

f. refactor and clean up really old and messy code, like: the  
storeOrder service, the order manager checkout process, etc.

g. visually appealing face lift for ecommerce, and based on that the  
back end apps too; this should include CSS oriented refactoring to be  
more Zen Garden like and easier to maintain and customize

h. usability enhancements for certainly frequently used screens (like  
party search, order search, etc) based on AJAX and DHTML

i. generic setup wizard, and perhaps one or two extension wizard  
examples for specific industries; this would go along with setup data  
files specific to these as well

j. reporting tool refinements (probably form widget based) and a  
wider variety of OOTB reports, including some examples of how to do  
funky and cool print and web reports with these tools

k. working through bugs to stabilize a release branch (which should  
be started a few weeks before the conference)

l. review, organize, and expand the documentation (mostly now on  
docs.ofbiz.org, with most stuff moving there)

m. ...

Okay, there is a LOT we could cover and depending on how many people  
show up we'll want a list of probably 5-10 objectives to pursue,  
making sure we get at least a few things of interest to everyone.

==========================

In general this is a chance for all of us to learn tons of stuff and  
collaborate in a way that is sometimes difficult remotely. The main  
goal is to take care of things that have been moving slow for a long  
time, or to jump start things that would be great but just haven't  
been able to get off the ground yet.

I should also note that we would like to start doing this more  
regularly, perhaps even quarterly if there is enough interest. We can  
keep costs fairly low by doing it here in Ephraim or in other places  
like this, and by doing it regularly we can build the community and  
move forward long term objectives in a way that has been very  
difficult so far.

I look forward to seeing as many of us there (here!) as possible!

-David

[davidnwelton]

> The general idea is to get together and basically just work on stuff.

FYI:

At the official ApacheCon conferences, they generally call this a
'hackathon', and reserve a bit of time for it before the conference
starts.  It would probably be a fun experience to go to one of those
for a few people (keep submitting proposals, by the way, sooner or
later they're going to accept one:-).

--
David N. Welton
 - http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
 - http://www.dedasys.com/

[Tim Ruppert]

As was provided for the guys at Steel Rubber at the users conference,  
I''m happy to give rides for up to four people down to Ephraim for  
these events.  So, people coming into town, just need to say the word.

This is a great opportunity to:

1.  Move the project along more quickly than normal
2. Vastly improve the marketing efforts
3. Further tighten up the our developer community
4. And continue to show our customers that they will be supported by  
an open source community - even when they're not funding everything

As for timing, my only request is that we do it sometime after  
February 26th.

Cheers,
Tim
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com

o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595


On Jan 5, 2007, at 5:02 AM, David E Jones wrote:

>
> Hello All,
>
> During the Users Conference this past November the idea of a  
> developers conference came up, and being something I had discussed  
> with others before this seemed to be a great idea and something I'd  
> be happy to host here at the same place where we had the user  
> conference in Nov 2006 (ie the old hotel where my home and office  
> are right now, in Ephraim, UT).
>
> The general idea is to get together and basically just work on  
> stuff. We'd like to get as many of the committers and regular  
> contributors here as possible, and maybe even pool some funds to  
> help mitigate the expense for far away people like Jacopo, Jacques,  
> Hans, and perhaps various others.
>
> We may have some presentations on general topics, but the main  
> point will be to pick a few objectives for the project and push  
> them forward. We will definitely want feedback on the projects we  
> want to attach, and I'm thinking we'll have one person champion  
> each objective, and then everyone can split into groups and rotate  
> around and just work on stuff. We'll have a couple of projectors  
> available, plenty of chairs and table space and facilities for  
> everyone's laptops, and then we'll get some snacks and a mountain  
> of bottled water and we should be good to go.
>
> As we talked about this the hope is certainly to help move certain  
> part of the OFBiz project forward, but also to work on anything  
> that at least a couple of people need for clients and hopefully  
> have funding for to help them be able to attend and collaborate.
>
> Ephraim is a small town and rather conservative, but we managed to  
> find pretty good diversion in the evenings, including "imbibing"  
> mountains of pasta, or getting in some beer and bowling at the  
> local alley (which surprisingly, even to me, was pretty decent).  
> For those staying longer in the area there are some national parks  
> within a few hours, and lots of mountain roads that are groomed and  
> marked for snowmobiling and back-country skiing and such (or other  
> things during the summer). We also have games and stuff in the  
> building, like ping pong, foosball, and air hockey types of things.
>
> The 2 main things I think we need to discuss are:
>
> 1. when to do it
> 2. what objectives to pursue
>
> For #1 we're thinking about doing this as a full week late February  
> or early March with 3 possibilities, including: Feb 19 - 23, Feb 26  
> - Mar 2, or Mar 5 - 9.
>
> These are all about 2 months away and should hopefully give  
> everyone time to get organized and make arrangements.
>
> Before getting into topics to cover, here are a few details about  
> arrangements:
>
> 1. this will be sponsored and organized by the new and improved  
> Hotwax Media, and the cost will be minimal and intended to just  
> cover expenses (including meeting room facilities, food/snacks/
> drinks, and in some cases even lodging); the conference alone  
> (without lodging or meals included) will probably run around $150  
> per person and as mentioned lodging in the building can be added on  
> very affordably, and the meals dining in the area should be around  
> $20-30 per day depending on how crazy you want to get ;)
>
> 2. the location will be old Ephraim Hotel at 24 West Center,  
> Ephraim, UT 84627; we'll have meeting/working space for a maximum  
> of around 25 people and we might be able to arrange for another  
> adjacent room to handle a few more; there will be around 10 very  
> affordable (~$25-30 per night) lodging rooms available in the  
> building, and beyond that we have other rooms that aren't fixed up  
> yet but there are other lodging options in town including a pretty  
> nice mid-range hotel that costs around $80 per night
>
> 3. for travel: Ephraim is about a 2 hour drive from the Salt Lake  
> City airport (code: SLC); alternatively, it is about a 4.5 to 5  
> hour (340 miles) drive from Las Vegas, NV; for real flexibility  
> renting a car is a good idea, but we plan to arrange for rides with  
> various local people or perhaps even a rented van or something for  
> a ride share; we will need feedback on what people need or want in  
> this area too
>
> So, for anyone interested in coming, please contact me (directly,  
> off the list) with your preferences on the following:
>
> 1. when to have the conference: Feb 19 - 23, Feb 26 - Mar 2, or Mar  
> 5 - 9
>
> 2. your travel and accommodation preferences: need a ride from the  
> SLC airport? prefer to stay at the building or in a nearby hotel?
>
> 3. would you be interested and able to contribute to help core  
> people from farther away make it to the conference? if so how much?
>
> 4. would you be interested in intermediate level training before  
> the conference (we are considering this, but haven't decided yet),  
> or perhaps even more mentoring oriented sessions during the  
> conference?
>
> 5. which objectives most interest you (select from below, and  
> include your own too):
>
> a. testing infrastructure (finishing this up)
>
> b. kick-start a body of automated tests based on (a)
>
> c. project management build out so many of us as services companies  
> can use it to run our businesses, and so that once it matures we  
> can run/manage OFBiz on it too (this would be an alternative to  
> things like Jira, XPlanner, gForge, etc); this could include a  
> number of sub-objectives, even things like ical, etc features to  
> integrate with desktop calendar and contact and such software;  
> should also include reports, handy UIs for common tasks, short  
> process docs for how we recommend the various tools be used  
> together, etc
>
> d. content solutions: this could/would include stuff built on the  
> current OFBiz content management data model and services, and/or  
> the really cool Webslinger stuff from Brainfood (beyond whatever  
> happens before the conference!)
>
> e. begin development on the human resources application
>
> f. refactor and clean up really old and messy code, like: the  
> storeOrder service, the order manager checkout process, etc.
>
> g. visually appealing face lift for ecommerce, and based on that  
> the back end apps too; this should include CSS oriented refactoring  
> to be more Zen Garden like and easier to maintain and customize
>
> h. usability enhancements for certainly frequently used screens  
> (like party search, order search, etc) based on AJAX and DHTML
>
> i. generic setup wizard, and perhaps one or two extension wizard  
> examples for specific industries; this would go along with setup  
> data files specific to these as well
>
> j. reporting tool refinements (probably form widget based) and a  
> wider variety of OOTB reports, including some examples of how to do  
> funky and cool print and web reports with these tools
>
> k. working through bugs to stabilize a release branch (which should  
> be started a few weeks before the conference)
>
> l. review, organize, and expand the documentation (mostly now on  
> docs.ofbiz.org, with most stuff moving there)
>
> m. ...
>
> Okay, there is a LOT we could cover and depending on how many  
> people show up we'll want a list of probably 5-10 objectives to  
> pursue, making sure we get at least a few things of interest to  
> everyone.
>
> ==========================
>
> In general this is a chance for all of us to learn tons of stuff  
> and collaborate in a way that is sometimes difficult remotely. The  
> main goal is to take care of things that have been moving slow for  
> a long time, or to jump start things that would be great but just  
> haven't been able to get off the ground yet.
>
> I should also note that we would like to start doing this more  
> regularly, perhaps even quarterly if there is enough interest. We  
> can keep costs fairly low by doing it here in Ephraim or in other  
> places like this, and by doing it regularly we can build the  
> community and move forward long term objectives in a way that has  
> been very difficult so far.
>
> I look forward to seeing as many of us there (here!) as possible!
>
> -David
>
>

[David E Jones-2]

On Jan 5, 2007, at 7:24 AM, David Welton wrote:

>> The general idea is to get together and basically just work on stuff.
>
> FYI:
>
> At the official ApacheCon conferences, they generally call this a
> 'hackathon', and reserve a bit of time for it before the conference
> starts.  It would probably be a fun experience to go to one of those
> for a few people (keep submitting proposals, by the way, sooner or
> later they're going to accept one:-).

Cool, yeah, this would be pretty much just a hackathon.

BTW, I should mention that this sort of thing is not an official ASF  
sponsored event or anything, and we at Hotwax intend just intend to  
facilitate a get-together. These will be in addition to and not  
instead of the ApacheCon events (and I'm really looking forward to  
attending at least ApacheCon US this year! and maybe even OSCON again  
too).

-David

[Ean Schuessler]

On Friday 05 January 2007 11:11, David E Jones wrote:

> > At the official ApacheCon conferences, they generally call this a
> > 'hackathon', and reserve a bit of time for it before the conference
> > starts.  It would probably be a fun experience to go to one of those
> > for a few people (keep submitting proposals, by the way, sooner or
> > later they're going to accept one:-).
>
> Cool, yeah, this would be pretty much just a hackathon.
>
> BTW, I should mention that this sort of thing is not an official ASF
> sponsored event or anything, and we at Hotwax intend just intend to
> facilitate a get-together. These will be in addition to and not
> instead of the ApacheCon events (and I'm really looking forward to
> attending at least ApacheCon US this year! and maybe even OSCON again
> too).

Apachecon EU is in Amsterdam this year!

(The Ephraim event sounds fun too. Not quite as fun as Amsterdam, mind you,
but fun none-the-less.)

--
Ean Schuessler, CTO
[hidden email]
214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.
http://www.brainfood.com

[Brett]

Yes, Ephraim doesn't have a "red light" district but maybe David can
make a proposal at the next city council mtg;)

Brett

On 1/5/07, Ean Schuessler <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Friday 05 January 2007 11:11, David E Jones wrote:
> > > At the official ApacheCon conferences, they generally call this a
> > > 'hackathon', and reserve a bit of time for it before the conference
> > > starts.  It would probably be a fun experience to go to one of those
> > > for a few people (keep submitting proposals, by the way, sooner or
> > > later they're going to accept one:-).
> >
> > Cool, yeah, this would be pretty much just a hackathon.
> >
> > BTW, I should mention that this sort of thing is not an official ASF
> > sponsored event or anything, and we at Hotwax intend just intend to
> > facilitate a get-together. These will be in addition to and not
> > instead of the ApacheCon events (and I'm really looking forward to
> > attending at least ApacheCon US this year! and maybe even OSCON again
> > too).
>
> Apachecon EU is in Amsterdam this year!
>
> (The Ephraim event sounds fun too. Not quite as fun as Amsterdam, mind you,
> but fun none-the-less.)
>
> --
> Ean Schuessler, CTO
> [hidden email]
> 214-720-0700 x 315
> Brainfood, Inc.
> http://www.brainfood.com
>

[Si Chen-2]

Hey everybody,

I saw the list of potential topics.  While all are good, I think the
most critical one to me is the automated testing, especially as the
project continues to grow.

Si

[Tim Ruppert]

Here, here Si.  I can only apologize for being so swamped as to not  
contribute more to this topic.  I have done this a zillion times with  
a lot of tools - just about all xUnit derivatives - and truly want to  
have something put forth to everyone this month.

After we get all of our site stuff migrated over (hopefully this  
week), I want to turn my attention here.

Cheers,
Tim
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com

o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595


On Jan 8, 2007, at 10:16 AM, Si Chen wrote:

> Hey everybody,
>
> I saw the list of potential topics.  While all are good, I think  
> the most critical one to me is the automated testing, especially as  
> the project continues to grow.
>
> Si

[Andrew Sykes]

Si,

Yes, this keeps coming up with us too!

- Andrew

On Mon, 2007-01-08 at 09:16 -0800, Si Chen wrote:
> Hey everybody,
>
> I saw the list of potential topics.  While all are good, I think the
> most critical one to me is the automated testing, especially as the
> project continues to grow.
>
> Si
--
Kind Regards
Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]>
Sykes Development Ltd
http://www.sykesdevelopment.com

[Si Chen-2]

Tim Ruppert wrote:

> Here, here Si.  I can only apologize for being so swamped as to not
> contribute more to this topic.  I have done this a zillion times with
> a lot of tools - just about all xUnit derivatives - and truly want to
> have something put forth to everyone this month.
>
> After we get all of our site stuff migrated over (hopefully this
> week), I want to turn my attention here.
>
> Cheers,
> Tim
> --
> Tim Ruppert
> HotWax Media
> http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
>
> o:801.649.6594
> f:801.649.6595
>
>
> On Jan 8, 2007, at 10:16 AM, Si Chen wrote:
>
>> Hey everybody,
>>
>> I saw the list of potential topics.  While all are good, I think the
>> most critical one to me is the automated testing, especially as the
>> project continues to grow.
>>
>> Si
>
>

No need to apologize, I understand how it can be.  If you want to make
this a session at your hackathon, maybe we can participate remotely?

Si

[Tim Ruppert]

We'd love to have you come Si.  Your presence would be a big boost  
for sure.  If you guys can't make it - we'll do the best we can with  
having it available remotely.

Cheers,
Tim
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com

o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595

On Jan 8, 2007, at 1:01 PM, Si Chen wrote:

> Tim Ruppert wrote:
>> Here, here Si.  I can only apologize for being so swamped as to  
>> not contribute more to this topic.  I have done this a zillion  
>> times with a lot of tools - just about all xUnit derivatives - and  
>> truly want to have something put forth to everyone this month.
>>
>> After we get all of our site stuff migrated over (hopefully this  
>> week), I want to turn my attention here.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Tim
>> --
>> Tim Ruppert
>> HotWax Media
>> http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
>>
>> o:801.649.6594
>> f:801.649.6595
>>
>>
>> On Jan 8, 2007, at 10:16 AM, Si Chen wrote:
>>
>>> Hey everybody,
>>>
>>> I saw the list of potential topics.  While all are good, I think  
>>> the most critical one to me is the automated testing, especially  
>>> as the project continues to grow.
>>>
>>> Si
>>
>>
> No need to apologize, I understand how it can be.  If you want to  
> make this a session at your hackathon, maybe we can participate  
> remotely?
>
> Si