News and updates

  • Hackathon location has moved to the same location as the gettogether. The growing size of the group and the consequent transportation to our offices (outside of Ghent) has been our main motivation in this. Appart from being late news, this change should only have positive effects for all of you.
  • The day's schedule has been updated to leave time for working in small groups in the afternoon.
  • For a handy map of the GetTogether locations, see http://outerthought.net/~stevenn/plangent_ann.jpg.
  • The registration for the event is closed since we had to fix on some numbers for the catering.

On October 6, the day before the Cocoon Gettogether , there is a Hackathon foreseen at the same location where the GT2003 is hapening.

The big idea is to use this page to hack together some agenda for that day, please make this a joint effort, practical stuff to be organized is most likely to be taken up by one fo the Outerthoughties (me, Marc Portier being the prime volunteer/suspect in case we are missing something that day) the broader thinking and idea generation is up to us all.

Below is the co-authored and evolving schedule of the day.

Schedule of the day

Welcome coffee

  • starts at 8:30

Morning: talks

The idea is to have several short talks, each followed by a discussion. We'd like to limit the plenary talks to the morning, with afternoon follow-ups on specific topics in smaller groups if needed.

Speakers should aim for a 10-minute talk, which will leave enough time for discussion.

Currently the following talks are planned, please add your proposals below, we will discuss them Monday morning and decide whether to include them in the "plenary" session or leave them for the afternoon small groups.

GT2003RealBlocks (Stefano)

Stefano will introduce the subject, providing historical context, reasons, requirements, goals and objectives. He will also introduce the current state of design and the potentially open issues. The aim is to come up with all the people involved with a solid idea of what blocks are and what are for.

Discussion topics/personal goals:

  • (Reinhard) Get a better understanding how blocks will look like from a user's point of view.
    • Which problems can be solved in the future that we can't solve (or not so elegant) now?
    • What's new in the sitemap?
    • What do blocks mean for the control flow?
    • How do the configuration files work?
    • How can a user integrate the use of blocks into his IDEs?
  • (Reinhard) Get a better understanding how blocks will work from a developer's point of view.
    • Expected develpoment time
    • Who is willing to participate in the development of blocks?
    • Which part's of Cocoon have to be touched for implementation?
    • What do blocks mean for the control flow?
    • Do blocks have a lifecycle? (e.g. if I install a block I'd like to create some database tables)
    • Do I have access in my applications to a complete list of all blocks including some description? (use case: I want to give the user a list of all possible styles and he can decide which style he chooses --> technically: the users decides which styles block he likes best)

GT2003HackathonForms (Sylvain)

  • What form handling solutions do we have today, what are the pro/cons of each. Short intro to Woody principles. - Sylvain
  • Basic form handling idea in Dywel - Carsten (if ready)

Discussion topics/personal goals:

  • (mpo) I would like to see some discussion and concensus on some borders of responsibility between jx and woody transformers.
  • (mpo) Hopefully we can also find some consensus on best practices and even some lightweight method/procedure for conceiving and implementing projects based on this stuf.
  • (Reinhard) Find consensus where the Cocoon Formhandling should go ...?
    • What's missing in Woody (which is intended but not implemented yet)?, some thoughts:
      • Is it possible to decouple widget defintion from templates?

(So you could build your global widgets repository --> widgets would become reusable)

      • What's missing for multi-page woody form flows? http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-cocoon-dev&w=2&r=1&s=multi+page+woody&q=b
      • Is it possible to change widget properties (e.g. visibility) from within the flow?
      • Are high level widgets possible? (e.g. caldendars, trees, ...)
      • Can't we reuse the JXTemplate approach for Woody? (Woody is fine but I don't think it will
        solve 100% of our needs. The possiblities of the JXTemplateGenerator could close this gap.)
    • What can be considered as stable?
    • What do other frameworks (JSF, .NET Forms, Dywel ...) offer which Woody does not?
    • discuss muli-page Woody forms which is IMO a must (but AFAIK not possible now)

GT2003HackathonFlow (Carsten)

MiniTalks:

  • G!T2003WebContinuationManagement - mpo
  • Introduction to Dywel - Carsten (if ready)
  • Introduction to intercepted flow scripts - Reinhard
  • Tips and tricks with FlowScript (lessons learned) - Sylvain
  • (Sylvain) (RT)-Extending the use of flow scripts to indirect sitemap components (matchers, actions & selectors) which are also part or the controller in the MVC model.

Discussion topics/personal goals:

  • (mpo) Mostly hoping to get a common vision on name changes in API and sitemap?
  • (Carsten) Ideas for 'parallel flow handling', e.g. aggregated in a portal
  • (Reinhard) use cases for intercepted flow scripts; is the current prototyp the right direction?
  • (Reinhard) Gianugo already started to investigate Rhino-with-continuations to lead Christopher's implementation back to Rhino. Maybe he can give a short overview on his research results.

G!T2003HackathonCli (Upayavira)

I would like to have a short (maybe 1/2 hour) session on the CLI/bean. The purpose would be to share where I want to take it, and check that that is in harmony with others, and to get a sense of how others see it, both at present and in potential.

Cocoon For Users. Cocoon Made Easy.

  • G!T2003Usability - Matthew
  • G!T2003Configuration - Sylvain

GT2003HackathonJsr170 (David Nuescheler, JSR-170 Spec Lead)

I (Stefano) have invited David at the GT2003 to give us an overview of the Java Content. David will give a rapid presentation of what JSR 170 is about, where it is supposed to fit architecturally and what problems will solve. We are expecting the API to be in public draft exactly on the day of the GT or shortly after (it's currently under legal review inside the JCP)

The quest for GT2003HackathoncocoonCms. (Stefano)

I would like to talk about a general architecture for cocoon's own content management. The goal is to catalize the creation of a content management system based on cocoon for cocoon's own content. Sort of a wiki that saves XHMTL in a repository (CVS or other), with a little workflow, dead-simple editing, and improved navigation capabilities (wikis really suck on that). How present efforts (like Forrest, Lenya, Linotype, etc..) fit in this picture will come up from the discussion.

My dream is remove both hand-edited XML and the need for a wiki: the system should be able to replace the wiki in simplicity, match the existing forrest-based infrastructure for coherence and beauty, allow all users to edit documents but without compromising our security (a little approuval workflow will be required) and without scaring them away. It would be an incredibly useful tool for us and an incredibly powerful showcase of the potentiality of cocoon itself.

Add your talk proposal here...


Lunch: 12-13PM


Afternoon: Hackathon

The idea is to split in smaller groups, each with a group leader, to work on specific topics.

GT2003BugzillaCleanup (Carsten)

What about simply "cleaning" bugzilla? We could look at all found bugs and posted patches and fix/apply/reject them. I think this would make our users really happy and would be a great announcement at the GT the next day! People who cannot attend can still particpate by testing the cvs or providing further bug symptoms (see TimeAndDate Meeting Planner).

Add your group proposal here...

People attending

  1. Bruno Dumon
  2. Marc Portier
  3. Upayavira (Vegetarian)
  4. SylvainWallez
  5. Torsten Curdt
  6. BertrandDelacretaz
  7. ChristianHaul
  8. ReinhardPoetz
  9. Carsten Ziegeler
  10. Manfred Weigel
  11. GianugoRabellino
  12. Matthew Langham
  13. Michael Wechner
  14. Vadim
  15. Stephan Michels
  16. stefanomazzocchi
  17. Friedrich Klenner
  18. Crafterm
  19. MichaelMelhem
  20. JeremyQuinn (Vegetarian)
  21. Laurent Trillaud
  22. Christian David
  23. David Rogers
  24. Louis LaFontisee
  25. StevenNoels - popping in and out during the day
  26. Olivier Lange
  27. JoergHeinicke
  28. Daniel Fagerström
  29. Per-Eric Olsson
  30. Lars Samuelsson
  31. Marcus Lundblad
  32. Cheche- Arrive to brussels at 9:20 AM
  33. David Nuescheler

Getting there

Map & Driving instructions are the same as for the venue of the 7th. Check the related page on the official GT2003 site. We expect everyone to show up by his own means, which shouldn't be a problem given the central location.

A map is available at http://outerthought.net/~stevenn/plangent_ann.jpg.

Our contact details are listed on our website. Yes, we are a proper company. (wink) For emergencies, here's our mobile numbers: Marc: +32 476 47 36 33, Steven: +32 478 29 29 00, Bruno: +32 473 86 32 88

Collaborative Software to have

If you are a user of MacOSX, you should come with SubEthaEdit (formerly known as Hydra) installed. This is a rendezvous-enabled real-time collaborative text editor. It is *wonderful* for taking notes collaboratively on these types of events. If you aren't a user of MacOSX, buy one or die of envy (wink) (Stefano)

Grrr... I'm more and more dying of envy. Buying come next when the envy has reached an unacceptable limit. Approaching, approaching... (wink) (Sylvain)

Stuff around

  • No Projector (needed? --> currently not foreseen)
  • Whiteboard and fresh markers (todo mpo)
  • Wifi hotspots on local network (todo mpo and stevenn) (Jeremy can bring an Airport and/or video camera if needed)
    • Does anybody has spare wifi card? Or is there any RJ45 plugs available?
    • I have two spare Zyxel ZyAIR 100 cards that I can bring with me, they used to work on my W2K laptops (Bertrand)
  • I will bring my digital video camera and a firewire cable (Stefano)
    • Does anybody have a tripod? I have a very tiny one but a real one should be better
      • Yep, just organized one for monday and tuesday.
  • Suggestion (Gianugo): enough power plugs. What is the Belgian standard, besides?
  • No labels