Обсуждение: Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2

Folks,

Jim Nasby, Gevik and I have been talking about launching a new Knowledge
Base project, since the previous one sort of foundered short of
implementation.  There are several corporate backers of PostgreSQL who
would like to see such a thing up and running in the next 6 months or
less, and are willing to put some resources behind it.


We're just starting to discuss requirements now.   We've set up a
mailing list on Gevik's Kennisgres project:
http://pgfoundry.org/mail/admin/?group_id=1000145
... mostly because it was convenient; one of the things we'll be
discussing is whether or not we will be using Gevik's Kennisgres code.

Anyway, if you are interested in designing/planning/contributing
to/writing for a knowledge base for postgresql.org, please join us over
there.  Once we have a set of funcitonal requirements and a plan, we'll
drag it over here to get shot full of holes.

--Josh

On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 13:01, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Jim Nasby, Gevik and I have been talking about launching a new Knowledge
> Base project, since the previous one sort of foundered short of
> implementation.  There are several corporate backers of PostgreSQL who
> would like to see such a thing up and running in the next 6 months or
> less, and are willing to put some resources behind it.
>
>
> We're just starting to discuss requirements now.   We've set up a
> mailing list on Gevik's Kennisgres project:
> http://pgfoundry.org/mail/admin/?group_id=1000145
> ... mostly because it was convenient; one of the things we'll be
> discussing is whether or not we will be using Gevik's Kennisgres code.
>
> Anyway, if you are interested in designing/planning/contributing
> to/writing for a knowledge base for postgresql.org, please join us over
> there.  Once we have a set of funcitonal requirements and a plan, we'll
> drag it over here to get shot full of holes.
>

If we are going to discuss adding a KB to the postgresql.org sites,
shouldn't we discuss it right here? And didn't we have this discussion
of requirements once already before Gevik looked into drupal? Why are we
going to rehash it on yet another projects mailing list? And what does
that project have to do with the kb? From what I have looked at it
before, it was a .net based cms software, has the direction of that
project changed? I'm confused.


Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert,

> If we are going to discuss adding a KB to the postgresql.org sites,
> shouldn't we discuss it right here?

No, for two reasons:  (1) the KB project includes contacts for some
corporate supporters who aren't prepared for the "attitude" common from
some posters on this (and other) main postgresql mailing lists, and (2)
this list is too large and diffuse to make decisions quickly on a narrowly
defined project.

For those reasons, we're going to use a seperate mailing list to do the
detailed planning and coordinate with this list over integration,
infrastructure, and *broad* goals.  In other words, I'm happy to discuss
*whether* to add the KB we build to PostgreSQL.org here, but not how to
build it.

> And didn't we have this discussion
> of requirements once already before Gevik looked into drupal?

I reviewed that thread, which was talking strictly about recreating
Techdocs.   The KB will be something slightly different.   Also, many of
the present participants weren't there for that discussion.

> And what does
> that project have to do with the kb? From what I have looked at it
> before, it was a .net based cms software, has the direction of that
> project changed? I'm confused.

Well, according to Gevik it's a tool for building KBs.  Whether or not it
meets our requirements, I don't know, since the requirements aren't yet
defined.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 15:23, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Robert,
>
> > If we are going to discuss adding a KB to the postgresql.org sites,
> > shouldn't we discuss it right here?
>
> No, for two reasons:  (1) the KB project includes contacts for some
> corporate supporters who aren't prepared for the "attitude" common from
> some posters on this (and other) main postgresql mailing lists, and (2)
> this list is too large and diffuse to make decisions quickly on a narrowly
> defined project.

Well that's confrontational...(and hand-wavy imho)

>
> For those reasons, we're going to use a seperate mailing list to do the
> detailed planning and coordinate with this list over integration,
> infrastructure, and *broad* goals.  In other words, I'm happy to discuss
> *whether* to add the KB we build to PostgreSQL.org here, but not how to
> build it.
>

Let me put it this way, I have an interest in discussing how the kb will
be integrated into the main websites, but not much interest in
discussing how exactly its coded up. That said, it sounds like what you
need to know first is how it will be integrated into the site, and that
discussion should probably happen here first *before* you go about
coding something up and have yourselves painted into a corner.

> > And didn't we have this discussion
> > of requirements once already before Gevik looked into drupal?
>
> I reviewed that thread, which was talking strictly about recreating
> Techdocs.   The KB will be something slightly different.   Also, many of
> the present participants weren't there for that discussion.
>

They can't read the archives? You can't bullet-point it for them?

> > And what does
> > that project have to do with the kb? From what I have looked at it
> > before, it was a .net based cms software, has the direction of that
> > project changed? I'm confused.
>
> Well, according to Gevik it's a tool for building KBs.  Whether or not it
> meets our requirements, I don't know, since the requirements aren't yet
> defined.

Which is why I am confused. Should we discuss the requirements here
*first*, and then those interested in coding them up can join the
project and discuss the details there? To do otherwise would seem to add
an a priori condition that we're going to use geviks kb project as our
solution before we even have the requirements.

(Robert prepares to resign himself to joining yet another mailing list,
since it looks like this decision has already been made)

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert,

> Well that's confrontational...

Well, personally I would have thought it would be obvious why we wouldn't
want corporate supporters participating on this list, but you demanded to
know.

> Let me put it this way, I have an interest in discussing how the kb will
> be integrated into the main websites, but not much interest in
> discussing how exactly its coded up. That said, it sounds like what you
> need to know first is how it will be integrated into the site, and that
> discussion should probably happen here first *before* you go about
> coding something up and have yourselves painted into a corner.

Actually, I see it as:
1) Functionality Requirements (other list)
2) Requirments Related to Integration (this list)

> They can't read the archives? You can't bullet-point it for them?

To be more clear: Techdocs is not a Knowledge Base.  The previous tread
discussed re-implementing Techdocs, not a creating a KB,  therefore it is
not applicable except in a few details where there's overlap.

> Which is why I am confused. Should we discuss the requirements here
> *first*, and then those interested in coding them up can join the
> project and discuss the details there?

Integration requirements, yes.  Functional requirements, no.  The
functional requirements should be defined by the people who are actually
going to develop and/or fund the software.

> To do otherwise would seem to add
> an a priori condition that we're going to use geviks kb project as our
> solution before we even have the requirements.

Per my previous e-mail, that's undecided.   Please read it again and stop
jumping to conclusions.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

> > No, for two reasons:  (1) the KB project includes contacts for some
> > corporate supporters who aren't prepared for the "attitude" common from
> > some posters on this (and other) main postgresql mailing lists, and (2)
> > this list is too large and diffuse to make decisions quickly on a narrowly
> > defined project.
>
> Well that's confrontational...(and hand-wavy imho)

But in reality, true. Some of the people on the list for the KB probably
would flat out not participate because of some of the more colorful ways
we in the OSS community tend to communicate.

This is an important project and has some corporate level sponsors that
are as integrated as say CMD into the community. We should respect the
way they communicate as well.


> Let me put it this way, I have an interest in discussing how the kb will
> be integrated into the main websites, but not much interest in
> discussing how exactly its coded up. That said, it sounds like what you
> need to know first is how it will be integrated into the site, and that
> discussion should probably happen here first *before* you go about
> coding something up and have yourselves painted into a corner.

My suggestion to the other mailing list was to define scope and then
when we had done so bring it to the WWW list for inclusion/comments
etc...

> They can't read the archives? You can't bullet-point it for them?

Robert, think ties. Ties don't read archives, nor is it Josh's
responsibility to bullet-point it for them.


> Which is why I am confused. Should we discuss the requirements here
> *first*, and then those interested in coding them up can join the
> project and discuss the details there?

Well honestly I don't think so. The KB at least at this point has
requirements that are going to be set forth in a major way by the
corporate sponsors. I don't think people on the WWW list want to
particpate in that.

I can see however, once those requirements are set; discussion from WWW
on snags, pitfalls and what we have to do to get it accepted and
integrated into the main WWW sites.

> (Robert prepares to resign himself to joining yet another mailing list,
> since it looks like this decision has already been made)

Think of it this way; it should go away in the end :)

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> Robert Treat
--
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.503.667.4564
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: PLphp, PLperl, ODBCng - http://www.commandprompt.com/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Joshua D. Drake
> Sent: 02 December 2005 20:57
> To: Robert Treat
> Cc: Josh Berkus; pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> > Let me put it this way, I have an interest in discussing
> how the kb will
> > be integrated into the main websites, but not much interest in
> > discussing how exactly its coded up. That said, it sounds
> like what you
> > need to know first is how it will be integrated into the
> site, and that
> > discussion should probably happen here first *before* you go about
> > coding something up and have yourselves painted into a corner.
>
> My suggestion to the other mailing list was to define scope and then
> when we had done so bring it to the WWW list for inclusion/comments
> etc...
>
> > They can't read the archives? You can't bullet-point it for them?
>
> Robert, think ties. Ties don't read archives, nor is it Josh's
> responsibility to bullet-point it for them.

I'd have to disagree with the last point - if Josh is bringing them to
the table, then he should make sure they know what's going on (and I'm
sure he will do whatever is required).

> > Which is why I am confused. Should we discuss the requirements here
> > *first*, and then those interested in coding them up can join the
> > project and discuss the details there?
>
> Well honestly I don't think so. The KB at least at this point has
> requirements that are going to be set forth in a major way by the
> corporate sponsors. I don't think people on the WWW list want to
> particpate in that.

Well as I pointed out yesterday, given that we have discussed the issue
of a techdocs/pgdn/kb in some depth and as far as we were aware Gevik
was already working on it, I think we absolutely do want to know what's
going on and how the project is being redefined. That's exactly why I
strongly suggested to Josh that he needed to raise the topic here.

Incidently, as far as I am concerned the project that had been discussed
was /not/ merely a replacement for techdocs; it was to be a full
knowledgebase type section of the site (styled on Microsoft's KB) with a
CMS style interface for contributors. I will be interested to hear what
will be different about the new KB project.

Regards, Dave.

Dave,

> Well as I pointed out yesterday, given that we have discussed the issue
> of a techdocs/pgdn/kb in some depth and as far as we were aware Gevik
> was already working on it, I think we absolutely do want to know what's
> going on and how the project is being redefined. That's exactly why I
> strongly suggested to Josh that he needed to raise the topic here.

Ok, I didn't get that from the thread.  I'll ask Jim to digest it and see
if he can come up with WWW's requirements out of it.

--Josh

--
__Aglio Database Solutions_______________
Josh Berkus               Consultant
josh@agliodbs.com     www.agliodbs.com
Ph: 415-752-2500    Fax: 415-752-2387
2166 Hayes Suite 200    San Francisco, CA

On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 15:53, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Robert,
>
> > Well that's confrontational...
>
> Well, personally I would have thought it would be obvious why we wouldn't
> want corporate supporters participating on this list, but you demanded to
> know.
>

This is a joke. If you invite all the people on this list to join that
list, you haven't actually prevented the "fragile corporate types" from
interacting with the "grotty techno-luddites" which claim to be so
important.

As a side note, I'm more than happy to have anyone join this list, it's
one of the reasons I lobbied so hard for us to open it up so many moons
ago.

> > Which is why I am confused. Should we discuss the requirements here
> > *first*, and then those interested in coding them up can join the
> > project and discuss the details there?
>
> Integration requirements, yes.  Functional requirements, no.  The
> functional requirements should be defined by the people who are actually
> going to develop and/or fund the software.
>

I see where I went wrong, I thought integrating it into the main website
infrastructure was a functional requirement.

> > To do otherwise would seem to add
> > an a priori condition that we're going to use geviks kb project as our
> > solution before we even have the requirements.
>
> Per my previous e-mail, that's undecided.   Please read it again and stop
> jumping to conclusions.
>

Clearly I should have understood that if you are leading a discussion
with developers and nebulous sponsors to implement a large website of
postgresql related materials on a third party projects mailing list that
that would be an indication of your openness to everyones ideas on a
software implementation for the postgresql community and would in no way
color the final decisions on the direction things should take. I
apologize for my confusion.


Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert,

> This is a joke. If you invite all the people on this list to join that
> list, you haven't actually prevented the "fragile corporate types" from
> interacting with the "grotty techno-luddites" which claim to be so
> important.

Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing list?  This
sort of response is *exactly* why.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 16:41, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Robert,
>
> > This is a joke. If you invite all the people on this list to join that
> > list, you haven't actually prevented the "fragile corporate types" from
> > interacting with the "grotty techno-luddites" which claim to be so
> > important.
>
> Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing list?  This
> sort of response is *exactly* why.
>

Didn't realize you were so sensitive Josh :-)

Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?


Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert,

More seriously, there's a 3rd reason: there are several people involved
with the KB who have no interest in general WWW activity.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Robert,

> Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?

That's "you squares".  ;-)

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

-----Original Message-----
From: "Josh Berkus"<josh@agliodbs.com>
Sent: 02/12/05 21:36:51
To: "Robert Treat"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: "pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2

> Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing list?  This
> sort of response is *exactly* why.

Trying desparately not to say "I told you so" I very much doubt you have got this response had you raised this here in
thefirst place and not later when persuaded to do so.  

Now, perhaps we can put the rocky start to one side and get on with building a knowledgebase?

Regards, Dave

-----Unmodified Original Message-----
Robert,

> This is a joke. If you invite all the people on this list to join that
> list, you haven't actually prevented the "fragile corporate types" from
> interacting with the "grotty techno-luddites" which claim to be so
> important.

Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing list?  This
sort of response is *exactly* why.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
       choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
       match

-----Original Message-----
From: "Josh Berkus"<josh@agliodbs.com>
Sent: 02/12/05 21:57:57
To: "pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
Cc: "Robert Treat"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2

Robert,

> > Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?

> That's "you squares".  ;-)

Hey, watch who you call square - I've got long hair *and* I wear jeans to the office :-p

/D

-----Unmodified Original Message-----
Robert,

> Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?

That's "you squares".  ;-)

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings

> > > Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?
>
> > That's "you squares".  ;-)
>
> Hey, watch who you call square - I've got long hair *and* I wear jeans to the office :-p

When did you start wearing pants to the office ;)

>
> /D
>
> -----Unmodified Original Message-----
> Robert,
>
> > Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?
>
> That's "you squares".  ;-)
>
--
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.503.667.4564
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: PLphp, PLperl, ODBCng - http://www.commandprompt.com/

On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 16:58, Dave Page wrote:
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Josh Berkus"<josh@agliodbs.com>
> Sent: 02/12/05 21:36:51
> To: "Robert Treat"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
> Cc: "pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> > Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing list?  This
> > sort of response is *exactly* why.
>
> Trying desparately not to say "I told you so" I very much doubt you have got this response had you raised this here
inthe first place and not later when persuaded to do so.  
>
> Now, perhaps we can put the rocky start to one side and get on with building a knowledgebase?
>

Apparently not on this list we can't...


Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

> Now, perhaps we can put the rocky start to one side and get on with
> building a knowledgebase?

Oh please, I have been reading the discussion till now and I just cannot
follow anymore, I think we should settle this on a game of soccer in July
when we gather for the conference.

But for now let us use our valuable resources to continue building/defining
the knowledgebase.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Joshua D. Drake"<jd@commandprompt.com>
Sent: 02/12/05 22:07:54
To: "Dave Page"<dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>
Cc: "josh@agliodbs.com"<josh@agliodbs.com>, "pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>,
"xzilla@users.sourceforge.net"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2

> When did you start wearing pants to the office ;)

Well, the British answer would be 'when the boxers started chafing (sp?)', but I guess the US-friendly version would
haveto be something like 'after scaring three ppl to death, and the boss decided the insurance was getting too high' 

:-O

/D

-----Unmodified Original Message-----

> > > Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?
>
> > That's "you squares".  ;-)
>
> Hey, watch who you call square - I've got long hair *and* I wear jeans to the office :-p

When did you start wearing pants to the office ;)

>
> /D
>
> -----Unmodified Original Message-----
> Robert,
>
> > Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?
>
> That's "you squares".  ;-)
>
--
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.503.667.4564
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: PLphp, PLperl, ODBCng - http://www.commandprompt.com/

I mentioned this to Josh off-list but I am concerned about
introducing yet another technology platform (.net) for PgSQL based
sites.  Trying to track down an issue with borg the other day where
something was exploited web software wise, (and seeing how much
"stuff" was on the vm) I would say we should be concerned with
consolidating, not expanding technology dependencies.  I know svr2 is
getting cleaned up, but this is more of a philosophy thing.  Can
Alexy's framework that runs the main pgsql site work for techdocs/
knowledge base?  If not what's wrong with it?  Framewerk is nearly
mature enough to be used, but I won't have the time for the next 2
months or more to head up or be a primary programmer on something
like this.  I can however offer help and support on the project if
Framewerk is going to be used.  If you're interested in knowing where
things are at and what's outstanding for evaluation: http://
svn.framewerk.org/trac.cgi/wiki/Issues - I am proposing this because
unlike moving to .net we already use PHP pretty much everywhere else
(other than the existing techdocs).  I would also offer that unifying
the technology used for all the official pgsql sites would be a very
nice thing.

Regards,

Gavin


On Dec 2, 2005, at 2:08 PM, Robert Treat wrote:

> On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 16:58, Dave Page wrote:
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "Josh Berkus"<josh@agliodbs.com>
>> Sent: 02/12/05 21:36:51
>> To: "Robert Treat"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
>> Cc: "pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
>> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>>
>>> Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing
>>> list?  This
>>> sort of response is *exactly* why.
>>
>> Trying desparately not to say "I told you so" I very much doubt
>> you have got this response had you raised this here in the first
>> place and not later when persuaded to do so.
>>
>> Now, perhaps we can put the rocky start to one side and get on
>> with building a knowledgebase?
>>
>
> Apparently not on this list we can't...
>
>
> Robert Treat
> --
> Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
>                http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq

Gavin M. Roy
800 Pound Gorilla
gmr@ehpg.net

-----Original Message-----
From: "Gavin M. Roy"<gmr@ehpg.net>
Sent: 02/12/05 22:29:52
To: "Robert Treat"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: "Dave Page"<dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>, "Josh Berkus"<josh@agliodbs.com>,
"pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2

> I mentioned this to Josh off-list but I am concerned about
> introducing yet another technology platform (.net) for PgSQL based
sites.

Yes, I raised this as well, however if only the backend cms is build on .net or something, and docs are pushed to us in
theproper template format for the website, I'm less concerned.  

The 2 things I think are essential are:

- The user site should be fully integrated with the existing site so it mirrors etc.

- Anything that is actually on the main site is either pushed to us in template format, or built and integrated in php.

Regards, Dave

-----Unmodified Original Message-----
I mentioned this to Josh off-list but I am concerned about
introducing yet another technology platform (.net) for PgSQL based
sites.  Trying to track down an issue with borg the other day where
something was exploited web software wise, (and seeing how much
"stuff" was on the vm) I would say we should be concerned with
consolidating, not expanding technology dependencies.  I know svr2 is
getting cleaned up, but this is more of a philosophy thing.  Can
Alexy's framework that runs the main pgsql site work for techdocs/
knowledge base?  If not what's wrong with it?  Framewerk is nearly
mature enough to be used, but I won't have the time for the next 2
months or more to head up or be a primary programmer on something
like this.  I can however offer help and support on the project if
Framewerk is going to be used.  If you're interested in knowing where
things are at and what's outstanding for evaluation: http://
svn.framewerk.org/trac.cgi/wiki/Issues - I am proposing this because
unlike moving to .net we already use PHP pretty much everywhere else
(other than the existing techdocs).  I would also offer that unifying
the technology used for all the official pgsql sites would be a very
nice thing.

Regards,

Gavin


On Dec 2, 2005, at 2:08 PM, Robert Treat wrote:

> On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 16:58, Dave Page wrote:
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "Josh Berkus"<josh@agliodbs.com>
>> Sent: 02/12/05 21:36:51
>> To: "Robert Treat"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
>> Cc: "pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
>> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>>
>>> Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing
>>> list?  This
>>> sort of response is *exactly* why.
>>
>> Trying desparately not to say "I told you so" I very much doubt
>> you have got this response had you raised this here in the first
>> place and not later when persuaded to do so.
>>
>> Now, perhaps we can put the rocky start to one side and get on
>> with building a knowledgebase?
>>
>
> Apparently not on this list we can't...
>
>
> Robert Treat
> --
> Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
>                http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq

Gavin M. Roy
800 Pound Gorilla
gmr@ehpg.net

Folks,

While we discuss on the *other list* the business requirements for a
Postgres KB, it would be really helpful to get together on *this* list a
document giving the requirements for projects to be incorporated into the
PostgreSQL.org web infrastructure.  Such a document would be very helpful,
as well, to others wanting to add things to the web site.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Wow, talk about missing a lot by just being away for one day :-) I'll
bring a ocuple of mails together into one here...


> > If we are going to discuss adding a KB to the postgresql.org sites,
> > shouldn't we discuss it right here?
>
> No, for two reasons:  (1) the KB project includes contacts
> for some corporate supporters who aren't prepared for the
> "attitude" common from some posters on this (and other) main
> postgresql mailing lists,

These are the same companies who keeps pledging to "work with the
community" all the time? Apparantly this only applies to parts of the
community, and in certain cases... Seems I have a lot of statements to
reevaluate.

If they're not willing to discuss things with the project members, can
this really be called a community project? I'm doubtful.


> > And didn't we have this discussion
> > of requirements once already before Gevik looked into drupal?
>
> I reviewed that thread, which was talking strictly about recreating
> Techdocs.   The KB will be something slightly different.
> Also, many of
> the present participants weren't there for that discussion.

So can we hear what this big difference is, that's so big that it's no
longer on-topic for a list about the website?

Also, will this KB cover what's on techdocs today, or do we need both
this and a replacement for techdocs?


> > And what does
> > that project have to do with the kb? From what I have looked at it
> > before, it was a .net based cms software, has the direction of that
> > project changed? I'm confused.
>
> Well, according to Gevik it's a tool for building KBs.
> Whether or not it meets our requirements, I don't know, since
> the requirements aren't yet defined.

Then it sounds like an extraordinary *bad* place to put the discussion.
If something other than Kennisgres is choseen, then *100%* of the other
posts on that list are going to be off-topic. (Unlike say -www, where
they would at least be about the same project) Just seems - eh, sorry
there is only one way to say this - stupid. It may not be the intentino,
but it certainly sends a message.


> More seriously, there's a 3rd reason: there are several
> people involved with the KB who have no interest in general
> WWW activity.

Equally seriously, what about all those who have no interest in
Kennisgres and are just interested in building a PostgreSQL KB?

It's not like -www is a high traffic list.


Regarding what goes where:

> Actually, I see it as:
> 1) Functionality Requirements (other list)
> 2) Requirments Related to Integration (this list)

I can certainly see the point of this. But why is this a technical list
for a *different project*?

Normally, here's how I'd see something like this done:
You have a separate list that discussed *just functionality
requirements*, producing a specification of exactly what features are
wanted, that's fine.
Once this is done, you bring in the technical people (this is the -www
list, in case that's unclear) and ask them what the best way to do this
*within current frameworks if possible* is, and what it'll tkae.


Gavin wrote:

> I mentioned this to Josh off-list but I am concerned about
> introducing yet another technology platform (.net) for PgSQL
> based sites.

Yes, I'd say this is a *huge* problem. If it really is .net - the
pgFoundry page says PHP?

Josh, in your original mail you said that there were companies willing
to put resources behind such a project. Does this mean that they will
dedicate staff time to the *continous maintaining of such a site in the
future*, or just that they're interested in getting it started?

Because frankly, we clearly don't have enough people to maintain what we
have *today* (if we did, someone wouldn't have been able to hack into
our server through a piece of software that wasn't properly updated). If
we're going to add more to it, there'd better be some committment behind
it for actual maintenance.

The website sub-project has a history of people being interested in
doing the fun parts of getting things started, and then just dumping it
before it goes into maintenance. IMNSHO, risking yet another of those is
a very bad idea.

> Can Alexy's
> framework that runs the main pgsql site work for techdocs/
> knowledge base?  If not what's wrong with it?

For techdocs replacement? Absolutely.
For a general knowledge base? Absolutely.
For this special knowledge base? I dunno, because we have not been told
what the requirements are.


While I hope that's not the actual intention, you have to realise what
kind of a message you're sending with this, Josh. And it's basically
"you guys had a discussion, came to the wrong conclusion, so we're going
to do this over here instead".

That said, I'll jump into the other thread about what to actually do in
the next mail.

//Magnus

People:

This is the last I have to say on the subject:

pgFoundry is a Postgresql.org resource, not some external company site.
  The mailing list we set up is on pgFoundry, and has public archives.
People from this list who are interested in helping us build a KB within
a short timeline are welcome to participate.  People who just want to
look out for serious problems but don't want to participate can read the
archives.  I have no intention wasting any more of my very limited time
arguing on this list to no point.

--Josh Berkus

On Fri, 2 Dec 2005, Robert Treat wrote:

> On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 16:58, Dave Page wrote:
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "Josh Berkus"<josh@agliodbs.com>
>> Sent: 02/12/05 21:36:51
>> To: "Robert Treat"<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
>> Cc: "pgsql-www@postgresql.org"<pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
>> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>>
>>> Gee, and you wondered why I thought we need a seperate mailing list?  This
>>> sort of response is *exactly* why.
>>
>> Trying desparately not to say "I told you so" I very much doubt you have got this response had you raised this here
inthe first place and not later when persuaded to do so. 
>>
>> Now, perhaps we can put the rocky start to one side and get on with building a knowledgebase?
>>
>
> Apparently not on this list we can't...

One thing to note ... there is nothing stopping this list from developing
and implementing a knowledge base as was originally discussed ... there is
no reason why the "corporate project" that Josh is pulling together has to
be the "Official Project KB" ...

Not saying it shouldn't be, or should ... just that if everyone on this
list is so against it, there is nothing stopping this list from developing
one that is developed by the community, instead of corporate sponsors ...

Basically, if Josh et al wish to develop a KB outside of the community,
there is nothing stopping the community from developing their own within
it *shrug*




----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

Marc,

> Basically, if Josh et al wish to develop a KB outside of the community,
> there is nothing stopping the community from developing their own within
> it *shrug*

IN WHAT WAY is pgFoundry "outside the community"?

--Josh

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005, Magnus Hagander wrote:

> These are the same companies who keeps pledging to "work with the
> community" all the time? Apparantly this only applies to parts of the
> community, and in certain cases... Seems I have a lot of statements to
> reevaluate.
>
> If they're not willing to discuss things with the project members, can
> this really be called a community project? I'm doubtful.

First, I'm not for or against the "corporate KB project", just playing
devils advocate here ...

But ... does anyone here have the time to implement a KB "as the
community"?  If so, and since as several have pointed out, this has been
discussed to death previously, why are we not just implementing it and
moving forward, regardless of the 'corporate KB project'?

Gavin has put forth Framework(sp?) as a basis for this ... so why not jump
on that and just do it, instead of arguing the merits/drawbacks of the
Corporate Project that Josh is working on?

> Josh, in your original mail you said that there were companies willing
> to put resources behind such a project. Does this mean that they will
> dedicate staff time to the *continous maintaining of such a site in the
> future*, or just that they're interested in getting it started?

In theory, I would think that if done properly, the community should be
able to sustain things once the seed has been created ... no?

> Because frankly, we clearly don't have enough people to maintain what we
> have *today* (if we did, someone wouldn't have been able to hack into
> our server through a piece of software that wasn't properly updated). If
> we're going to add more to it, there'd better be some committment behind
> it for actual maintenance.

In Josh's defence on this one ... you give him a pretty strong argument
why this can't be community built, but has to be done by a corporate
"group" ... manpower.

We had this thread/discussion several months back about implementing a
replacement for techdocs/KB ... but, to date, has anything been done?  The
feel I've gotten is that everything was resting on 'Gevik' for this, so
that became our single point of failure ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org]
> Sent: 06 December 2005 05:22
> To: Robert Treat
> Cc: Dave Page; Josh Berkus; pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> Not saying it shouldn't be, or should ... just that if
> everyone on this
> list is so against it, there is nothing stopping this list
> from developing
> one that is developed by the community, instead of corporate
> sponsors ...

We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-) ) comes from the fact
that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our knowledge and
reformed on a pgFoundry site, and was about to be re-specced possibly in
complete contradition to what we had originally thrashed out - without
so much as a 'by your leave'.

Whilst I think we all appreciate the needs of the companies working with
us, and are grateful for their support, this is primarily a volunteer
community based project and that community deserves to be treated in the
right way. Without it, I have little doubt that the project (or specific
bits of it) would rapidly fall apart.

I hope however, that this unfortunate incident is behind us all now.

Regards, Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com]
> Sent: 06 December 2005 05:24
> To: Marc G. Fournier
> Cc: Robert Treat; Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> Marc,
>
> > Basically, if Josh et al wish to develop a KB outside of
> the community,
> > there is nothing stopping the community from developing
> their own within
> > it *shrug*
>
> IN WHAT WAY is pgFoundry "outside the community"?

It's kinda like discussing development of the JDBC driver on the
pgInstaller project site. It's a community site for sure, but it's quite
clearly still not the appropriate place the the JDBC part of the
community.

Do you remember the number of people for various places that were irked
by being told to go and discuss certain aspects of backend development
on the Bizgres list? This is pretty much the same problem, only it's
even harder to see how the Kenninsgres list *is* the right place to
decide (amongst other things) what CMS to use. It's akin to using the
Microsoft Office news group to discuss whether to use MS Word or KWord!

Regards, Dave.

> > Josh, in your original mail you said that there were
> companies willing
> > to put resources behind such a project. Does this mean that
> they will
> > dedicate staff time to the *continous maintaining of such a site in
> > the future*, or just that they're interested in getting it started?
>
> In theory, I would think that if done properly, the community
> should be able to sustain things once the seed has been
> created ... no?

Certainly - given that it integrates with existing stuff and doesn't
place a lot of additional technical maintenance burden on the community.
If that's included in yuor "done properly", it's not a problem. It's
clearly not in everybodys "done properly", though, in which case it
becomes a problem.


> > Because frankly, we clearly don't have enough people to
> maintain what
> > we have *today* (if we did, someone wouldn't have been able to hack
> > into our server through a piece of software that wasn't properly
> > updated). If we're going to add more to it, there'd better be some
> > committment behind it for actual maintenance.
>
> In Josh's defence on this one ... you give him a pretty
> strong argument why this can't be community built, but has to
> be done by a corporate "group" ... manpower.

No. If it's built inside current frameworks, it does *not* add a
considerable maintenance burden, then we can deal with it. If it also
gets rid of other maintenance stuff (techdocs), it will *decrease* the
maintenance burden.
Note that I'm talking about technical maintenance, *not* content
maintenance. Those are different things, and it's significantly easier
to scale content maintenance.

And if you're not talking aobut integrated stuff, you're back to your
argument about a non-community KB. Which I don't think is what Josh
intends at all.


> We had this thread/discussion several months back about
> implementing a replacement for techdocs/KB ... but, to date,
> has anything been done?  The feel I've gotten is that
> everything was resting on 'Gevik' for this, so that became
> our single point of failure ...

Not at all. Work is progressing as we speak, and has for a while (though
it was temporarily interrupted when Gevik was working on it the first
time - before taking the timeout).

But this is *just a techdocs replacement*, not a whizz-bang KB. It
fulfills the techdocs requirements for easy editing and searching, and
the communitys erquirements for easy maintenance. It does not fullfill
all the other KB requiremetns (I'm sure, though I haven't seen teh whole
list since it's not finished - but there are definitly several that
aren't). It places the bar a lot lower, making it easier to get done...

No, there's still no ETA on it, but it shouldn't be too far off. The
hardest part tends to be figuring out how the CSS stuff on our site is
actually meant to work, because there are no docs about that.

//Magnus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Magnus Hagander
> Sent: 06 December 2005 08:57
> To: Marc G. Fournier
> Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> Not at all. Work is progressing as we speak, and has for a
> while (though
> it was temporarily interrupted when Gevik was working on it the first
> time - before taking the timeout).
>
> But this is *just a techdocs replacement*, not a whizz-bang KB. It
> fulfills the techdocs requirements for easy editing and searching, and
> the communitys erquirements for easy maintenance. It does not fullfill
> all the other KB requiremetns (I'm sure, though I haven't
> seen teh whole
> list since it's not finished - but there are definitly several that
> aren't). It places the bar a lot lower, making it easier to
> get done...
>
> No, there's still no ETA on it, but it shouldn't be too far off. The
> hardest part tends to be figuring out how the CSS stuff on our site is
> actually meant to work, because there are no docs about that.

Err, your work is the techdocs replacement. Gevik was working on the KB
interface (the treeview thingy, with CMS behind it).

Regards, Dave.

> > Not at all. Work is progressing as we speak, and has for a while
> > (though it was temporarily interrupted when Gevik was working on it
> > the first time - before taking the timeout).
> >
> > But this is *just a techdocs replacement*, not a whizz-bang KB. It
> > fulfills the techdocs requirements for easy editing and
> searching, and
> > the communitys erquirements for easy maintenance. It does
> not fullfill
> > all the other KB requiremetns (I'm sure, though I haven't seen teh
> > whole list since it's not finished - but there are
> definitly several
> > that aren't). It places the bar a lot lower, making it
> easier to get
> > done...
> >
> > No, there's still no ETA on it, but it shouldn't be too far
> off. The
> > hardest part tends to be figuring out how the CSS stuff on
> our site is
> > actually meant to work, because there are no docs about that.
>
> Err, your work is the techdocs replacement. Gevik was working
> on the KB interface (the treeview thingy, with CMS behind it).

Yes. Thats what I meant :-) My work was interrupted while Gevik was
working on the initial PGDN stuff, when it looked like he would be done
fairly quickly. I resumed later, when it no longer looked to be as
quick.

//Magnus

Magnus,

> But this is *just a techdocs replacement*, not a whizz-bang KB. It
> fulfills the techdocs requirements for easy editing and searching, and
> the communitys erquirements for easy maintenance. It does not fullfill
> all the other KB requiremetns (I'm sure, though I haven't seen teh whole
> list since it's not finished - but there are definitly several that
> aren't). It places the bar a lot lower, making it easier to get done...

Hmmm ... well, any good KB should subsume techdocs as one aspect of its
functionality.   I don't like to see duplicated effort if we can help it.
Heck, for the much-maligned corporate KB effort step #2 will be evaluating
existing KB projects to see if any of them meets requirements or can be made
to with a minimum of effort.    And even if we do something custom it will
probably be based on GreenPlum's custom KB I'm currently building (in PHP &
PL/pgSQL).

On the other hand, I wouldn't blame you if you thought that the latest KB
effort was liable to founder and die and that you needed to have a back-up.
It wouldn't be the first one.  But in that case I'd suggest looking at
adapting something existing (like Bricolage, Framewerk, Drupal, etc.) rather
than coding up from scratch.  If you keep your requirements simple, at least
one of these should suffice, and has the tremendous advantage of having
external code maintainence, documentation, and help.

> We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-):-) ) comes from the fact
> that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
> progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our knowledge and
> reformed on a pgFoundry site,

Ah, Kennisgres was put up months ago (like, August).  I'd no idea that Gevik
hadn't discussed it here.   I can see that that would be a rude shock.

> and was about to be re-specced possibly in
> complete contradition to what we had originally thrashed out - without
> so much as a 'by your leave'.

Well, unfortunately no spec document ever came out of dicussion on this list.
In fact, I was on this list for that discussion, and my recall of it is that
there was a lot of shooting the breeze but no real decisions were actually
made.  At least, nothing that had a consensus behind it.

One of the big issues -- in fact, THE big issue -- with increasing
participation in WWW administration is the total and complete lack of
documentation for any WWW decisions, infrastructure, or code.  While I can
understand lagging in documenting stuff (like, I have a draft of the release
PR procedure I have yet to discuss online despite being on my HDD for a
month), it's extremely irrational for people on this list to pitch a fit at
potential contributors for not psychically understanding what WWW wants or
not reading the WWW list back to the beginning of time.

That is, it's one thing to say: "Hey, you should probably read this thread, we
already discussed it here ____________", and another thing entirely to say
"You asshole!  We already decided that, why didn't you pay attention!"
Currently, this list has an awful lot of the former.

This isn't just the KB.  It affects the whole web infrastructure.  For
example, we've been running on the new web site code for almost 2 years, and
how many translations of the site have there been?   Exactly none.  Why?
Zero documentation on how to translate the site.

If our project can insist that all database code patches come with full
documentation, I think maybe it's time that we start insisting that all WWW
patches come with documentation.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Well excuse me for trying to organize a home for whatever experimentations I
was doing for the KB. Maybe it was better to not have been enthusiastic and
certainly not to have shown *ideas* and *concepts* which have raised all
kinds questions and irritations on people.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www-
> owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus
> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:17 PM
> To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Cc: Magnus Hagander; Marc G. Fournier
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> Magnus,
>
> > But this is *just a techdocs replacement*, not a whizz-bang KB. It
> > fulfills the techdocs requirements for easy editing and searching, and
> > the communitys erquirements for easy maintenance. It does not fullfill
> > all the other KB requiremetns (I'm sure, though I haven't seen teh whole
> > list since it's not finished - but there are definitly several that
> > aren't). It places the bar a lot lower, making it easier to get done...
>
> Hmmm ... well, any good KB should subsume techdocs as one aspect of its
> functionality.   I don't like to see duplicated effort if we can help it.
> Heck, for the much-maligned corporate KB effort step #2 will be evaluating
> existing KB projects to see if any of them meets requirements or can be
> made
> to with a minimum of effort.    And even if we do something custom it will
> probably be based on GreenPlum's custom KB I'm currently building (in PHP
> &
> PL/pgSQL).
>
> On the other hand, I wouldn't blame you if you thought that the latest KB
> effort was liable to founder and die and that you needed to have a back-
> up.
> It wouldn't be the first one.  But in that case I'd suggest looking at
> adapting something existing (like Bricolage, Framewerk, Drupal, etc.)
> rather
> than coding up from scratch.  If you keep your requirements simple, at
> least
> one of these should suffice, and has the tremendous advantage of having
> external code maintainence, documentation, and help.
>
> > We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-):-) ) comes from the
> fact
> > that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
> > progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our knowledge and
> > reformed on a pgFoundry site,
>
> Ah, Kennisgres was put up months ago (like, August).  I'd no idea that
> Gevik
> hadn't discussed it here.   I can see that that would be a rude shock.
>
> > and was about to be re-specced possibly in
> > complete contradition to what we had originally thrashed out - without
> > so much as a 'by your leave'.
>
> Well, unfortunately no spec document ever came out of dicussion on this
> list.
> In fact, I was on this list for that discussion, and my recall of it is
> that
> there was a lot of shooting the breeze but no real decisions were actually
> made.  At least, nothing that had a consensus behind it.
>
> One of the big issues -- in fact, THE big issue -- with increasing
> participation in WWW administration is the total and complete lack of
> documentation for any WWW decisions, infrastructure, or code.  While I can
> understand lagging in documenting stuff (like, I have a draft of the
> release
> PR procedure I have yet to discuss online despite being on my HDD for a
> month), it's extremely irrational for people on this list to pitch a fit
> at
> potential contributors for not psychically understanding what WWW wants or
> not reading the WWW list back to the beginning of time.
>
> That is, it's one thing to say: "Hey, you should probably read this
> thread, we
> already discussed it here ____________", and another thing entirely to say
> "You asshole!  We already decided that, why didn't you pay attention!"
> Currently, this list has an awful lot of the former.
>
> This isn't just the KB.  It affects the whole web infrastructure.  For
> example, we've been running on the new web site code for almost 2 years,
> and
> how many translations of the site have there been?   Exactly none.  Why?
> Zero documentation on how to translate the site.
>
> If our project can insist that all database code patches come with full
> documentation, I think maybe it's time that we start insisting that all
> WWW
> patches come with documentation.
>
> --
> Josh Berkus
> Aglio Database Solutions
> San Francisco
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
>        choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
>        match

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 19:43 +0100, Gevik babakhani wrote:
> Well excuse me for trying to organize a home for whatever experimentations I
> was doing for the KB. Maybe it was better to not have been enthusiastic and
> certainly not to have shown *ideas* and *concepts* which have raised all
> kinds questions and irritations on people.

I don't think anyone was questioning what you are doing Gevik. Don't
take it personally. I think that this whole thing has been just one big
misscommunication.

At this point it should be dropped in favor of being productive. The
direction in terms of initial development have been decided, they will
take place in the kennisgres project mailing lists on the PostgreSQL
Projects, PgFoundry server.

After that we can all come back and fight and argue about all the things
that he said, that she said, that I said, that you said. That way we can
waste even more time.

Joshua D. Drake


>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www-
> > owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:17 PM
> > To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> > Cc: Magnus Hagander; Marc G. Fournier
> > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
> >
> > Magnus,
> >
> > > But this is *just a techdocs replacement*, not a whizz-bang KB. It
> > > fulfills the techdocs requirements for easy editing and searching, and
> > > the communitys erquirements for easy maintenance. It does not fullfill
> > > all the other KB requiremetns (I'm sure, though I haven't seen teh whole
> > > list since it's not finished - but there are definitly several that
> > > aren't). It places the bar a lot lower, making it easier to get done...
> >
> > Hmmm ... well, any good KB should subsume techdocs as one aspect of its
> > functionality.   I don't like to see duplicated effort if we can help it.
> > Heck, for the much-maligned corporate KB effort step #2 will be evaluating
> > existing KB projects to see if any of them meets requirements or can be
> > made
> > to with a minimum of effort.    And even if we do something custom it will
> > probably be based on GreenPlum's custom KB I'm currently building (in PHP
> > &
> > PL/pgSQL).
> >
> > On the other hand, I wouldn't blame you if you thought that the latest KB
> > effort was liable to founder and die and that you needed to have a back-
> > up.
> > It wouldn't be the first one.  But in that case I'd suggest looking at
> > adapting something existing (like Bricolage, Framewerk, Drupal, etc.)
> > rather
> > than coding up from scratch.  If you keep your requirements simple, at
> > least
> > one of these should suffice, and has the tremendous advantage of having
> > external code maintainence, documentation, and help.
> >
> > > We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-):-) ) comes from the
> > fact
> > > that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
> > > progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our knowledge and
> > > reformed on a pgFoundry site,
> >
> > Ah, Kennisgres was put up months ago (like, August).  I'd no idea that
> > Gevik
> > hadn't discussed it here.   I can see that that would be a rude shock.
> >
> > > and was about to be re-specced possibly in
> > > complete contradition to what we had originally thrashed out - without
> > > so much as a 'by your leave'.
> >
> > Well, unfortunately no spec document ever came out of dicussion on this
> > list.
> > In fact, I was on this list for that discussion, and my recall of it is
> > that
> > there was a lot of shooting the breeze but no real decisions were actually
> > made.  At least, nothing that had a consensus behind it.
> >
> > One of the big issues -- in fact, THE big issue -- with increasing
> > participation in WWW administration is the total and complete lack of
> > documentation for any WWW decisions, infrastructure, or code.  While I can
> > understand lagging in documenting stuff (like, I have a draft of the
> > release
> > PR procedure I have yet to discuss online despite being on my HDD for a
> > month), it's extremely irrational for people on this list to pitch a fit
> > at
> > potential contributors for not psychically understanding what WWW wants or
> > not reading the WWW list back to the beginning of time.
> >
> > That is, it's one thing to say: "Hey, you should probably read this
> > thread, we
> > already discussed it here ____________", and another thing entirely to say
> > "You asshole!  We already decided that, why didn't you pay attention!"
> > Currently, this list has an awful lot of the former.
> >
> > This isn't just the KB.  It affects the whole web infrastructure.  For
> > example, we've been running on the new web site code for almost 2 years,
> > and
> > how many translations of the site have there been?   Exactly none.  Why?
> > Zero documentation on how to translate the site.
> >
> > If our project can insist that all database code patches come with full
> > documentation, I think maybe it's time that we start insisting that all
> > WWW
> > patches come with documentation.
> >
> > --
> > Josh Berkus
> > Aglio Database Solutions
> > San Francisco
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> >        choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> >        match
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
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> On the other hand, I wouldn't blame you if you thought that
> the latest KB effort was liable to founder and die and that
> you needed to have a back-up.
> It wouldn't be the first one.  But in that case I'd suggest
> looking at adapting something existing (like Bricolage,
> Framewerk, Drupal, etc.) rather than coding up from scratch.
> If you keep your requirements simple, at least one of these
> should suffice, and has the tremendous advantage of having
> external code maintainence, documentation, and help.

I did look at this. It was my evaluation that it would take me *more*
work to adapt something like Drupal to my requirements, than to code
from scratch. It's not as easy as one would like it to be to make these
CMSes integrated into something existing. They tend to be designed to be
the "master system" that can plug in your own custom modules in, not to
be one of those custom modules.

And if I use one of those systems, I can't use hte features that are in
our *current* framework. So there's a downside with it from that
perspective as well.


And just to clearify - it's not like I've spent a lot of time on this.
It has taken a long time, but there's not really a lot of active coding
time for it. And I don't expect it to be much more.


> One of the big issues -- in fact, THE big issue -- with
> increasing participation in WWW administration is the total
> and complete lack of documentation for any WWW decisions,
> infrastructure, or code.  While I can understand lagging in
> documenting stuff (like, I have a draft of the release PR
> procedure I have yet to discuss online despite being on my
> HDD for a month), it's extremely irrational for people on
> this list to pitch a fit at potential contributors for not
> psychically understanding what WWW wants or not reading the
> WWW list back to the beginning of time.

There are *some* docs. Not much, clearly not as much as ther eshould be.
But ther *is* basic documentation of how the system works. It's in the
README file in cvs. Sure, it would be nice with more, but the stuff
that's in the README file was enough to bootstrap me into the code - and
this is actually the first project I've ever coded PHP on.

This is for the actual technical system. There is, AFAIK, zero
documentation on the *design* - things like how to use the CSS classes,
what elements to use where etc. To me, this has been a much bigger
problem.

This is probably also partially because whlie the PHP code that runs the
site is fairly simple, the CSS stuff is a lot more complex than most
others I've seen (partially because of the wlel-defined behaviour of PHP
vs the ill-defined behaviour of most browsers). That could also be
because I understand the PHP stuff a lot better, and that tends to make
it look easier :-)


> infrastructure.  For example, we've been running on the new
> web site code for almost 2 years, and
> how many translations of the site have there been?   Exactly
> none.  Why?
> Zero documentation on how to translate the site.

No. There is documentation on that. It's in the README file in CVS.

I think the problem is more that the translation process has been set up
by someone who doesn't do translation. And there is nobody on the active
web team today that do it.  AFAIK the system as it stands *works*, but
it may not be ideal from a translators point of view. To correct that,
we need someone who both has the technical know-how to adapt the system
(and the will to learn what has to be adapted) *and* knows what actual
translator requirements are.


> If our project can insist that all database code patches come
> with full documentation, I think maybe it's time that we
> start insisting that all WWW patches come with documentation.

Not a bad idea in general. Though we'd have to start from the bottom,
which is with the frameworks etc.


//Magnus

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 15:21, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> > On the other hand, I wouldn't blame you if you thought that
> > the latest KB effort was liable to founder and die and that
> > you needed to have a back-up.
> > It wouldn't be the first one.  But in that case I'd suggest
> > looking at adapting something existing (like Bricolage,
> > Framewerk, Drupal, etc.) rather than coding up from scratch.
> > If you keep your requirements simple, at least one of these
> > should suffice, and has the tremendous advantage of having
> > external code maintainence, documentation, and help.
>
> I did look at this. It was my evaluation that it would take me *more*
> work to adapt something like Drupal to my requirements, than to code
> from scratch. It's not as easy as one would like it to be to make these
> CMSes integrated into something existing. They tend to be designed to be
> the "master system" that can plug in your own custom modules in, not to
> be one of those custom modules.
>

FWIW Gevik also looked at drupal. I actually think he did really good
trying to get it to work but in the end he also concluded it wasn't
quite right.


Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

My experimentation with drupal did not have the expected results,
After spending three months of diving into drupal, I manages to change the
CMS to accept multi-version content, customizable document templates and
have a basic export module to export the data into a treeview and static
HTML. Drupal is not so flexible to incremental changes in it's framework.
That is one of the reasons I have continued my work with kennisgres.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www-
> owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Robert Treat
> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 9:30 PM
> To: Magnus Hagander
> Cc: Josh Berkus; pgsql-www@postgresql.org; Marc G.Fournier
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 15:21, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> > > On the other hand, I wouldn't blame you if you thought that
> > > the latest KB effort was liable to founder and die and that
> > > you needed to have a back-up.
> > > It wouldn't be the first one.  But in that case I'd suggest
> > > looking at adapting something existing (like Bricolage,
> > > Framewerk, Drupal, etc.) rather than coding up from scratch.
> > > If you keep your requirements simple, at least one of these
> > > should suffice, and has the tremendous advantage of having
> > > external code maintainence, documentation, and help.
> >
> > I did look at this. It was my evaluation that it would take me *more*
> > work to adapt something like Drupal to my requirements, than to code
> > from scratch. It's not as easy as one would like it to be to make these
> > CMSes integrated into something existing. They tend to be designed to be
> > the "master system" that can plug in your own custom modules in, not to
> > be one of those custom modules.
> >
>
> FWIW Gevik also looked at drupal. I actually think he did really good
> trying to get it to work but in the end he also concluded it wasn't
> quite right.
>
>
> Robert Treat
> --
> Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
>                http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq

On 6/12/05 5:16 pm, "Josh Berkus" <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:


> Well, unfortunately no spec document ever came out of dicussion on this list.

I've never seen a spec document produced for anything that postgresql.org
has done, on the web side or the backend server. I'm sure some (maybe all)
of the companies involved might produce them for things they work on, but I
never saw anything on -hackers.

> In fact, I was on this list for that discussion, and my recall of it is that
> there was a lot of shooting the breeze but no real decisions were actually
> made.  At least, nothing that had a consensus behind it.

Hmm, last week you told me you didn't recall any discussions on the subject
at all.

> One of the big issues -- in fact, THE big issue -- with increasing
> participation in WWW administration is the total and complete lack of
> documentation for any WWW decisions, infrastructure, or code.  While I can
> understand lagging in documenting stuff (like, I have a draft of the release
> PR procedure I have yet to discuss online despite being on my HDD for a
> month), it's extremely irrational for people on this list to pitch a fit at
> potential contributors for not psychically understanding what WWW wants or
> not reading the WWW list back to the beginning of time.

That is not the issue. Whilst you may have forgotten the discussions, others
were most certainly aware of the ongoing project that had evolved from them.
*That* is the issue, not the detail, which I'm happy to summarise as
required.

> That is, it's one thing to say: "Hey, you should probably read this thread, we
> already discussed it here ____________", and another thing entirely to say
> "You asshole!  We already decided that, why didn't you pay attention!"
> Currently, this list has an awful lot of the former.

Eh? You want us to do the latter, or is that a typo? If it is a typo, then
I'd like to see where any of us have been downright rude about it as you
suggest.

> This isn't just the KB.  It affects the whole web infrastructure.  For
> example, we've been running on the new web site code for almost 2 years, and
> how many translations of the site have there been?   Exactly none.  Why?
> Zero documentation on how to translate the site.

No. Alexey wrote up the details and added them to CVS (I think at your
request, but I might be mistaken about that). I can certainly recall at
least a couple of occasions where we've pointed you at that doc when you've
asked about it over the last year. Oh, and it's less than a year, not nearly
2 - I know that because we pushed it live just after new year so it was
there for 8.0's release.

> If our project can insist that all database code patches come with full
> documentation, I think maybe it's time that we start insisting that all WWW
> patches come with documentation.

No problem with that - though it will be documentation through code
comments. It's not like we require docs on how the code works for anything
else, only for the end user functionality.

Regards, Dave

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Gevik babakhani wrote:

> Well excuse me for trying to organize a home for whatever experimentations I
> was doing for the KB. Maybe it was better to not have been enthusiastic and
> certainly not to have shown *ideas* and *concepts* which have raised all
> kinds questions and irritations on people.

Gevik ... actually, from reading through this whole thread, you were one
of the ones that was actually doing it all properly, keeping -www in the
loop ... definitely please keep it up ...

  >
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www-
>> owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:17 PM
>> To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
>> Cc: Magnus Hagander; Marc G. Fournier
>> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>>
>> Magnus,
>>
>>> But this is *just a techdocs replacement*, not a whizz-bang KB. It
>>> fulfills the techdocs requirements for easy editing and searching, and
>>> the communitys erquirements for easy maintenance. It does not fullfill
>>> all the other KB requiremetns (I'm sure, though I haven't seen teh whole
>>> list since it's not finished - but there are definitly several that
>>> aren't). It places the bar a lot lower, making it easier to get done...
>>
>> Hmmm ... well, any good KB should subsume techdocs as one aspect of its
>> functionality.   I don't like to see duplicated effort if we can help it.
>> Heck, for the much-maligned corporate KB effort step #2 will be evaluating
>> existing KB projects to see if any of them meets requirements or can be
>> made
>> to with a minimum of effort.    And even if we do something custom it will
>> probably be based on GreenPlum's custom KB I'm currently building (in PHP
>> &
>> PL/pgSQL).
>>
>> On the other hand, I wouldn't blame you if you thought that the latest KB
>> effort was liable to founder and die and that you needed to have a back-
>> up.
>> It wouldn't be the first one.  But in that case I'd suggest looking at
>> adapting something existing (like Bricolage, Framewerk, Drupal, etc.)
>> rather
>> than coding up from scratch.  If you keep your requirements simple, at
>> least
>> one of these should suffice, and has the tremendous advantage of having
>> external code maintainence, documentation, and help.
>>
>>> We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-):-) ) comes from the
>> fact
>>> that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
>>> progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our knowledge and
>>> reformed on a pgFoundry site,
>>
>> Ah, Kennisgres was put up months ago (like, August).  I'd no idea that
>> Gevik
>> hadn't discussed it here.   I can see that that would be a rude shock.
>>
>>> and was about to be re-specced possibly in
>>> complete contradition to what we had originally thrashed out - without
>>> so much as a 'by your leave'.
>>
>> Well, unfortunately no spec document ever came out of dicussion on this
>> list.
>> In fact, I was on this list for that discussion, and my recall of it is
>> that
>> there was a lot of shooting the breeze but no real decisions were actually
>> made.  At least, nothing that had a consensus behind it.
>>
>> One of the big issues -- in fact, THE big issue -- with increasing
>> participation in WWW administration is the total and complete lack of
>> documentation for any WWW decisions, infrastructure, or code.  While I can
>> understand lagging in documenting stuff (like, I have a draft of the
>> release
>> PR procedure I have yet to discuss online despite being on my HDD for a
>> month), it's extremely irrational for people on this list to pitch a fit
>> at
>> potential contributors for not psychically understanding what WWW wants or
>> not reading the WWW list back to the beginning of time.
>>
>> That is, it's one thing to say: "Hey, you should probably read this
>> thread, we
>> already discussed it here ____________", and another thing entirely to say
>> "You asshole!  We already decided that, why didn't you pay attention!"
>> Currently, this list has an awful lot of the former.
>>
>> This isn't just the KB.  It affects the whole web infrastructure.  For
>> example, we've been running on the new web site code for almost 2 years,
>> and
>> how many translations of the site have there been?   Exactly none.  Why?
>> Zero documentation on how to translate the site.
>>
>> If our project can insist that all database code patches come with full
>> documentation, I think maybe it's time that we start insisting that all
>> WWW
>> patches come with documentation.
>>
>> --
>> Josh Berkus
>> Aglio Database Solutions
>> San Francisco
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
>>        choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
>>        match
>
>

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

Sorry if I'm beating a dead elephant here, but this is the kind of stuff
that makes corporate inlovement on some of these lists difficult.
Corporate folks often have neither the time nor inclination to deal with
idle chit-chat like this. Of course in a community like this such
chit-chat is very important, so I think it would be a bad idea to try
and do-away with it on the more 'internal' lists.

*starts CPR on elephant...*

On Fri, Dec 02, 2005 at 02:08:12PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
> > > > Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?
> >
> > > That's "you squares".  ;-)
> >
> > Hey, watch who you call square - I've got long hair *and* I wear jeans to the office :-p
>
> When did you start wearing pants to the office ;)
>
> >
> > /D
> >
> > -----Unmodified Original Message-----
> > Robert,
> >
> > > Does this mean I can't join all you hipsters on that other list now?
> >
> > That's "you squares".  ;-)
> >
> --
> The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.503.667.4564
> PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
> Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
> Co-Authors: PLphp, PLperl, ODBCng - http://www.commandprompt.com/
>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>

--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 10:36:19PM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> On 6/12/05 5:16 pm, "Josh Berkus" <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, unfortunately no spec document ever came out of dicussion on this list.
>
> I've never seen a spec document produced for anything that postgresql.org
> has done, on the web side or the backend server. I'm sure some (maybe all)
> of the companies involved might produce them for things they work on, but I
> never saw anything on -hackers.

This is something that may end up changing over time. Companies
generally want to know how large a project is going to be (read as: what
it's going to cost) before they commit to it, and that generally means
having both some kind of requirements doc and design doc.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim C. Nasby [mailto:jim@nasby.net]
> Sent: 07 December 2005 00:57
> To: Dave Page
> Cc: Josh Berkus; pgsql-www@postgresql.org; Magnus Hagander;
> Marc G. Fournier
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 10:36:19PM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> > On 6/12/05 5:16 pm, "Josh Berkus" <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Well, unfortunately no spec document ever came out of
> dicussion on this list.
> >
> > I've never seen a spec document produced for anything that
> postgresql.org
> > has done, on the web side or the backend server. I'm sure
> some (maybe all)
> > of the companies involved might produce them for things
> they work on, but I
> > never saw anything on -hackers.
>
> This is something that may end up changing over time. Companies
> generally want to know how large a project is going to be
> (read as: what
> it's going to cost) before they commit to it, and that generally means
> having both some kind of requirements doc and design doc.

Absolutely - I'm quite familiar with the commercial development
practices (at least as practiced in my little corner of the world).

My point is simply that we haven't ever done that yet for the core
server, so why should we have done for a website project discussed some
months ago?

Regards, Dave.

>
> Basically, if Josh et al wish to develop a KB outside of the
> community, there is nothing stopping the community from developing
> their own within it *shrug*
>
Although I agree with the spirit of the post from Marc, I would like to
note that the current KB project IS A COMMUNITY project.

Joshua D. Drake


>
>
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ:
> 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings

>
> We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-) ) comes from the fact
> that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
> progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our knowledge and
> reformed on a pgFoundry site,

So our whole gripe is that Gevik, who is the author of the project in
the first place decided he wanted to
host the project on another community server during development?

Interesting...

Joshua D. Drake

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

>>
>> We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-) ) comes from the fact
>> that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
>> progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our knowledge and
>> reformed on a pgFoundry site,
>
> So our whole gripe is that Gevik, who is the author of the project in the
> first place decided he wanted to
> host the project on another community server during development?
>
> Interesting...

Actually, the way I've read the 'irkness' is that the -www list gets the
feel that they have been drop'd in favor of another project that, for all
intents and purposes has to date alientated -www and the previous work
done towards what they felt was a similar goal ...

The feel was that it had gone from a "community project" to a "corporate
project", which is definitely an easy perception to arrive at based on how
it was first pitched ... it has definitely evolved from that, but where we
are no is definitely not how the ball got started on this one ...

The other thing that has 'irked' those on -www was that the discussion has
moved over to a very specific mailing list for a very specific 'CMS
solution', while Josh has already stated that there has been no decision
yet made on how the framework will come above ...

IMHO ... the big mistake was not creating a 'pgdn' project on pgfoundry,
instead of piggy backing on the kennigres one like is being done ... piggy
back like that gives the impression that a decision has been made to use
that project ...



----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Joshua D. Drake
> Sent: 08 December 2005 01:18
> To: Dave Page
> Cc: Marc G. Fournier; Robert Treat; Josh Berkus;
> pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Launching PostgreSQL KB Project Mark 2
>
> >
> > We're not against it. I think the irkness (sp? :-) ) comes
> from the fact
> > that the ongoing project (Gevik had been regularly demo'ing his
> > progress) was essentially ripped out from here without our
> knowledge and
> > reformed on a pgFoundry site,
>
> So our whole gripe is that Gevik, who is the author of the project in
> the first place decided he wanted to
> host the project on another community server during development?
>
> Interesting...

No, I have no gripe with Gevik whatsoever. The work he had been doing
for us was a PHP based user interface for a KB. Kennisgres is a CMS from
what I understand and is not something we had any knowledge of (nor any
objection to - Gevik is free to work on whatever he likes of course).

I'm not going to speak any further about this - afaict pretty much
everyone understands the real issue anyway so there's no sense going
over it again. Hopefully it won't occur again, and we can all just get
on and get some work done.

Regards, Dave.

Marc, All,

> IMHO ... the big mistake was not creating a 'pgdn' project on pgfoundry,
> instead of piggy backing on the kennigres one like is being done ...
> piggy back like that gives the impression that a decision has been made
> to use that project ...

Just so you're aware: Deleting a project off of pgFoundry is a painful
process requring admin time on the server command line.  As the
interitor of the SF.net code, GForge just never devoted much attention
to dropping projects (SF.net has a policy never to do so).

So I wasn't about to start a new project which might be quickly
discarded.   This will be true of other efforts in the future, as well
... we just don't want to use a pgFoundry project for something temporary.

--Josh