Re: [Keelgroup] What could be a good example to read for a newbie ?

Arnaud:

To echo Shash, welcome, and thanks for emailing to share your startup experience. Your timing is great, as we've been having a lot of discussions lately about how we can make the "getting started" process easier. As Shash says, some of us who work with Keel everyday simply can't get a good perspective on what needs attention the most, so input like yours is very valuable.

Just to mention quickly: There is a new Keel "manual" underway - the current copy can be seen at http://www.keelframework.org/manual/ (that's a directory, it'll give you three different formats - the "html_chunk" is probably the easiest for online browsing). It is most definitely *not* up-to-date with the latest Keel, however, so it's more useful at the moment as "background" material than as a howto manual.

There's also the Javadoc, which is in places quite complete: http://www.keelframework.org/javadoc/. In other places it needs work, and this is one of the things we're working hard on right now.

And of course you know about the Wiki. We know it needs a good "index", or "table of contents", something of the sort - even I find it hard to find the right thing sometimes.

We're also doing some work on the build process to make it both simpler and more manageable, particularly when first getting started.

Any detailed info on what tripped you up and took a lot of time would be helpful, as we'll then go back and "fill in the potholes" as best we can! Keel is a big and complex thing, but it doesn't need to be as hard as it is to get rolling with, and I think we can do a lot about that.

Thanks,

Mike

> 
> I am really new to Keel, I read about it a few weeks ago in the article 
> about adding services to Keel (jazzy), and as I was
> getting desperate on Monday (writing my first J2EE app without any 
> framework at all: writing ugly "presentation and logic mixed" jsp,
> plus beans with SQL code all over the place), I recalled this article, 
> spent all day reading about the philosophy of the "meta framework" and got 
> a go from my boss to try it.
> 
> Starting early from tuesday, I read the wiki, the HandsOn,pdf and the 
> manual (which is a very interesting read btw, but whereas the philosophy 
> is well detailed,
> the "Writing a Keel application" part is nearly empty). 
> However, it took me 3 days to accomplish the real basics: getting a Hello 
> World message and making Keel
> work on a "test" mysql database (The worst part is probably that I feel 
> more proud than ashamed about it... I didn't find it simple).
> 
> Anyway, at that point, I am left wondering what would be the best example 
> of a "simple" application accessing a database and displaying the content.
> Should I read one of the app-* provided ? If yes, which one ? Does someone 
> have a dummy little program showing basic interaction with Struts and 
> Persistence via Keel ?
> 
> I also wanted to know what was the default persistence service used by 
> Keel.
> 
> Finally, I wanted to thank all the developers of Keel. The start is a 
> nightmare (for instance, a problem with the ant version right at the 
> beginning, because I downloaded the latest Ant to *avoid* problems with 
> Keel 2.0), but if I manage to do my application with Keel, and if this 
> works as advertised, I'm gonna be a fan...
> 
> Arnaud
> 
> PS: I didn't bother to set the proxy for the install, so I manually 
> fetched source zips and ran "ant install-keeltools". It worked fine, but I 
> was very surprised when I tried "ant nonetinstall" upon reinstall - 3 days 
> :) - , which should do a "ant install-keeltools" and a "ant 
> assemble-deploy" if I understand well. But then, ant tried to download the 
> packages... Did I do something stupid, or is this a known issue (couldn't 
> find a trace of it in the mailing list or the Wiki).
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Michael Nash

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