Re: Maintenance state (was Pyblosxom Documentation)

 --- Wari Wahab <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat,
2003-12-20 at 04:45, Jesse Lawrence wrote:
> > It's a shame to hear that you're unable to keep up
> the
> > great work with Pyblosxom, Wari.  Although I'm
> rather
> > new to the Pyblosxom scene, I have noticed that
> there
> > are a few others who seem to be likely candidates
> to
> > take over the project.  Will seems to be right up
> > there, but I don't want to presume too much.
> 
> Hehe. You are thinking what I am thinking, but Will
> has a few projects
> up his sleeve, adding one more as lead developer
> might kill his time
> available for his excellent Lyntin and Stringbean
> projects. Not to
> mention his life outside the internet.
> 
> Another pyblosxom user who has been in the
> background but doing some
> funny exploratory stuff is IWS, I don't even know
> his name, and can't
> really read his website. You can look up his
> pyblosxom page @
> http://iws.dyndns.org/blog/net/pyblosxom
> 
> This guy's got a problem to solve (that is running
> pyblosxom thru
> mod_python, and using MySQL as a cache), he might
> just be motivated to
> maintain pyblosxom until he got his problem solved.
> I will talk about
> this below.

Sounds very interesting.  mod_python and MySQL are
some of my favorite tools.


> 
> > I have a concern about placing Pyblosxom in a
> > maintenance state before it reaches version 1.0. 
> It
> > seems to me that Pyblosxom is very stable.  It has
> an
> > excellent code base, and it seems to be really
> > grabbing the attention of webloggers.  For
> developers
> > and people familiar with the open source/free
> software
> > scene, using a pre 1.0 piece of software isn't
> that
> > big of a deal.  We know that it's just versioning,
> and
> > that there is a lot of great software which is pre
> > 1.0.  
> 
> Well, IMO, PyBlosxom is not complete until it can be
> a 'make' for
> weblogs. Right now it's just a 'cat'.
> 
> There are a few things that needs to be done. Right
> now, I feel that
> pyblosxom is like blosxom 0.8 sans plugins. blosxom
> 1.0 introduced
> static rendering (the 'make' part) other than the
> standard CGI stuff
> (the 'cat' part). Of course, blosxom plugins came
> later than pyblosxom,
> hence blosxom 2.x.
> 
> So what is needed is really, a command line
> processor, synonymous to the
> pyblosxom.cgi program that output to files instead
> of stdout, not only
> that it output to files, but goes thru the regime of
> building archives
> of category, and date. I don't think that it's hard
> to do, just need to
> find the time for it. So for 1.0, there should be no
> change in the
> pyblosxom library at all, just one more python
> program to do all the
> work while utilising the pyblosxom library.

Excellent idea Wari.  My only reservations about using
Pyblosxom have been regarding the non-static
rendering.  I'll see what I can come up with along
these lines.

 
> The second is the stability part. This, for me is
> 2.x stuff, so it's in
> the back burner. Pyblosxom is not stable when
> runnning as a long
> process, that is, when running as a webware servlet,
> or as mod_python
> program. This is due to a few factors:
> 
>   * CGI program was in mind when designing pyblosxom
>   * Global variables everywhere especially in
> tools.py
>   * File locking needs fixing, when one instance of
> pyblosxom is
> touching something, the other should just wait.
>   * Contention issues, globals in one state, when
> another instance wants
> another state, etc.
> 
> For this, a rewrite might be needed, in order to
> achieve such a robust
> piece of code, while having the ability to run as a
> CGI process as well.
> 
> This really needs someone who has done such things,
> and aware of such
> issues, which I neither have the skill, and
> knowledge to handle the
> task. It would be nice to learn from someone more
> wiser than me for
> something interesting as this.
> 
> > I assume that it is a goal of everyones to get
> > programmer types and end users alike to use
> Pyblosxom
> > (let me know if that's not the case).  I feel that
> > many end users are turned off by pre 1.0 software,
> > believing that maybe it's buggy, or incomplete in
> some
> > way.
> 
> If you look at pyblosxom, it really requires one to
> have some skill in
> computers before being able to operate such
> machinary. I believe 99% of
> the bloggers out there would only be comfortable
> using tools such as
> Movable Type or WordPress as their weblog tool of
> choice. Those willing
> to work with pyblosxom or blosxom are comfortable
> using editors and
> creating text files. And possibly can program a few
> lines or two just to
> solve his real need.


Very true.  This is what makes Pyblosxom so enjoyable,
isn't it?  Excellent hacking material.


> So I'm not at all worried about pyblosxom users.
> They are the kind who
> knows how to take care of themselves, without
> stepping on their foot.
> There are some who migrated to syntaco (webware
> based blogging tool with
> emphasis on xpath like queries) or even MovableType,
> or b2, due to some
> features lacking in pyblosxom, like static
> rendering, or multiple
> categories. More power to you people. I'm not at all
> sad by these moves,
> though I am happier to see people who migrated from
> blosxom to
> pyblosxom.
> 
> > So the question is, is Pyblosxom complete?  I've
> seen
> > throughout the lists and on the wiki that there
> seems
> > to be quite a few ideas floating around out there,
> > regarding feature additions and improving certain
> > aspects of the codebase.
> 
> Well, the answer would be yes, and no. Pyblosxom is
> more or less
> complete, if a CGI tool is what you need, it's a
> stable piece of code.
> And no, as somethings can or needs to be done on it.
> 
> Talking about 'stable', the pyblosxom site keeps on
> core dumping, and
> the dumps tend to take up all the space available on
> my site. I've got a
> cron job solving that issue. These core dumps are
> not due to pyblosxom,
> but the buggy python that is installed on the site.
> Administrators have
> no clue what I'm talking about. X(
> 
> > I guess what I'm saying is that it would be a
> shame to
> > put Pyblosxom into maintenance mode now, when it's
> > picking up so much steam.  Wari, you seem to have
> > provided excellent leadership on this project, and
> > hopefully you might find the time to continue
> doing so
> > in the future.  Hopefully someone can step in and
> keep
> > the ball rolling.  
> 
> If I find a bit of free time I might put in the
> static rendering stuff
> and declare it to be 1.0, though it's not in the
> near future.

> I'd like to see if anyone is willing to step up the
plate and
> be the number one,
> I would still be around just in case the project
> does not go astray,
> following the words of wisdom from Will, as he has
> been more experienced
> in maintaining projects than me.
> 
> > I'm a python coder too, though my
> > skills aren't up to par with Wari and Will, and I
> > would love to help out however I can.  
> 
>I code up pyblosxom just to learn python, I don't
>think I have better
>skills than anyone here. To me, it's the ability to
>keep up the
>enthusiasm and learning from mistakes as I have
>learned thru pyblosxom.
>Will has been an excellent guide and contributor to
>pyblosxom. I have
>learnt much from him, and I do hope that he has
learnt >from me too. :)

That's encouraging.  I've been programming with Python
for a year and a half now, but I'm a self-taught
coder, so sometimes I come up against a wall where
computer science types have no difficulty.  I'm
getting there though...

> >I'm starting to
> >get familiar with the code base, and will continue
to
> >study it until I feel like I can start contributing
in
> >useful ways.

>I don't think the code is difficult to read, maybe
the >plugins part
>needs a bit of hand holding, but the rest is just
pure >straight python.

Indeed.  I feel quite comfortable with it now.  Time
to start playing with some code.  I might email you
occasionally if I have some difficulty understanding
some parts of the code.  It is commented very well, so
I'm finding it rather straight forward.

> > Also, I'm going to keep working on the
documentation,
> > towards the end of adopting new users.

>Thanks Jesse. Do note the target audience of
>pyblosxom, I believe that
>most potential users cannot grok the benefits of
>pyblosxom, and may not
>be able to even install and use it. Pyblosxom users
>IMO are advanced
>users, who do not need instructions on how to use
>notepad.exe and are
>brave enough to install pyblosxom. Even then, only 1%
>who have tried
>will look for other 'easier' tools to work with.

Thanks for the pointer Wari.  I will definitely keep
this in mind when writing the documentation.  I'm
having a hard go of finding time right now, because of
Christmas and everything (busy, busy, busy), but I
will be adding to the documentation very soon, and
I'll also see what I can come with for a static
rendering tool.

Cheers,
Jesse Lawrence

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