[rules-users] Comments Requested: Ideas on storing Drools Knowledge: The argument for JIRA as a knowledge store as well

[Premkumar Stephen]

Hello all,

As a new user to Drools, I have been frustrated often and unable to find
much information. Below is an IM session where a couple of us discuss what
is missing and how we can fix it?
A lot of knowledge imparted in the IRC channels does not get recorded. I
believe it is the same with the mailing lists. They contain a lot of code
samples and fixes to them.
We also could utilize http://drools.pastebin.com/ for our code samples that
do not need persistence.

I would like to hear from the members ( and most importantly) from the core
group on what they think of this. Since they are meeting together anyways, I
hope that this is one of the discussions they have over beer.



==============================================================
mallen: Calling all BRMS / Guvnor experts! Does anyone know how to upload
multiple (50+) rules packages in one go? either through the web interface or
perhaps even programatically so we could knock a maven task together for it?
[06:05am] krisv left the chat room. (Ping timeout)
[06:06am] wheter_: mallen: I will be interested in such a solution as well?
jarek, can we start open JIRAs for such knowledge sharing too. If you ( or
others) update the JIRA, this will be more visible. there is a lot of stuff
that is posted on this IRC channel that just goes away. How about a JIRA
category called "FAQ" or "Knowledge sharing"? Will it pollute the JIRA
process?
[06:08am] wheter_: The nice thing would be that as bugs are fixed and
workarounds are found, they could be moved to the "FAQ" category as well so
that others who get the same problems can search and find it there
[06:08am] bjornelo: sounds like something that belongs on a wiki or
something else that isn't an issue tracker
[06:08am] wheter_: right, but see the state of our wiki
[06:08am] bjornelo: it's empty, afaik
[06:09am] wheter_: bjornelo: people will not go and update the wiki after
something is posted/a solution is found
[06:09am] wheter_: mostly
[06:09am] wheter_: we need to make the process easier and as automated as
possible
[06:09am] bjornelo: but people will go and update JIRA?
[06:10am] wheter_: In this idea, the conversation itself is tracked and no
further updates are needed.
[06:11am] wheter_: No, mallen has to create a JIRA and bring that to the
attention of the IRC folks bjornelo.  When you have a solution, instead of
typing it into the chat channel, you update the JIRA and the conversation
should continue there for subjects that are really useful
[06:12am] bjornelo: aha
[06:12am] wheter_: bjornelo, if i was not around at this time, I would not
have known that there are others like mallen who are interested in this
solution
[06:12am] wheter_: some conversation does belong here in IRC but for example
see how me and Jaroslaw (jarek) communicated in GUVNOR-353
[06:12am] jarek: wheter_: sounds like a 'feature request' - which can be
also created in jira (besides bugs and tasks); however I wouldn't use jira
as a FAQ/wiki
[06:12am] bjornelo: what mallen posted sounds to me like what should be a
feature request on JIRA
[06:13am] wheter_: we used both the IRC and JIRA
[06:13am] wheter_: I beleive now that GUVNOR-353 is very well documented
[06:13am] wheter_: bjornelo: I suggest lets give it a try
[06:14am] wheter_: If it looks too bad, you can always blow it away
[06:15am] wheter_: bjornelo: I agree; but someone might post such a solution
on IRC, and this knowledge just goes away
[06:15am] bjornelo: i'm not trying to be adversarial. i want to see a more
structured source of information about drools as much as the next guy. i'm
just not sure JIRA is the place to put it
[06:15am] wheter_: I am suggesting a way to steadily improve our knowledge
collection
[06:16am] wheter_: bjornelo: the wiki is an awesome idea but needs effort.
The JIRA i believe is the current best way to go about it. I am going to
take this conversation of ours and post in the dev mailing list to see how
others think about it
[06:16am] bjornelo: how about if there's an interesting thread of
conversation on IRC, we create a new page on the drools wiki and paste in
the conversation there? then give it a headline that describes the subject.
link to it from some index of informal rule engine conversations?
[06:16am] wheter_: yes bjornelo; but see, it requires an active action; how
many people follow up
[06:17am] wheter_: the devs are so busy
[06:17am] bjornelo: then, if someone wants to formalize and clean up the
information in the conversation, that person can edit the page or create a
replacement
[06:17am] wheter_: the rest of the users have their own problems
[06:17am] bjornelo: how do you plan to avoid an active action for posting
stuff on JIRA? if nothing else, the registering process for jboss community
is a PITA
[06:18am] wheter_: i have GUVNOR-353 resolved, but do you think I am going
to take the time to load it into the wiki right now? My immediate problem is
over and I am looking to solve my next one
[06:18am] bjornelo: i suppose we could have an irc bot in here that we could
send triggers to that would autogenerate something on a webpage.. how does
bash.org work, for example?
[06:18am] wheter_: bjornelo, it really is one time, and your argument is
defeated, since you update the wiki, you need to register too
[06:19am] bjornelo: hmmm
[06:19am] wheter_: bjornelo: I am not familiar with IRC bots' capability
[06:20am] wheter_: reg. your comment about structured source of information,
I think the JIRA is highly structured
[06:20am] wheter_: since it has its own category, it will not come in the
way of developers looking for bugs to fix or feature requests
[06:20am] wheter_: and we can cross-link FAQs to other bugs / feature
requests
[06:21am] bjornelo: difficult to search through, though. i guess if you
could have a category of 'issues' that are just knowledge exchange, it would
be easier to find, but that would also require someone opening a new issue
or something
[06:22am] wheter_: that is what I suggested at the very beginning
[06:22am] wheter_: a new category like "bug" or "feature request"
[06:22am] wheter_: it really is not hard..JIRA also allows you to put in the
version of drools it is eligible for
[06:23am] wheter_: i believe the JIRA has more structure for adding
information that the wiki does ( in the wiki, you need to enter everything
manually)
[06:23am] wheter_: you can search better on a JIRA
[06:23am] bjornelo: so you mean that the devs should look at the comments on
the issue and move it to a 'knowledge' category when they solve the issue,
if they feel that it's an interesting topic?
[06:24am] wheter_: now, maybe the search engines might not index it.
[06:24am] wheter_: bjornelo: Agreed
[06:24am] wheter_: yes
[06:24am] wheter_: see my comments above on that
[06:24am] wheter_: me, being new to Drools am really stuck and could use the
wide body of information
[06:25am] wheter_: this also frees up the devs, since people do not come
back asking for the same issue
[06:26am] bjornelo: i'd suggest that this new category is another type of
'unresolved' or something, signalling that the information contained in the
issues is stuff that needs to be structured and moved into some kind of
documentation. be it either wiki or the manual or whatever else
[06:26am] bjornelo: 'due for documentation' or something
[06:26am] wheter_: To integrate the wiki with the JIRA, we could categorize
knowledge based on subcomponents, like Guvnor, Core, Solver, Chance etc in
wiki, under that the wiki should have different FAQs and then under that, a
link to the JIRA in question
[06:27am] wheter_: bjornelo: documentation that is pushed off for later,
especially for minor things, in my experience does not happen...it does not
have the urgency and in open source projects, people participate for the
urgency
[06:28am] bjornelo: true, but in that case it would still be available on
jira. the category is just named slightly differently
[06:28am] wheter_: I can start off on the initial integration of the wiki
and JIRA if conan and the rest of the folks ok it..my small bit for the
community
[06:29am] wheter_: right - so information is available from wiki, but in a
very structure format...
[06:29am] bjornelo: i think of it a bit like forums online. if you want to
find some old piece of information, you often have to go digging through 20+
pages of old threads to find what you're looking for. and often it's hiding
in a thread that isn't really relevant to what you're looking for
[06:29am] wheter_: also, people can add to that body of knowledge in the
JIRA as well
[06:30am] wheter_: right, but the main info can be summarized and put on the
wiki, if someone will do it, with a link to the JIRA
[06:30am] wheter_: bjornelo: very few JIRAs run like comment threads
[06:30am] bjornelo: i'm picturing a bunch of JIRA issues containing irc
convos and other interesting bits of information. the issues are 'open' in
the sense that they are waiting for someone to pick them up and write an
article or whatever about it and stick it on the wiki. if and when they do,
they close the corresponding JIRA issue, since the wiki now has structured
information to replace it
[06:31am] wheter_: I agree, if the wiki has captured all this information,
then this JIRA can be moved to a closed state, but the link still kept
[06:31am] bjornelo: and the wiki could be divided into expert, guvnor, flow
etc. each headlined with a link to the corresponding list of open JIRA
issues
[06:32am] wheter_: now, we are echoing each other
[06:32am] bjornelo: so, the user starts by looking at the wiki. if the
information is not found there, the user follows the link to the JIRA issue
list and can look further
[06:32am] wheter_: agree
[06:32am] bjornelo: yep
[06:32am] wheter_: Here's what I am going to do
[06:32am] bjornelo: now we just need someone to implement it
[06:33am] wheter_: I am going to send a mail to the mailing lists with our
chat conversation out there, and see the responses to it, specifically from
the core team.
[06:33am] wheter_: bjornelo: are you core?
[06:33am] bjornelo: not at all. relatively newbie user
[06:33am] wheter_: well, we are doing our bit I guess
[06:34am] bjornelo: i'll be quite interested in seeing responses to this
[06:34am] wheter_: the funny part is we buried mallen's question and no one
will see it now
[06:34am] wheter_: sorry mallen
[06:34am] bjornelo: lemme just do this, then.
[06:34am] bjornelo: 12:04 < mallen> Calling all BRMS / Guvnor experts! Does
anyone know how to upload multiple (50+) rules packages in one go? either
through the web interface or perhaps even programatically so we could knock
a  maven task together for it?


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

Regards,
Prem
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/rules-users/attachments/20090605/f30b7a93/attachment.html