Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have made some changes (yes, quite a few
changes actually) and the rendered output can be found at
. Of course the code for those
pages is at the same location as before in github. Please let me know how
this looks (and reads).
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 00:29, Daniel Hinojosa
<dhinojosa(a)evolutionnext.com>wrote:
Seam XXX? I want that module!
I agree on the "forewarn the developer of potential missteps to prevent
them from tripping up early on and getting discouraged".
I do not full agree on "tutorial be more development-oriented rather than
configuration-oriented". Some developers are on a time-constraint and want a
get up and go, and read the development oriented stuff later, or not at
all. It's a tough balancing act, but sometimes what your developer wants is
based on the time he or she has on their hands.
The only one that I thought was too much for the tutorial was the configXML
since they are slapped with a JPAIdentityStore and other heaviness. That is
too brutal for a tutorial, or maybe for a tutorial at that particular time
in the tutorial.
Finally I agree fully on a tutorial that is a very tiny app from beginning
to end and in small snippets. I'd like to see an entity to some "action
beans" and basic CRUD, setting up a Data Source, putting in login
information and security, Seam Catch (which is a pretty good tutorial now, I
wonder why?), Some faces pages, URL rewriting rules, and some XML Config to
prove a point or two.
If it were up to me though, I'd make it fun and make the tutorial a dating
website (just don't call it Seam in Love).
On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Dan Allen <dan.j.allen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 04:17, Jason Porter <lightguard.jp(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I would greatly appreciate feedback people have for the items in
>>
https://github.com/LightGuard/seam_site_awestruct/tree/develop/tutorial.
>> They will be the base for our getting started guide for Seam 3. The pages
>> are backed by an example that can be checked out and built (possibly broken
>> right now, I haven't tried to build / run it for a while).
>>
>>
> Jason, there's a lot of great content in this tutorial so far. I like that
> you cite the motivation for each snippet rather than just saying "paste this
> code". For instance, you do a nice job explaining the purpose of the BOM and
> the need for the Java EE APIs as a provided scope dep. I also like that you
> forewarn the developer of potential missteps to prevent them from tripping
> up early on and getting discouraged.
>
> I would like to see the tutorial be more development-oriented rather than
> configuration-oriented. At first glance of the index, we see that the
> tutorial is structured based on the activation of Seam modules (i.e.,
> configuration). Each section begins with dependency configuration, followed
> by configuration for activating features of Java EE or a Seam module. As a
> reader, I'm looking at this saying "wow, all I'm doing is configuring
> stuff"...and that leaves it being very dry. I don't think this is the right
> way to structure it.
>
> (To cite a very specific example, showing the configuration for the
> transaction interceptor in beans.xml is way too premature. That should be
> added once we visit persistence the first time).
>
> So we are still stuck in the "I can tell you everything you'll need to
> setup so that you can code" mentality. Rather, what we want is, "I want to
> write code, stop me when I need to configure something so I can continue
> writing code." and "How am I doing?" We need to feed the reader those
> rewards and assurances.
>
> What I like about the play framework tutorial is that it focuses on adding
> some code, configuring it to run, then seeing the result. To get there with
> this tutorial, here is the general idea of the structure I would propose:
>
> - Starting the project
> (create an alternative version of the first chapter for starting the
> project using Seam Forge)
> - Creating your first pages with pretty URLs
> - Querying the database and displaying the results
> - Authenticating a user
> - Handling errors gracefully
> - Writing integration tests
> - ...
>
> Then you just cover the configuration as it comes along. Take it in
> stride. If a developer wants to see just the instructions for how to
> activate a Seam module, that's what the reference guide is for. Here we need
> to be in a flow. You should try to show code first, then show the
> configuration to activate it (unless you need the API deps, then maybe
> switch it) and finally, tell them how to run the application at that stage.
>
> For instance, I want to see what's in conferences.xhtml. Maybe at first,
> it's just a shell since we haven't queried the database. So we just have
> placeholders where the data will be. But at least the user can run it and
> see that the pretty URLs are working.
>
> If you want, at the very beginning of each section you can mention which
> modules will get used, and which ones will be activated for the first time.
> Something like:
>
> "In this section, we'll setup Seam Faces and use it to map URLs to JSF
> views. We'll also use more features of Seam XXX that you configured in the
> last section."
>
> I think you can re-purpose the existing content into this new structure
> rather easily.
>
> Let me know if you need more specific feedback.
>
> -Dan
>
> p.s. I also think that this structure will make the tutorial a lot more
> fun to write.
>
> --
> Dan Allen
> Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat | Author of Seam in Action
> Registered Linux User #231597
>
>
http://www.google.com/profiles/dan.j.allen#about
>
http://mojavelinux.com
>
http://mojavelinux.com/seaminaction
>
>
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>
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>
>
--
Daniel Hinojosa
Programmer, Instructor, and Consultant
dhinojosa(a)evolutionnext.com
http://www.evolutionnext.com
http://www.abqjug.org
Software Engineer
Open Source Advocate
Author of Seam Catch - Next Generation Java Exception Handling
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