The role of magma on the Pharo

[Stuart Herring]

2009/8/12 Miguel Enrique Cobá Martinez <miguel.coba at gmail.com>:
>
> This is my personal view/opinion.
>
> Magma it is an *impressive* piece of software.
> Magma it has more potential in the web arena than in the desktop arena.
> Magma hasn't exploited all the potential it has.
> Magma hasn't been marketed correctly.
> Magma needs good documentation.
> Magma needs to show off what it can do.
> Magma needs to easy the seaside integration.
> Magma needs a good looking/professional website.
> Magma should provide alternatives to integration with seaside and the
> pros/cons of each one.
>
> Now, what can we do in order to give Magma a relevant position in the
> seaside/pharo/smalltalk arena?
>
> I could help with several of these points, but Chris, you must lead this
> effort. It shouldn't appear tho the potential or real contributors
> (fixes, addons, helpers, whatever) that you only mind of Magma and
> nothing at all about every else that is not Magma.
>
I think it's a little unfair to say that Chris _must_ do anything.
I think that if you really want all those things, then the best thing
to do is to start doing it, submit what you have for discussion, and
then see where to go from there.
It's easy to sit around saying someone needs to do something, but the
best way to get it done, is to just do it.
That's the approach I'm taking with my Pharo port of Magma (about
which I attempted to send an email to the list earlier, but
unfortunately did so from the wrong email address so it never got
there - I'll re send it soon).

Coordinating a list of things that long - even if other people are
actually doing the work - takes an enormous amount of effort, and
Chris is just one man.  Personally I'd rather he continued doing what
he enjoys doing, as that's what's most likely to ensure he continues
to work on Magma in to the future.
Its up to the rest of us in the community to step up to take ownership
of the issues we believe are important, and to not wait for someone
else to organise things.

To address some of the items individually:
> Magma needs good documentation.
The best way to improve documentation is to describe exactly where its
lacking.  I'd say create a page on the wiki where you can list the
things that you think need more explanation, that way anyone who knows
can help fill in the gaps.  The biggest problem with documentation is
often knowing what to document - so a list of specific points or
questions can go a long way towards improving it.

> Magma needs to show off what it can do.
Again, a wiki page with links to examples or real-world usage would be
the best way to do that.

> Magma needs to easy the seaside integration.
If the existing information for the Magma seasideHelper, and the older
Magma-Seaside stuff isn't enough, then maybe someone can contribute
some more examples of how to integrate it?
In general Chris is right - there really isn't much required to
integrate them, it's no different to using any database system with
any other web platform.  You need to get a connection, manage
sessions, and handle transactions. If seasideHelper doesn't fit your
requirements, writing something yourself isn't much effort, but maybe
there could be some general high-level examples of the sorts of things
that need to be done.
This particular point is very reminiscent of the way that people keep
asking for Persistence options on the Seaside list.  Seaside-Magma
integration really is in the realms of an external project - like
Magma seasideHelper.  Both the Seaside and Magma projects can point to
it as a way to provide the integration, but it's really not in the
scope of either of them to actually maintain it.

> Magma needs a good looking/professional website.
That's nice-to-have, but the Magma pages on the wiki are currently
better than a lot of projects' dedicated websites.  Having a nice
looking website won't make Magma easier to use, as It's the content
that matters the most.

> Magma should provide alternatives to integration with seaside and the
> pros/cons of each one.
That's again just a case of improving the wiki page a bit.
Really at the moment the alternatives are:
* Use the old Magma-Seaside
* Use Magama seasideHelper
* Write your own solution.
You could probably get an idea of the pros and cons of each of those
approaches by going back through the Seaside and Magma lists, as the
topics have come up a few times.

Regards,
Stuart