Re: [epf-dev] Evolving the OpenUP Family

[Ricardo Balduino <balduino@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark, thanks for your comments.

Currently, the libraries are not separated
- OpenUP/DSDM plug-in is part of the OpenUP library. There are two separate
published web sites though.
My discussion below is indeed relevant
to development, as I pointed out. From user perspective, the request is
to be able to download plug-ins one by one, as needed (see newsgroup for
original posting).

Solution b) below is the workaround
proposed to the user in the newsgroup.
Solution a) below is the alternative
I'm considering for discussion with you all. There are pros and cons, as
you would expect, that's why I'm bringing to the committers' attention
- the decision is whether we make our lives or EPF users lives easier :-)

I'd love to have the capability of referencing
external libraries too, but EPF Composer does not provide that.

Cheers,

Ricardo Balduino
IBM Rational Software (www.ibm.com/rational)
Eclipse Process Framework (www.eclipse.org/epf)

Mark.Dickson@xxxxxxxxx
Sent by: epf-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

08/07/2007 11:29 AM

Please respond to
Eclipse Process Framework Project Developers List        <epf-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>

To	"Epf" <epf-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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Subject	Re: [epf-dev] Evolving the OpenUP Family

Hi
I won't be able to join the call tomorrow, so here's what I think about
this.
This looks like a publishing issue. We can rsikly make the libraries available
as separate downloads very easily. I think that is what we do right now.
The majority of the discussion in Ricardo's note seems to address the structure
of the CVS repository. This seems to me to be development concern rather
than an end user issue. 
Speaking from hard learned experience, I can say that I definitely do not
want to be working with the scenario as described. Plugins in the OpenUP
family should reside in the same library (or EMC should have functionality
added to enable external libraries to be referenced, as per RMC).
If this really is an end-user issue, then it is a simple matter for users
to either:
a) download the discrete libraries from the download page; or
b) download the library from CVS and delete the plugins they don't want.

For development, it is much better to leave things in the same library.

Kind regards

Mark
Mark Dickson
EAS Practice
Xansa
0780 1917480
*** sent from my blackberry ***

---

  ----- Original Message -----
 From: Ricardo Balduino [balduino@xxxxxxxxxx]
 Sent: 08/07/2007 07:04 PM
 To: epf-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
 Subject: [epf-dev] Evolving the OpenUP Family

Hi all, sorry for the long email, but I think it's an important topic for our planning meeting tomorrow.

We've got some user feedback expressing it would be much easier to assemble libraries with various plug-ins as needed, meaning the OpenUP library by default should contain base_concepts and openup plug-ins only, then any additions could be download from Eclipse web site. In other words, one wants to download OpenUP without having to deal with other plug-ins they don't plan to use on near or long term.

As this is simple to solve from the user perspective, it may pose some challenges from content development perspective.

- From user perspective, EPF Composer offers today the capability for exporting and importing plug-ins. We can simply provide OpenUP library with openup and base_concepts plug-ins only, then users pick and choose any OpenUP/xyz from EPF web site and import it to their library. The web site download area would be populated with these plug-ins. For user's convenience, we can periodically publish these various configurations and make it readily available for download.

- From development perspective, every extension to OpenUP plug-in should *ideally* be created in the OpenUP library itself, because it makes it easier from the version control perspective to handle the various xmi files individually. If you separate plug-ins in different libraries, plug-in authors will have to keep copies of OpenUP in a sandbox location, develop their plug-ins as extension to OpenUP, export those plug-ins from time to time, add them to CVS as a zip file, them make available for download by users. We loose granularity in our version control, and are obliged to keep local copies of OpenUP library.
UNLESS these sandbox locations are also in CVS, in a different branch than the main OpenUP library. Authors can work on their plug-ins and commit individual xmi files to CVS - the only caveat for plug-in authors is to keep this sandbox OpenUP up-to-date with most current main OpenUP. Exports of their plug-ins would occur as part of periodically builds, so plug-ins can be made available in the download area.
That approach tries to solve the fact that EPF Composer does not work with multiple projects from different workspaces.

Conclusion: I don't believe separating the OpenUP extensions from the main OpenUP library in CVS will harm the concept of OpenUP Family. Moreover, that makes it easier for plug-ins to evolve at different pace than the OpenUP library itself is evolving, and multiple authors can work their solution in parallel. Also, those authors can take the responsibility of uploading their plug-ins and updating the web site themselves- sort of sharing web master's responsibilities :-)

What is your take on this? We can discuss it during our planning meeting tomorrow.

Thanks,

Ricardo Balduino
IBM Rational Software (www.ibm.com/rational)
Eclipse Process Framework (www.eclipse.org/epf)

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