[wtp-dev] Structure of New and Noteworthy docs

[Lawrence Mandel <lmandel@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Nitin brought up an interesting issue
with the structure of the WTP new and noteworthy documents that I've created
for 1.5. After speaking with him it seems there are two logical ways to
separate the WTP new and noteworthy documents for 1.5. I'm posting them
here to solicit feedback on the structure of these documents before the
details are filled in.

Option 1:
Separation by component: Each component
(i.e. wst.dtd, wst.html, wst.css, wst.xml, jst.common, jst.j2ee, etc.)
has its own new and noteworthy document. This is the way WTP has had its
new and noteworthy documents structured in the past. This breaks down the
new and noteworthy docs in a fashion that follows our feature definitions
and shields end users from that fact that we have development teams working
for WTP. This also allows those only concerned with changes to a specific
component to easily see the changes in that component. This division does
have the drawback that there may be as many as 26 separate new and noteworthy
documents.

Option 2:
Separation by development team: Each
team (i.e. Data, Server, J2EE, Web Services, XML, SSE) has its own new
and noteworthy document. This does not mean users have to be aware of teams
or that the new and noteworthy docs have to religiously follow the team's
work just that the docs are broken into a few large components. (I used
development team so as not to overuse the term component.) This is the
way I've currently structured the new and noteworthy docs for 1.5. This
breaks down the new and noteworthy docs by function grouping rather than
by component. I've always treated these documents as a high level overview
of what's new and noteworthy in a release and it seems to me that this
structure will make it easier for end users to see the high level picture
of the changes in WTP 1.5. As the vast majority of WTP downloads are of
WST+JST (for 1.0.2 ~95,000 vs ~7,000) I think its fair to group the two
subprojects together for the new and noteworthy documents. And, any power
users that want to find out exactly what changed in a component such as
wst.xsd can perform a bugzilla query on the component.

FYI, the following bugs are currently
open to track the creation of the new and noteworthy documents:
148279
 [action] Fill in WTP 1.5 XML new and noteworthy details 
148280  [action]
Fill in WTP 1.5 WS new and noteworthy details 
148281  [action]
Fill in WTP 1.5 RDB new and noteworthy details 
148282
 [action] Fill in WTP 1.5 J2EE new and noteworthy details 
148283  [action]
Fill in WTP 1.5 Server new and noteworthy details 
148284  [action]
Fill in WTP 1.5 SSE new and noteworthy details 


Lawrence Mandel

Software Developer
IBM Rational Software
Phone: 905 - 413 - 3814   Fax: 905 - 413 - 4920
lmandel@xxxxxxxxxx