Observations about this forum

[joblini]

After visiting this forum many, many times, here are a few observations:
- In my opinion, the forum software is very basic, and, does not measure up to classic forum software such as vBulletin.  Compare with Spring Community. 
- Very few of the Seam developers participate in this forum, anyone except Pete Muir?
- Many posts go without any reply
- Search is rudimentary, results are not organized by thread
- No way to modify posts
- The forum software, developed in Seam, is, I think, not a good advertisement for Seam. 

[luxspes]

Ingo Jobling wrote on Oct 17, 2008 05:54:


After visiting this forum many, many times, here are a few observations:
- In my opinion, the forum software is very basic, and, does not measure up to classic forum software such as vBulletin.  Compare with Spring Community. 

I use Spring, I like it a lot, I really do, but I do not think that comparison is fair because: Spring Community is built with PHP. They should eat their own dogfood and build it in SpringMVC or SpringWebFlow.

- Very few of the Seam developers participate in this forum, anyone except Pete Muir?

I think what matters is if stuff gets answered, not who answers.

- Many posts go without any reply

I don't think it goes over average for relatively new framework like Seam. I have also felt the frustration of not getting answers, but in general, when that happens, it is because I am not explaining myself correctly, or not being specific enough.

- Search is rudimentary, results are not organized by thread

This I totally agree with, and I also dislike that they can not be sorted by date (ascending and descending), and it should be possible to do a subsearch inside the results found, and I would like and easy way to see the list of all the threads I have started, and all the threads I have participated.

- No way to modify posts

I also dislike that, would be great to have post versioning integrated with Envers. And I really do not like it when others tell this to me, but here I am perpetuating the paradigm: All the code in this site is opensource, if you are serious about improvements, you can develop them yourself (If I only had the time ;-) )

- The forum software, developed in Seam, is, I think, not a good advertisement for Seam. 

I agree it needs improvements, but I think that having the courage of running Seam site in Seam is good advertisement for Seam

[joblini]

I use Spring, I like it a lot, I really do, but I do not think that comparison is fair because: Spring Community is built with PHP. They should eat their own dogfood and build it in SpringMVC or SpringWebFlow.

So, does that mean that PHP is better?  I am starting to wonder :-)

Honestly I couldn't care less if the forum is written using Seam.  In the same sense that I wouldn't expect that Manning used Seam to publish Seam in Action.

My priority is trying to get Seam working in a production environment.  I would prefer a forum based on vBulletin, with lots of participation by the core Seam developers.

And yes, I know, Seam, and this forum, are free.  But, as the architect who recommended Seam for the developement of a software package, I fully expect that the end users will purchase support from RedHat.  There's no such thing as a free lunch!

[nickarls]

Explain to me again how the developers would find hours of extra time to hang around the forums if they installed VB/PHPBB? ;-)

If all developers would do is hang around the forums, there wouldn't be that many bugfixes. And you will find that in most cases there are several developers answering quite quickly in their area of expertise: Shane Bryzak on security, Norman Richards on PDF etc. OK, Pete has a big chunk call core and stuff and is involved in many other things so he can't possibly give an authoritative answer to everything.

But as on most other projects, your post will be answered if you a) describe your problem in detail b) update the post with information what documentation you have referenced and what you have tried. It's also a convenient way of getting around the no bumping policy ;-)

[danielc.roth]

Ingo: Try to maintain a BIG php project. And you will cry. At least I did. :-)

I think there are quite a few people answering questions from the Seam community. Problem is that after answering the same question 3 times, one really don't care to answer. An improved search function could lower the amount of duplicate questions. Also, many questions are not very clear: I do this and that, and it doesn't work. Why?.

As an architect who recommended Seam you could maybe ask yourself: How many questions have I answered? I'm sure you know Seam good enough to answer a couple a day. Spring is a couple of years older, and therefore has more people dedicated. Since Spring technologically is in the back water of Seam already, hopefully Seam community will grow larger with time.

Finally, I think it's great you bring up the discussion!

[pmuir]

Ingo Jobling wrote on Oct 17, 2008 05:54:

Noted.

- Very few of the Seam developers participate in this forum, anyone except Pete Muir?

This is slightly insulting, some basic research (like looking at the developer list) before you post would be sensible, and you would notice that many other developers post - Shane normally posts at least 10 times a day, Nicklas and Daniel constantly, Judy always jumps in on any ICEfaces/Aajx question, Mike Y is there for any Spring question, Dan tries to answer. Don't forget, the full time, core dev team is three people, everyone else is volunteers.

- Many posts go without any reply

So answer them.

We know that there are a number of problems with the forum software - and are discussing what to do.

[luxspes]

Ingo Jobling wrote on Oct 17, 2008 07:54:


So, does that mean that PHP is better?  I am starting to wonder :-)

I don't know, I guess the Spring guys think so... (maybe you should ask them ;-) )

My priority is trying to get Seam working in a production environment.  I would prefer a forum based on vBulletin, with lots of participation by the core Seam developers.

Being based on vBulletin will not help with that. and as Pete Muir pointed out they do participate.

And yes, I know, Seam, and this forum, are free.  But, as the architect who recommended Seam for the developement of a software package, I fully expect that the end users will purchase support from RedHat.  There's no such thing as a free lunch!

I detect a contradiction here: You believe there is no such thing as a free lunch... and therefore you expect the end users will purchase support from RedHat, but you do expect to purchase support from RedHat yourself? Please explain why purchasing support wouldn't solve your problems?

  

[luxspes]

Pete Muir wrote on Oct 17, 2008 11:18:



We know that there are a number of problems with the forum software - and are discussing what to do.

Hire me!. That would be a dream job ;-)