[dev] Skeleton

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Ron Cooper <rcooper at jamesconeyisland.com>:

> I assume the Skeleton should be capable of sending some tangible result to
> a web browser other than warnings and errors messages.

I wouldn't say that this is necessarily an unreasonable expectation, but it has
never been the goal of anyone working on skeleton, and putting that kind of
time into it has never gotten to the top of anyone's priority list. It'd be
great to have, of course, but, it still hasn't happened.

> Jon, I'm not trying to be a smart-ass here.  To me, Skeleton is as
> important as IMP, TURBA or any other module in Horde. I know that things
> are in a constant state of change, but it seems to me that if you or any
> of the horde developers cared enough to put Skeleton into CVS to begin
> with, then you should continue to update it and ensure it meets its
> design goals just as you would any other Horde application.

You're going way beyond what was ever intended by skeleton here. Again, not to
say that this is an unreasonable hope/desire, but saying that we're not meeting
skeleton's design goals simply isn't true - because there really weren't design
goals to begin with. It has templates for the dir structure and
license/readme/doc files. Someone started adding some code at some point, and
it'd be great to get that to the state you describe.

> And it's entirely probable that my original applications working in Horde
> was done incorrectly anyway.  Since there seems to be no authoritative
> template showing the proper way of doing an application other than the
> existing set of Horde apps themselves.

Part of this is that there is no "one proper way". Different applications have
different needs.

> Which one to use as a baseline for my application then?  Right now, I would
> just like to know the absolutely bare basics need to just get my application
> working within the framework.

What does your application do? If you tell us what it is, we can tell you which
existing app is similar to it.

> I cant find any previous archived information about why a horde application
> would upon posting a form would cause a chain of events that would require a
> login. But this appears to be the main problem.

Because you lose the session information.

> Its quite clear from where I'm standing at least that I have a large
> measure of faith in what Horde is doing and am willing to invest my time
> and efforts in learning how to effectively use and implement what has
> been provided thus far And while I do not ask for my hand to be held, I
> was hoping at least one developer would see how it looks from the other
> side of the fence and provide the missing pieces to Skeleton.  In
> exchange for making it a little easier for those of us who are not at
> your level of expertise, you get a whole group of folks, or at lest 1
> person  who may possibly be able to grow and contribute something to your
> efforts, assuming of course that new developers is want is wanted :=).

I very much try to encourage new developers. I can't promise anything right
away, but I'll take your ideas into consideration as I juggle what to spend my
Horde time on next (new applications and functionality, the website, packages,
documentation, bugfixing, performance improvements, etc...). And I'd encourage
you to ask specific questions on this list - it *is* the developers list. And
even better, compile some of your experiences, even in rough form, into
something that we can use to improve developer documentation.

-chuck

--
Charles Hagenbuch, <chuck at horde.org>
Born right the first time.