SubSonic Linq Support – Help Me
I’ve been hammered in the past for incomplete support solutions, and for bouncing between forum solutions and project sites. There are no excuses – it’s completely my fault. Every decision I made I felt like I had a good reason for, but quickly things began falling apart. Whine. Sniffle. Grunt.
I need your help. I want to make sure our next release has as much possible goodness in terms of support as possible, and to that end I would love to hear from you (and even better, recruit you!).
In The Beginning
I kept everything at CodePlex. We had a wiki there and even discussions. We quickly outgrew both, as the site’s search (at the time) wasn’t up to what we needed. The forums system, as well, didn’t quite do it for what we needed.
Please understand this isn’t a dig on CodePlex – I’m talking about when it first started; the feature set just wasn’t what we needed for the growth we saw.
I then moved to Community Server and moved the docs (as they were) to a home-grown system. Let’s just say both didn’t work out on the server I had. Too slow to handle the load and it was far too fragmented.
Next I moved to a home-grown system, a forum of my own creation as well as a site that was built around the approach of a knowledge base. I didn’t have time to complete it as I was hoping (and my forum committers evaporated) so I moved back to Community Server (on a bigger server) and transitioned the docs to a blog format.
The Issues
The Forums and the Project site are working fine, but something’s missing. I was hoping the docs would be a bit more organic (I didn’t use a wiki because of spam) and they aren’t.
The forums are dragging around 3 years of content and the menuing system is going to get out of control. Especially with all the stuff that’s coming in 3.0 (linq, templating, etc).
It just seems that managing that much info in one forums may not scale (in terms of information flow) and moreover, I really want to have the buglist, roadmap, source repo and comit list, etc all in one spot.
Ideas
I have a few ideas, but before I get to that here’s what I think we’ll need to handle:
- Linq Support. SubSonic will be a “vector” for people learning linq. I want to be able to help them
- Pattern Support. There are some new approaches in SubSonic 3 (Repository, Unit of Work, etc)
- T4 template support and sharing. This is CORE to what I want to do, and I think these t4 files should be easy to find, ratable, etc.
- Standard support stuff (installation, extension, etc)
- Source integration – I want people to be able to browse the code
- Bug Tracker – this really should be part of the site as one unit
- Wiki?
I’ve been looking at a lot of solutions – Trac is one that came straight to mind. Ideavine (James Avery’s/Nate Kohari’s project site) is another. Inevitably, however, some things just fall through.
I can try to leverage our Google site more. Their wiki is pretty nice and the Groups are pretty decent forums. It just doesn’t have the polish I’m after!
Bottom line: I’m stuck. I want to devote most of my time to bug fixes (not to mention the other things I’m working on) – I’m just spread too thin for maintaining what I need to maintain.
Your thoughts are appreciated. And if you’re comment is “yah, your stuff really sucks” you don’t need to repeat it 
. Perhaps you can help me un-suck it.
Our team has just switched to Redmine (http://www.redmine.org). That said, you can use setup package from Bitnami (http://bitnami.org/stack/redmine) to make setup as simple as possible.
Our team has just switched to Redmine (www.redmine.org). That said, you can use setup package from Bitnami (http://bitnami.org/stack/redmine) to make setup as simple as possible.
What about drupal?
From what I've heard, it could probably handle everything that you would want
What about drupal?
From what I’ve heard, it could probably handle everything that you would want
We use FogBugz, and like it ok, but I'm not sure it's a fit here. It has wikis, bug tracking, discussion groups, and source integration. But while it shines at the bug tracking, some of the other stuff is a little clunky – especially discussion groups and wikis, which it sounds like you'd need.
We use FogBugz, and like it ok, but I’m not sure it’s a fit here. It has wikis, bug tracking, discussion groups, and source integration. But while it shines at the bug tracking, some of the other stuff is a little clunky – especially discussion groups and wikis, which it sounds like you’d need.
yah, your stuff really… is pretty good, I think. I saw the XKCD toon and imagined why you put it there. The really good, smart guys don't need to spend their time convincing everyone how right they are.
You cranked out quite a good base with the mvc storefront series. well done. As far as anyone's particular design bias or whatever.. well its too bad the source isn't free and open or something.
yah, your stuff really… is pretty good, I think. I saw the XKCD toon and imagined why you put it there. The really good, smart guys don’t need to spend their time convincing everyone how right they are.
You cranked out quite a good base with the mvc storefront series. well done. As far as anyone’s particular design bias or whatever.. well its too bad the source isn’t free and open or something.
Wiki is probably the way to go for documentation and tutorials. Of course this is only as good as the community supporting it. It would be good to recruit a couple of trusted “experts” to sort of take charge.
For bug tracking, stick with something simple. Something simple to enter bugs and easy to track your bugs.
Trac, in my mind, fits the bill the best.
Wiki is probably the way to go for documentation and tutorials. Of course this is only as good as the community supporting it. It would be good to recruit a couple of trusted “experts” to sort of take charge.
For bug tracking, stick with something simple. Something simple to enter bugs and easy to track your bugs.
Trac, in my mind, fits the bill the best.
Trac has been fantastic for us. We got it up and running in no time, our users caught on quickly, and the integration between wiki/tickets/svn is just incredible.
Trac has been fantastic for us. We got it up and running in no time, our users caught on quickly, and the integration between wiki/tickets/svn is just incredible.
yah, your stuff really sucks
ah Rob, you should probably start with a better (more informative) title of this blog entry, so someone can kick it. At first I though you've killed all the MS employees that worked on LINQ and it is hard to find support now ;p
yah, your stuff really sucks
yah, your stuff really sucks
ah Rob, you should probably start with a better (more informative) title of this blog entry, so someone can kick it. At first I though you’ve killed all the MS employees that worked on LINQ and it is hard to find support now ;p
yah, your stuff really sucks
Hey Rob,
Hey rob check out Assembla, this might be the help you were looking for. It has Wiki, Messages, Files, SVN, Tickets, Git, Milestones, Scrum, Chat, Time reporting, Branding, and Twitter. All this can be yours if the price is right: Free!
http://www.assembla.com/plans
Hope this helps.
Hey Rob,
Hey rob check out Assembla, this might be the help you were looking for. It has Wiki, Messages, Files, SVN, Tickets, Git, Milestones, Scrum, Chat, Time reporting, Branding, and Twitter. All this can be yours if the price is right: Free!
http://www.assembla.com/plans
Hope this helps.
I'm pretty sure you can solve this by adding a “Donate $5″ button?
I’m pretty sure you can solve this by adding a “Donate $5″ button?
Agree. Whatever you choose – if money is the problem, I think that you just have to add a “donate” button.
Agree. Whatever you choose – if money is the problem, I think that you just have to add a “donate” button.
Money? Who said anything about money?
Money? Who said anything about money?
I know time == money here, but, I think he just needs more time. Or in other words – help. Man power. Multi-threading if you get my drift….
On the other hand – I do take donations ;p
I know time == money here, but, I think he just needs more time. Or in other words – help. Man power. Multi-threading if you get my drift….
On the other hand – I do take donations ;p
Have you played with the wiki parts of the latest release of community server?
Have you played with the wiki parts of the latest release of community server?
I can not understand why the ask for help is treated like this.
Personally, I would suggest to stay with what you have – Codeplex for project distribution, Google code for code repository and Community Server for all the rest. Probably you should consider to integrate the content Graffiti is used to handle into Community Server – and skin Community server to look like Graffiti. Probably I could help on the last one.
I think you already have all the stuff you want. The difficult part is to co-ordinate all them together. People will come, the need for an SQL to LINQ like provider for other databases is real.
I can not understand why the ask for help is treated like this.
Personally, I would suggest to stay with what you have – Codeplex for project distribution, Google code for code repository and Community Server for all the rest. Probably you should consider to integrate the content Graffiti is used to handle into Community Server – and skin Community server to look like Graffiti. Probably I could help on the last one.
I think you already have all the stuff you want. The difficult part is to co-ordinate all them together. People will come, the need for an SQL to LINQ like provider for other databases is real.
You (and others) may be too hard on yourself (you). I can relate to your predicament as I often take on more than I can handle. That's how progress is made. You have provided a wealth of information to me and other developers and I know you to be very responsive to issues. For the most part, the medium isn't the message – we (supposedly) are big boys and girls and can survive and even expect hiccups. We just need to know the location of your latest blog or drop and we'll take it from there.
You (and others) may be too hard on yourself (you). I can relate to your predicament as I often take on more than I can handle. That’s how progress is made. You have provided a wealth of information to me and other developers and I know you to be very responsive to issues. For the most part, the medium isn’t the message – we (supposedly) are big boys and girls and can survive and even expect hiccups. We just need to know the location of your latest blog or drop and we’ll take it from there.
Well, you´re not the first person experiencing this so there quite a few options out there. My suggestion for un-suckerection is to request a free, open-source licence for JIRA (with Subversion plugin) and all the accompaning tools like Bamboo, FishEye, Clover and Confluence.
It´s the best software, team management software I can think of and SubSonic status as open-source software will enable you to use it without cost. Deploy it on a VPS that has Tomcat already installed and you are go to go.
cheers,
Elmar
No one did. Just want you to know that _IF_ that was the case, we are more than willing to help you out. Perhaps money could either buy you time to work on it, or it could help you pay others for helping out. I’m not sure whether the other teammates of the “SubSonic Core” is allowed to work on the project in their “work-time”. (I guess you are after switching to Microsoft?)
No one did. Just want you to know that _IF_ that was the case, we are more than willing to help you out. Perhaps money could either buy you time to work on it, or it could help you pay others for helping out. I'm not sure whether the other teammates of the “SubSonic Core” is allowed to work on the project in their “work-time”. (I guess you are after switching to Microsoft?)