Community FAQ/Q&A/How-To Guide

[Nathan Wells]

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[bdrhoa]

I really like SO. But if we wanted something with different rules than SO, the we could setup a Grails specific Q&A site using OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/). 

Or if anyone had the time, we could build a system in Grails, perhaps starting with (http://grails.org/screencast/show/19). But OSQA is pretty nice and I don't like reinventing the wheel.

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[sethfuller]

I have had a similar idea and mentioned in a couple of threads. I was thinking a wiki that was hierarchically setup would be good, but a mixture of that and something like osqa might be even better.

[sergiomichels]

I think that SO is a great place for ask when you have a specific problem, so you post your code/problem and get's a specific solution. It's at point similar of a mail list, but have the benefit of better organization (tags, search, follow questions, favorites).  But I don't know if SO fits is this(for example, people may think that's a place for posting his questions, are they be answered?).

The wiki-based solution is interesting, because you can define a standard to be follow like the topics of Nathan's example. I think is important to organize this Q&A's in topics, so it can help the user in the search of contents (eg. Dependency Injection, Testing, Config, Plugins and so on).

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

I really like SO. But if we wanted something with different rules than SO, the we could setup a Grails specific Q&A site using OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/). 

Or if anyone had the time, we could build a system in Grails, perhaps starting with (http://grails.org/screencast/show/19). But OSQA is pretty nice and I don't like reinventing the wheel.

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[bksaville]

I like the OSQA idea - not reinventing the wheel is always good since the time to get it up and going will also be much shorter.  I think that a FAQ or wiki based Q&A section is what grails documentation is seriously missing.  Most importantly, the grails documentation is great and gives all the details, but sometimes you just need a "How do I do X" guide, which is exactly what has been mentioned in this thread.

I'm all for it!

-Brian

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Sergio Michels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think that SO is a great place for ask when you have a specific problem, so you post your code/problem and get's a specific solution. It's at point similar of a mail list, but have the benefit of better organization (tags, search, follow questions, favorites).  But I don't know if SO fits is this(for example, people may think that's a place for posting his questions, are they be answered?).

The wiki-based solution is interesting, because you can define a standard to be follow like the topics of Nathan's example. I think is important to organize this Q&A's in topics, so it can help the user in the search of contents (eg. Dependency Injection, Testing, Config, Plugins and so on).

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

I really like SO. But if we wanted something with different rules than SO, the we could setup a Grails specific Q&A site using OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/). 

Or if anyone had the time, we could build a system in Grails, perhaps starting with (http://grails.org/screencast/show/19). But OSQA is pretty nice and I don't like reinventing the wheel.

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[Nathan Wells]

Yeah, OSQA looks pretty cool. Does SpringSource have some resources they could make available to try and get it set up?

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 8:20 PM, Brian Saville <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like the OSQA idea - not reinventing the wheel is always good since the time to get it up and going will also be much shorter.  I think that a FAQ or wiki based Q&A section is what grails documentation is seriously missing.  Most importantly, the grails documentation is great and gives all the details, but sometimes you just need a "How do I do X" guide, which is exactly what has been mentioned in this thread.

I'm all for it!

-Brian

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Sergio Michels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think that SO is a great place for ask when you have a specific problem, so you post your code/problem and get's a specific solution. It's at point similar of a mail list, but have the benefit of better organization (tags, search, follow questions, favorites).  But I don't know if SO fits is this(for example, people may think that's a place for posting his questions, are they be answered?).

The wiki-based solution is interesting, because you can define a standard to be follow like the topics of Nathan's example. I think is important to organize this Q&A's in topics, so it can help the user in the search of contents (eg. Dependency Injection, Testing, Config, Plugins and so on).

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

I really like SO. But if we wanted something with different rules than SO, the we could setup a Grails specific Q&A site using OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/). 

Or if anyone had the time, we could build a system in Grails, perhaps starting with (http://grails.org/screencast/show/19). But OSQA is pretty nice and I don't like reinventing the wheel.

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[Nicholas Wittstruck]

I have a spare server and could set it up this weekend, if that helps to speed things up. 

Nicholas

On 01.08.2012, at 08:13, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yeah, OSQA looks pretty cool. Does SpringSource have some resources they could make available to try and get it set up?

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 8:20 PM, Brian Saville <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like the OSQA idea - not reinventing the wheel is always good since the time to get it up and going will also be much shorter.  I think that a FAQ or wiki based Q&A section is what grails documentation is seriously missing.  Most importantly, the grails documentation is great and gives all the details, but sometimes you just need a "How do I do X" guide, which is exactly what has been mentioned in this thread.

I'm all for it!

-Brian

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Sergio Michels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think that SO is a great place for ask when you have a specific problem, so you post your code/problem and get's a specific solution. It's at point similar of a mail list, but have the benefit of better organization (tags, search, follow questions, favorites).  But I don't know if SO fits is this(for example, people may think that's a place for posting his questions, are they be answered?).

The wiki-based solution is interesting, because you can define a standard to be follow like the topics of Nathan's example. I think is important to organize this Q&A's in topics, so it can help the user in the search of contents (eg. Dependency Injection, Testing, Config, Plugins and so on).

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

I really like SO. But if we wanted something with different rules than SO, the we could setup a Grails specific Q&A site using OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/). 

Or if anyone had the time, we could build a system in Grails, perhaps starting with (http://grails.org/screencast/show/19). But OSQA is pretty nice and I don't like reinventing the wheel.

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[Nathan Wells]

I think that would be enormously helpful.

Nathan Wells

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:02 AM, Nicholas Wittstruck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have a spare server and could set it up this weekend, if that helps to speed things up. 

Nicholas

On 01.08.2012, at 08:13, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yeah, OSQA looks pretty cool. Does SpringSource have some resources they could make available to try and get it set up?

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 8:20 PM, Brian Saville <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like the OSQA idea - not reinventing the wheel is always good since the time to get it up and going will also be much shorter.  I think that a FAQ or wiki based Q&A section is what grails documentation is seriously missing.  Most importantly, the grails documentation is great and gives all the details, but sometimes you just need a "How do I do X" guide, which is exactly what has been mentioned in this thread.

I'm all for it!

-Brian

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Sergio Michels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think that SO is a great place for ask when you have a specific problem, so you post your code/problem and get's a specific solution. It's at point similar of a mail list, but have the benefit of better organization (tags, search, follow questions, favorites).  But I don't know if SO fits is this(for example, people may think that's a place for posting his questions, are they be answered?).

The wiki-based solution is interesting, because you can define a standard to be follow like the topics of Nathan's example. I think is important to organize this Q&A's in topics, so it can help the user in the search of contents (eg. Dependency Injection, Testing, Config, Plugins and so on).

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

I really like SO. But if we wanted something with different rules than SO, the we could setup a Grails specific Q&A site using OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/). 

Or if anyone had the time, we could build a system in Grails, perhaps starting with (http://grails.org/screencast/show/19). But OSQA is pretty nice and I don't like reinventing the wheel.

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[sethfuller]

Has anybody decided on a format? I think a hierarchical wiki would work better than the q&a at OSQA. On an OSQA site there is a list of questions, probably most recent first or by votes, and a search box. A well laid out wiki could have say pages like:

Testing
  Unit Testing
     Spock

I know on wikidot you can create a page that shows your hierarchy. Maybe other wiki platforms have that as well. That way you can just drill down to the area you are interested in and see if there is content to solve your problem.

There would also be search to do directly to content if it exists.

[Nicholas Wittstruck]

What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?

By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?

Nicholas

On 01.08.2012, at 15:52, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think that would be enormously helpful.

Nathan Wells

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:02 AM, Nicholas Wittstruck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have a spare server and could set it up this weekend, if that helps to speed things up. 

Nicholas

On 01.08.2012, at 08:13, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yeah, OSQA looks pretty cool. Does SpringSource have some resources they could make available to try and get it set up?

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 8:20 PM, Brian Saville <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like the OSQA idea - not reinventing the wheel is always good since the time to get it up and going will also be much shorter.  I think that a FAQ or wiki based Q&A section is what grails documentation is seriously missing.  Most importantly, the grails documentation is great and gives all the details, but sometimes you just need a "How do I do X" guide, which is exactly what has been mentioned in this thread.

I'm all for it!

-Brian

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Sergio Michels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think that SO is a great place for ask when you have a specific problem, so you post your code/problem and get's a specific solution. It's at point similar of a mail list, but have the benefit of better organization (tags, search, follow questions, favorites).  But I don't know if SO fits is this(for example, people may think that's a place for posting his questions, are they be answered?).

The wiki-based solution is interesting, because you can define a standard to be follow like the topics of Nathan's example. I think is important to organize this Q&A's in topics, so it can help the user in the search of contents (eg. Dependency Injection, Testing, Config, Plugins and so on).

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

I really like SO. But if we wanted something with different rules than SO, the we could setup a Grails specific Q&A site using OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/). 

Or if anyone had the time, we could build a system in Grails, perhaps starting with (http://grails.org/screencast/show/19). But OSQA is pretty nice and I don't like reinventing the wheel.

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, based on recent emails, I was thinking about how to disseminate helpful information to people such that common questions could be answered once. As I see it, there are a few options:

Wiki-based

We can use some sort of wiki engine, and agree as a community that a section of it is reserved for a Q&A format, where each page would follow this basic outline:

1. The Question

2. The Answer

3. The Concepts

4. Relevant Links

As an example, you might see something like this:

 

Question
How do I get a value from my configuration files in my models, controllers, services, or taglibs?
Answer
1. Inject grailsApplication into the class in question:
class FooService {
  def grailsApplication
  ...
}

 

2. Where ever you need the configuration, access it as a part of the grailsApplication:
def myMethod() {
  def configValue = grailsApplication.config.namespaced?.access?.to?.value
  //... do something with configValue
}

 

Concepts
"grailsApplication" is a Spring Bean (link) which has a lot of useful information for your application as a whole. For more information see the wiki page (link), and the javadocs (link).

 

Relevant Links
* config-reload plugin - allows for runtime, automatic reloading of the configuration
* plugin-config plugin - does something for configuring other plugins
* Injecting Beans the Grails Way
* Dependency Injection - wikipedia.org

I think I like this way best, but a lot of thought and effort might need to go into doing it right. Maybe there are good tools that can be had for free that will do it well (I've had bad experiences with Confluence, though)

StackOverflow-based

You might also be able to solve this problem simply by saying "look at StackOverflow". My problems with this:

• SO isn't where the community lives. This might be solvable by integrating StackOverflow into the portal/mailing list somehow.
• SO allows for multiple short-form answers to very specific questions. I'd like longer-form answers, but structured in a sane way for scanning.
• SO doesn't focus on a "How do I", but allows for broad types of questions. Again, this is good for solving the general Q&A problem, but it's difficult sometimes to find the best way to do something.

Benefits include the fact that community members would get recognition outside of the Grails community for contributing to it. Also, there's probably less risk of complete failure, since the technical complexity amounts to a simple SO integration.

Others

I don't know... roll your own? Any other ideas for designing the solution?

Nathan Wells

[pledbrook]

> What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?

I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it
internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make
heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?

> By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?

From where?

Peter

--
Peter Ledbrook
Grails Advocate
SpringSource - A Division of VMware

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[Octavian Covalschi]

Perhaps it should be an extension of current grails documentation? I mean like comments at the bottom for posts/articles, etc..., but instead of comments there are examples/how-tos related to that topic...This way you have  one place to go and find what you need... 

I guess it makes sense to have it as a separate service/website too, but I think embedding/linking from documentation would boost it's usage.

There are a lot of doc items with good examples, but more is better...  in this case at least.

Just my 2 cents...

Thanks.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 7:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:

> What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?

I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it
internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make
heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?

> By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?

From where?

Peter

--
Peter Ledbrook
Grails Advocate
SpringSource - A Division of VMware

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[bdrhoa]

Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.
https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04
---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org


On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?
>
> I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it
> internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make
> heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?
>
>> By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?
>
> From where?
>
> Peter
>
> --
> Peter Ledbrook
> Grails Advocate
> SpringSource - A Division of VMware
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>
>     http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>
>

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[Nicholas Wittstruck]

I've set up an instance here:

http://osqa.spotmapping.com/

We probably should set up an alias for the domain. If there is anything broken let me know. I will hopefully find time later today to add a few of the most common questions.

Nicholas

On 03.08.2012, at 00:07, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.
> https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04
> ---------------------------
> www.maf.org/rhoads
> www.ontherhoads.org
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?
>>
>> I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it
>> internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make
>> heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?
>>
>>> By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?
>>
>> From where?
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> --
>> Peter Ledbrook
>> Grails Advocate
>> SpringSource - A Division of VMware
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>>
>>    http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>>
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>
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[Danilo Tuler]

I do not agree.

When my team asks "how do I" questions I tell them to read the docs.

Ok, it's not in a Q&A format, but a lot of people who have "how do I" questions have never read the docs carefully.

Grails docs are great IMO, and I learned that every line have a reason to exist.

When something is not clear enough I redirect them to SO, or the mailing list. But SO is usually much easier to grasp.

People often complain about documentation quality.

But I don't think that creating yet another channel is beneficial.

Maintaining the quality of the existing channels (docs, SO, mailing list) is hard enough.

Danilo

On Tuesday, 7 de August de 2012 at 06:35, Nicholas Wittstruck wrote:

I've set up an instance here:

http://osqa.spotmapping.com/

We probably should set up an alias for the domain. If there is anything broken let me know. I will hopefully find time later today to add a few of the most common questions.

Nicholas

On 03.08.2012, at 00:07, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.

https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04

---------------------------

www.maf.org/rhoads

www.ontherhoads.org

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:

What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?

I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it

internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make

heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?

By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?

From where?

Peter

--

Peter Ledbrook

Grails Advocate

SpringSource - A Division of VMware

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Nathan Wells]

Thanks for doing that, Nicholas!

Here are my comments, thus far:

* Description in the question is a required field. This is lame because we're trying to have generalized questions that dont require significant detail

* Markdown for writing an answer is a little painful 

   - try doing a numbered list of steps wth examples inline. (admittedly difficult in any editor I've worked with

   - inserting links isn't horrible, but I've seen it better

* Seeing results of editing immediately is nice, except that it wasn't completely accurate (had to edit several times to get formatting correct

* Appears to be no draft save of my answer or question, which is concerning

* I'm still concerned about people providing multiple answers to the same question. I'd like to be able to have one answer to each question... one way to do things the "Grails" way.

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 3:35 AM, Nicholas Wittstruck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I've set up an instance here:

http://osqa.spotmapping.com/

We probably should set up an alias for the domain. If there is anything broken let me know. I will hopefully find time later today to add a few of the most common questions.

Nicholas

On 03.08.2012, at 00:07, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.
> https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04
> ---------------------------
> www.maf.org/rhoads
> www.ontherhoads.org
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?
>>
>> I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it
>> internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make
>> heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?
>>
>>> By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?
>>
>> From where?
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> --
>> Peter Ledbrook
>> Grails Advocate
>> SpringSource - A Division of VMware
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>>
>>    http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>>
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>
>    http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>
>


---------------------------------------------------------------------
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[Nathan Wells]

Danilo, your points are valid, and I think we should consider what it would take to reuse the existing docs to solve the problem we have. In my mind, the problem with the existing docs are

1) They're not easy to edit/add to.

2) Sometimes it's very difficult to get from "I want to do X" to the docs which are usually presented as reference materials with a lot of "how" and examples sprinkled around.

The first could be solved if we ported the docs to a Wiki. The second is a little bit harder without some sort of index of things people want to do, and some way to bridge the gap between concepts in the reference documentation, and the application of those concepts to solve a problem.

I think it would be a little disingenuous to simply say "RTFM" any time someone has a question, even if the answer is in the docs. 

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 7:12 AM, Danilo Tuler <[hidden email]> wrote:

I do not agree.

When my team asks "how do I" questions I tell them to read the docs.

Ok, it's not in a Q&A format, but a lot of people who have "how do I" questions have never read the docs carefully.

Grails docs are great IMO, and I learned that every line have a reason to exist.

When something is not clear enough I redirect them to SO, or the mailing list. But SO is usually much easier to grasp.

People often complain about documentation quality.

But I don't think that creating yet another channel is beneficial.

Maintaining the quality of the existing channels (docs, SO, mailing list) is hard enough.

Danilo

On Tuesday, 7 de August de 2012 at 06:35, Nicholas Wittstruck wrote:

I've set up an instance here:

http://osqa.spotmapping.com/

We probably should set up an alias for the domain. If there is anything broken let me know. I will hopefully find time later today to add a few of the most common questions.

Nicholas

On 03.08.2012, at 00:07, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.

https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04

---------------------------

www.maf.org/rhoads

www.ontherhoads.org

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:

What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?

I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it

internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make

heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?

By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?

From where?

Peter

--

Peter Ledbrook

Grails Advocate

SpringSource - A Division of VMware

---------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:

http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email

[Nicholas Wittstruck]

Nathan,

I've added you as a superuser so that you can make changes as well. 

We could put the answer in the description field, reserving the replies for comments and additional questions. But that feels a bit like misusing osqa.

Nicholas

On 07.08.2012, at 15:23, Nathan Wells <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks for doing that, Nicholas!

Here are my comments, thus far:

* Description in the question is a required field. This is lame because we're trying to have generalized questions that dont require significant detail

* Markdown for writing an answer is a little painful 

   - try doing a numbered list of steps wth examples inline. (admittedly difficult in any editor I've worked with

   - inserting links isn't horrible, but I've seen it better

* Seeing results of editing immediately is nice, except that it wasn't completely accurate (had to edit several times to get formatting correct

* Appears to be no draft save of my answer or question, which is concerning

* I'm still concerned about people providing multiple answers to the same question. I'd like to be able to have one answer to each question... one way to do things the "Grails" way.

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 3:35 AM, Nicholas Wittstruck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I've set up an instance here:

http://osqa.spotmapping.com/

We probably should set up an alias for the domain. If there is anything broken let me know. I will hopefully find time later today to add a few of the most common questions.

Nicholas

On 03.08.2012, at 00:07, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.
> https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04
> ---------------------------
> www.maf.org/rhoads
> www.ontherhoads.org
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?
>>
>> I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it
>> internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make
>> heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?
>>
>>> By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?
>>
>> From where?
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> --
>> Peter Ledbrook
>> Grails Advocate
>> SpringSource - A Division of VMware
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>>
>>    http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>>
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>
>    http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>
>


---------------------------------------------------------------------
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[Danilo Tuler]

Hi Nathan,

I agree, sometimes it's not easy to understand, but my point is that we should encourage people to really read the docs carefully, and more broadly, to learn how to read a documentation. 

I mean, writing documentation is one of the most boring tasks a programmer have IMO. So I value a good documentation.

It's amazing how many people use grails, or spring, or hibernate, jquery, backbone, or whatever, only by reading examples and how to's.

I'm not saying people should read 500 pages of documentation before starting to code, but they should at least understand the documentation structure, and the general and basic concepts, so when doubts come up they know where to read further.

Danilo

On Tuesday, 7 de August de 2012 at 10:33, Nathan Wells wrote:

Danilo, your points are valid, and I think we should consider what it would take to reuse the existing docs to solve the problem we have. In my mind, the problem with the existing docs are

1) They're not easy to edit/add to.

2) Sometimes it's very difficult to get from "I want to do X" to the docs which are usually presented as reference materials with a lot of "how" and examples sprinkled around.

The first could be solved if we ported the docs to a Wiki. The second is a little bit harder without some sort of index of things people want to do, and some way to bridge the gap between concepts in the reference documentation, and the application of those concepts to solve a problem.

I think it would be a little disingenuous to simply say "RTFM" any time someone has a question, even if the answer is in the docs. 

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 7:12 AM, Danilo Tuler <[hidden email]> wrote:

I do not agree.

When my team asks "how do I" questions I tell them to read the docs.

Ok, it's not in a Q&A format, but a lot of people who have "how do I" questions have never read the docs carefully.

Grails docs are great IMO, and I learned that every line have a reason to exist.

When something is not clear enough I redirect them to SO, or the mailing list. But SO is usually much easier to grasp.

People often complain about documentation quality.

But I don't think that creating yet another channel is beneficial.

Maintaining the quality of the existing channels (docs, SO, mailing list) is hard enough.

Danilo

On Tuesday, 7 de August de 2012 at 06:35, Nicholas Wittstruck wrote:

I've set up an instance here:

http://osqa.spotmapping.com/

We probably should set up an alias for the domain. If there is anything broken let me know. I will hopefully find time later today to add a few of the most common questions.

Nicholas

On 03.08.2012, at 00:07, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.

https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04

---------------------------

www.maf.org/rhoads

www.ontherhoads.org

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:

What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?

I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it

internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make

heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?

By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?

From where?

Peter

--

Peter Ledbrook

Grails Advocate

SpringSource - A Division of VMware

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Nicholas Wittstruck]

Danilo,

the docs are really important, but for some people it is easier to just see a few lines of code to understand what's going on. 

If we decide that we are going for the osqa approach, we have to make sure that the answers are connected really well with the documentation. That is why I like Nathan's answer structure - the concepts and relevant links sections give users a good starting point to dive deeper.

Cheers,

Nicholas

On 07.08.2012, at 15:54, Danilo Tuler <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Nathan,

I agree, sometimes it's not easy to understand, but my point is that we should encourage people to really read the docs carefully, and more broadly, to learn how to read a documentation. 

I mean, writing documentation is one of the most boring tasks a programmer have IMO. So I value a good documentation.

It's amazing how many people use grails, or spring, or hibernate, jquery, backbone, or whatever, only by reading examples and how to's.

I'm not saying people should read 500 pages of documentation before starting to code, but they should at least understand the documentation structure, and the general and basic concepts, so when doubts come up they know where to read further.

Danilo

On Tuesday, 7 de August de 2012 at 10:33, Nathan Wells wrote:

Danilo, your points are valid, and I think we should consider what it would take to reuse the existing docs to solve the problem we have. In my mind, the problem with the existing docs are

1) They're not easy to edit/add to.

2) Sometimes it's very difficult to get from "I want to do X" to the docs which are usually presented as reference materials with a lot of "how" and examples sprinkled around.

The first could be solved if we ported the docs to a Wiki. The second is a little bit harder without some sort of index of things people want to do, and some way to bridge the gap between concepts in the reference documentation, and the application of those concepts to solve a problem.

I think it would be a little disingenuous to simply say "RTFM" any time someone has a question, even if the answer is in the docs. 

Nathan Wells

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 7:12 AM, Danilo Tuler <[hidden email]> wrote:

I do not agree.

When my team asks "how do I" questions I tell them to read the docs.

Ok, it's not in a Q&A format, but a lot of people who have "how do I" questions have never read the docs carefully.

Grails docs are great IMO, and I learned that every line have a reason to exist.

When something is not clear enough I redirect them to SO, or the mailing list. But SO is usually much easier to grasp.

People often complain about documentation quality.

But I don't think that creating yet another channel is beneficial.

Maintaining the quality of the existing channels (docs, SO, mailing list) is hard enough.

Danilo

On Tuesday, 7 de August de 2012 at 06:35, Nicholas Wittstruck wrote:

I've set up an instance here:

http://osqa.spotmapping.com/

We probably should set up an alias for the domain. If there is anything broken let me know. I will hopefully find time later today to add a few of the most common questions.

Nicholas

On 03.08.2012, at 00:07, Brad Rhoads <[hidden email]> wrote:

Looks like it should be fine for the cloud.

https://aws.amazon.com/amis/bitnami-osqa-stack-1-0rc-0-64bits-ubuntu-10-04

---------------------------

www.maf.org/rhoads

www.ontherhoads.org

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Peter Ledbrook <[hidden email]> wrote:

What's the opinion of the grails team regarding a custom OSQA instance?

I'm all for it. It's just it may take some time to get hosting for it

internally. BTW, is it suitable for cloud deployments, or does it make

heavy use of the file system (for configuration and such like)?

By the way - what's the benefit to linking to the grails section of SO?

From where?

Peter

--

Peter Ledbrook

Grails Advocate

SpringSource - A Division of VMware

---------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:

http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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