[chandler-users] Re: Automatic Assignments

[Katie Capps Parlante]

Hi Carl,

I'm pleased you could discover the flexibility by peeking under the 
hood. We're very aware of various limitations: lack of documentation, 
complexity introduced by outdated goals that we'd like to remove, etc. 
We've been a bit hesitant to emphasize the "toolkit" aspect with some of 
that work left undone, but you are probably right that there is value in 
separating out Chandler-the-toolkit information from the development 
process information.

Thanks for the perspective -- a useful 2 cents. :)

Cheers,
Katie

Carl Lemp wrote:
> Hi Katie,
> After starting to look into Chandler's underlying design a little bit, I 
> see that it was designed with an amazing amount of flexibility built 
> in.  I think if you want to see Chandler grow through user contributions 
> you'll have to advertise that fact more to attract that kind of user.  
> Most of what I saw on the Chandler site describes 
> Chandler-the-application as would be expected since most users want an 
> application they can just use as is.  But, to attract the hacker type, 
> some part of the site should describe Chandler-the-toolkit.  Sure, I 
> found the developers page but the Chandler-the-toolkit information is 
> mixed in with the internal OSAF Chandler development process information 
> so it gives a first impression that customizing Chandler means 
> developing features or creating branches like you would with any other 
> open source project.  You have to ignore the first impression and do 
> some digging on the site to realize what kind of a toolkit is hiding 
> behind Chandler-the-application.  With scripting, plug-ins, parcels, and 
> *everything* being in the repository it looks like there are lots of 
> possibilities for modifying and customizing Chandler without learning 
> tens of thousands of lines of code and becoming part of some structured 
> open-source project run by a BDFL.  But, when I've  looked  at the 
> Chandler site several times over the years, that  fact wasn't obvious.  
> If it was, I think you'd attract more of the users that like to 
> customize their tools and Chandler-the-toolkit would  spread a lot faster.
> 
> Just my 2 cents,
> 
> Carl