1. Old Dogs &
New Tricks
By
[ a highly opinionated talk about the future of Plone from a Framework Team member, developer, project
manager, consultant, loud mouth, and general advocate of change aka ]
Elizabeth Leddy
3. 4.[1,2,3] Features
‣ Modernizing the User Experience ‣ Modernizing The Architecture
4.1
‣ Commenting ‣ Performance++
‣ Theming (Diazo) ‣ Repackaging Party
‣ Search ‣ Keep up with Zope releases
‣
‣
Collections
Content type creation
4.2 ‣
‣
Standardizing APIs
HTML 5
4.3
(Dexterity ) ‣ Python 2.7
‣ Events
..... .....
4. New Processes
PLIPS Releases
45
Only YOU can make this
4.3*
smaller!
30 4.2
4.1
15
4.0
0
4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4* 0 100 200 300 400
Proposed Accepted Days from Last Release to Alpha
Merged Incomplete Days from Alpha to Release
* PLIP monster wants PLIPS
5. Ticket Cleanup Process
1132 Open Tickets
8 per core contributor
3.4 new tickets/day
s
Attainable Goal: 4 Tickets per Contributor
6. Breakdown of Bugs
(color coded by how irritated I
Feature Requests
376
am that they are open)
Bugs Ongoing
PLIPs 24
729 Future
25
230
4.x
603
Distribution of Tickets
(color coded by how much
attention they get)
Ticket Status
7. In January 2012, Add Ons
29 new add-ons 2012*
were registered
on Plone.org. 2011
That is almost
2010
one new add-on 0 125 250 375 500
per day. New Updated
10. ‣ Deco/Tiles
‣ Usability
meh dog says...
‣ Performance
‣1 content type to blah blah blah.
RULE THEM ALL! GLITTER+PONIES
= UNICORNS
=== Plone 5
2007
11. 2010?
Deco Light? 2011?
???
2012?
CMSUI?
The #1
framework of
Grok? post apocalyptic
times?
Whatever the release manager says it is?
2012: Facing Reality
12. In order to reach ‣ plone.org/roadmap
where we are going ‣ Short Term
Vectors of Influence for Plone 5 ‣ Improved calendaring and
Community collections
Realized
Path ‣ Improved content development
Excitement
Direction experience
(Roadmap)
Beer TextMedium Term
‣
Dedication
‣ CMS-UI & Deco Lite
Bitterness
Resistance to change
‣ WSGI & Ajax
Plone 4 ‣ CMF forms -> Browser Views
we must forgive
where we have been
Roadmap
14. Does the steep learning curve pay off? Is
this complexity still justified today?
I need a platform. Customers need a CMS.
You can't just start and say "If you want
to see the complexity of Plone,
you have to ask for it" when you don't
know the system good enough to plan.
The Complexity of Plone
15. So... what COULD justify the
complexity of Plone?
‣ It's moving to a more modern architecture. It's bridging both the old and the new approach right now,
which adds some complexity until the transition is mostly complete. This is mostly to keep things
backwards compatible. Plone does not abandon it s users.
‣ [Plone 4] starts up 3-4 times faster than the current version. and uses about 20% less memory
‣ There's a much easier types system in the works (Dexterity), which will reduce the complexity and speed
up the system a lot, while keeping the same level of functionality.
‣ If you want to use it as a "platform," then the platform is a stack of over one million lines of code which
implements a complete content management suite. No one knows it all. However, all those "acronyms"
and "files" are evidence of a software which is factored in components so that no one need know it all.
You can get as deep or shallow in it as you need. If there's something you need for some aspect of
content management, it's already there, you don't have to create it from scratch, and you can do it in a
way that's consistent with a wide practice and review.
16. On Upgrading
Data migrations from Plone 2.5 to
4.2 were very successful. Data
compatibility will remain
important be important and we
are dedicated not getting stuck
again (Python bumps, we bump).
The worst of the modernization
storm is over.
17. Framework Core Values
‣ XML Configuration ‣ Code next to config
‣ Easy debugging ‣ Syntactic Sugar
‣ Extensibility/Pluggability ‣ The custom folder
‣ 100% test coverage ‣ Happy end users
‣ Best in class code ‣ Clear and simple APIs
‣ More documentation ‣ Better documentation
.....
Hard things easy ‣ Easy
.....
things easy
‣
18. Teaching
Python Web
‣ Task: Make a TODO list
‣ Audience: New to Python
meh dog says... ‣ 3 frameworks, 3 hours
per framework
‣ web2py, flask, Django
Interfaces? I’ll just use PHP then.
19. @route( /contact )
@render( contact.pt )
class Contact(View):
def getContactInfo(self):
return {phone= 999-999-9999 }
@route( /support-request )
def ProcessSupport(View):
# submit to 3rd party here
return redirect(url_for(ThankYou))
Simple Syntax
20. Using Recommended Practices:
‣ Getting the site root
‣ 6 files and 20 lines of code to add a
new stylesheet
‣ Touching so many files and modules:
impossible to move quickly without
referencing documentation
constantly
Hypoglycemia
23. Developer Driven
Development
‣ Think about the API first
‣ Obsess about developer
efficiency
‣ Use documented examples/
recipes to prove ease of use
‣ Contribute shortcuts from your
everyday process and share
them with coworkers and
Make documentation less community
important with intuitive code!
24. Plone 5 has the potential to make
Happy Developers!
25. ... makes hiring
A thriving community
of happy developers... easier
‣ Plone will never be hip: move on
‣ Dangerously high levels of
frustration in the blood
‣ Foster interest in long term
career achievement
‣ At least it s not Java
plone means getting hands dirty and
drinking away your sorrows
once you finish the day
supton, #plone, January 2012
26. ‣ Plone developers cost much more
than the competition because they
are highly skilled + scarce
‣ Ramp up is too time consuming ($$$)
‣ Clients have the right to a saturated
developer market should they move
on to a different company
‣ Developers have the right to feel
prepared to move on within PLONE
‣ Diversity in quality of developers
A large community
of happy developers...
... makes firing
easier
27. Redefining Sexy Too many packages rely on
too few maintainers; the code
is so brilliant and innovative,
people are afraid to touch it.
We need to nurture a culture
where code is usable and
maintainable by the
average Plone developer.
28. ✓ Internationalized
✓ Unit tests
✓ End-user documentation
✓ Internal documentation
✓ Existed and maintained for at
least 6 months
✓ Installs and uninstalls cleanly
✓ Code structure follows best
practice
✓ Usable by Spanky
Spanky Certified
29. Who does Plone work for?
"If you want a platform to be successful, you need
massive adoption, and that means you need
developers to develop for it. The best way to kill a
platform is to make it hard for developers to build on
it. Most of the time, this happens because platform
companies ... don't know that they have a platform
(they think it's an application)." Joel Spolsky
31. Plone Pain Top 10 Update
plone.api
Planned in
plone.api
Planned for
Plone 5
(ping esteele
to help)
32. Plone Pain
Dev docs in core,
trac removed.
Guidelines started
then stalled - help
requested!
Part of CMF
templates
rewrite, new
code validated
PLIP Requested:
ping esteele
33. KSS, inline editing
pulled out. Lots
more too do
Debug tools in
plone.api
planned
PLIP Requested:
ping esteele
2 new tutorials
made, return of
tutorial focus
34. ‣ Make Archetypes Optional
‣ Widget parity*
‣ Default Plone types in Dexterity*
‣ Continue to factor out unnecessary
packages
‣ KSS
‣ Archetypes
‣ Javascript date formatting*
‣ plone.api*
‣ Move all config settings to the registry*
*: Needs PLIP-lementors
Initiating release sequence...
Plone 5 TODOs Plone 5 released.
35. Summary
‣Plone 4 ‣Plone 5
Modernizing the Plone Modernizing the Plone
user experience developer experience
..... .....
37. Committing
Not Just for Developers
‣ Decide to commit to Plone the community. Too
many people sitting on the fence results just leaves
us with a busted fence.
‣ Commit your project or company, no matter how
small, to just 1 internal Plone culture improvement
proposal this week. Can t code? Even better.
38. Resolve to Initiate
‣ Policy: All employees sign up for Plone on day 1
‣ Paperwork: Contributor agreement, plone.org account
‣ Persist Plone culture (e.g. pre-install IRC)
‣ Training: teach new developers how and when
to file bugs and properly contribute fixes
‣ Mentorship: it s not just for finding the bathroom
39. Resolve to Travel
‣ Host a sprint. Ploners LOVE to travel. It s science.
‣ Send 1 [non-technical] person to a conference
‣ Level Up: Let them stay to sprint
‣ Bonus Round: Present a case study of your work
‣ Form an alliance (or two). Explain projects,
frustrations, share contacts. Meet their team in
person.
40. Resolve to Encourage
‣ Test new versions of Plone. Stage, don t deploy.
Upgrade and run your tests. Report back.
‣ Make a policy to stop forking! It s a short term fix
with long term problems. Enforce it.
‣ Set aside time for a company sponsored PLIP
41. Resolve to Sprint this Weekend!
‣Tutorial ‣DOJO
Basic TODO List the Modernizing the Plone
Plone way. Focus on contributor agreement
transition from TTW to process. Learn Dexterity,
plone.api. Moderated. content rules and more.
..... .....
42. !MAGIC
Plone has the potential to make
happy developers, but only
you have the power to make
Plone
45. Get Educated
‣ Plone Roadmap
‣ Plone API Roadmap
‣ HOWTO: Getting Started Developing with Plone
‣ Tutorial: Hello World
‣ Tutorial: Basic TODO List
‣ HOWTO: Contributing to Plone Core
![Old Dogs &
New Tricks
By
[ a highly opinionated talk about the future of Plone from a Framework Team member, developer, project
manager, consultant, loud mouth, and general advocate of change aka ]
Elizabeth Leddy](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/plonesymposiumsouthamerica2012-120822131503-phpapp01/85/plone-symposium-south-america-2012-1-320.jpg)
