The Joomla! Forum™

Would it make sense to go through each of the 1.5 tutorials as a group and make sure we all understand those before moving on?

Sounds like a plan to me.  We should set a 'start date' so we can be on the same page, and we can create a thread for them as we go through for Q/A and other interesting info.

I think this is a good idea. I'm not suggesting we make this in a book or classroom format, but it would be good if each week, people had a tutorial or some document to read and discuss... so that everyone understands it. It would be a good way to lay a foundation as well as get to know what areas of programming some of us are better at.

Sort of like the book of the week.  I love book clubs .

We'll start a thread (I hate to make yet another sticky) that can list the document we're reviewing for the particular time period, and use that post for comments / questions / etc..

I really think we can create a subforum called "Coursework"... We can set it up so that only moderators can create threads, but anyone can reply. Thus, you would be able to post the "Coursework" for the week and people could reply to discuss. As new users come on, they can start at the bottom and work their way up.

Something for a week can be as simple as looking over an extension that we already wrote and discussing its parts. ... as well as discussing what we would change if we rewrote it. (I find that I always think that afterwards... "I would have made blah blah a class instead of how I did it.")

Agreed we are going to need a few subforums.  Matt and I were discussing that briefly.  Definitely something we'll have to consider as we get moving; I like your idea.  Something we can talk about.

Im for the subforum. I think it would organize things and be better for assisting community members.

Team Environment
I want to encourage us to continue with a peer to peer teamwork approach.  Tjay made excellent observations about a very dynamic and collaborative developer community - a group I have observed and admired for awhile. That group each have responsibility in specific areas. Over time, they personally decided they wanted to contribute something they felt was needed and missing. Together, as a team, they talk about the broader goals and how their piece needs to evolve. But, they are independent and equal players.

In a nutshell, that is empowerment. It comes from people having ownership in what they are doing *and* from contributing and receiving from a group. It allows individuals to participate in a way that they are interested and talented. So, let's keep it open and equal!

Already, given that team approach, even after only a few days of brainstorming, the team is growing and people are volunteering a number of great and different ideas. What is really, really exciting to me is that Chris, Ian, and Louis have all recognized there might be useful results for the larger community out of this experience. So, their ideas have been added to the mix.

Personal goals
I agree with Eric Raymond's philosophies on the Hacker Attitude. Or, read the whole thing in the The Cathedral and the Bazaar. It's all about empowerment and gaining skill and contributing. Good stuff!

So, it might be good for us to articulate personal goals for ourselves before going much further. What do you hope to get out of this experience? It's good for you to know. It will help you to invest your time wisely. You should get something out of this experience and you should give something to the rest of us.

You don't need to tell anyone your personal goals. Just know what they are and know you are responsible for them, not anyone else.

Team Goals?
1. Develop the first iteration of an 8-week Joomla! Coding 101 course.

2. Establish a collaborative developer community who interact on a regular basis, exchange ideas about extensions *and* documentation *and* advanced training *and* testing/security needed in the Joomla! community, forge partnerships to complete some of the work, always welcoming in new developers, some who will be graduates of the 8-week course, others with "real-world" experience who want to participate in Joomla! development.

Group norms - how do we operate?

Fun It should be fun for you. If it's not, leave for awhile - take a break - or think about whether or not this is really something you want to do.

Transparency Our work should be visible to others. Everything we do as a team should be public or made public. That way, those who choose to silently participate have access to what we are doing, others will be encouraged to join in the next time, we will model the teamwork tjay was observing.

Inclusive unless serious problems: Anyone who wants to participate should be able to do so. In the rare case that we cause so much unnecessary heartache, after repeated attempts at redirection by peers, we could be asked to leave by the group.

Consensus Based Decisions Our decisions should be consensus based on group issues. Consensus means "no one objects", not that "everyone agrees." It's a subtle, and yet, important difference. Anyone can make a proposal. Each person is responsible to say something if they disagree, otherwise it is assumed you are onboard. No complaining later! One objection stops the decision. It works. If you have had the pleasure to work in a real consensus-based team environment, you quickly recognize, when people know they are empowered, they use objections *rarely* and only when it really matters. Then, the team *should* deal with it.

Tangible Deliverables What we do should produce *results.* We should know how to XYZ. There should be an ABC extension available now. We should have NN more contributors.

Reproducible We should document what we do. We are gaining access to the brightest and best in the J! team. We owe it to the community to leave behind a base curriculum. The next group must take it and improve it and change it and leave it for the next group, and so on. Also, we will use tools available to all and websites available to all. That way, the next group can use and improve our methods.

Deliverables?

1.  8-week course (skeleton) for a Joomla! Coding 101 Course.
    a. Developer tools - IDE, local host environment (ex. XAMPP), SVN access, Communication tools (Skype? IRC?) what else?
    b. Introduction to the J! API
    c. Learn to create a simple component (new table, admin), a module and a plugin from scratch.
    d. Adapt this into the MVC framework.
    e. Create an installation package.
    f. Select a few of the social networking technologies and learn to packages as a plug-in, module, and component.
    g. How to use JoomlaCode and JED

2. Collaborative Ongoing developer environment - we can talk about that when we finish the course.

End of random thoughts

Does this jive with the thinking of others?
Amy

Excellent summary Amy.  I think you've summed up where we've gotten to this point, and a good handle on the direction we need to go as we continue.

What I really find that I already enjoy with this group is 'dynamic collaboration'.  We are all working towards particular goals, but we all have some common threads that have come together here, and we're all interested in working toward a common goal.  We will continue to make this a communal effort as we move along.  As we can already see, this comes at a good time as well.  We should be able to get something accomplished before the release, and perhaps some of our work will even have a bit of influence on it.

We still have to go over possible IDE and get a handle on them before we press on, but it is nice to see we have some clear direction as to where we are headed.

The only concern I have with an 8 week curriculum to start is just that - 2 months might be a long ways to go for a first project.  Not that we don't have a pretty decent handle on where we'd like to go, I'm not sure if I'm ready to get that structured just yet.  I'd rather pick our work and work more at a group pace than try to keep to a 'rigid' schedule.

I just wrote another post and as my "starting question" was about the tools, the first item of Amy´s weekly schedule, I decided to mention it here.
Maybe this means that having the group working with the same tools is an interesting first step...
But I´m not sure... what do you think?

Rogue4ngel wrote: The only concern I have with an 8 week curriculum to start is just that - 2 months might be a long ways to go for a first project.  Not that we don't have a pretty decent handle on where we'd like to go, I'm not sure if I'm ready to get that structured just yet.  I'd rather pick our work and work more at a group pace than try to keep to a 'rigid' schedule.

I can see I wasn't clear about my confusion. Here it is in a nutshell -- I do not understand what this "project work" is I hear some talking about? I had understood we were going to learn together - and build a curriculum in the process.  While I do agree actual examples are excellent for curriculum, I had understood that was the purpose of the "extensions" thread. To get examples for our learning - and curriculum.

To me, a project is something with a specific begin date, end date and it has a deliverable.  A project, in my mind, working on a project requires certain skills - skills we would have at the conclusion of Joomla! 101.

With that thinking in mind, I tried to consider this project work concept. And, that, for me, is Phase 2 - which has a goal of building a collaborative, ongoing developer force that tjay was speaking about.

Eight weeks? Six weeks? Two weeks? I do not care. I only put a "target" number to gauge expectation. Do we all see Phase 1 as the learning phase? How long should that last? Are we trying to build a curriculum that others can reuse and improve?

++++

For me, at this point, having the team agree on a "basic framework" of what we are after would be helpful before diving into details.

Hope that's not MORE confusing!!  :P
Amy

I will write what I´m thinking. I´m not sure if I´m helping or disturbing...

We can think as starting point having a joomla 1.5 site installed and some php knowledge as the "requirements" (in this case, it doesn´t matter the other tools) - this requirement is personal - each developer having its own "playground" to freely experiment and try, so he/she can share his/her adventure´s results to the others.

With PHP knowledge and a "Joomla 1.5 space", some tutor can guide joombies in a kind of tour...?

Or maybe some basic answers can be made, which will result in a path to all in this situation: php developers that "suddenly" have a "new world" in front of them: how I MIX MY CODE with this strange thing called Joomla! 1.5 API?

Maybe we can all together start building a VERY SIMPLE BASE (a module? a component?) and from this THING ("joombie base") go on discovering the API - and being able to see the results in the front-end...

And make a journey through the API - a experienced tutor and some interested joombies could make this journey and the result would be "chapters" of API didactic documentation - much more interesting than the reference for a future Joomla developer to approach...

I wrote my thoughts. Thanks for the attention!

@Amy

Not at all.  We would like to work towards a framework and foundation that we can develop and reuse.  

To this point, we're pretty much event driven, getting some of the very basics out of the way.  The immediate need at the moment is finding a suitable IDE.

I'm sure your contribution to help build up a 'curriculum' will be invaluable, and of course we'll be working towards that.  Until then, there are those who'd like to just jump in and get their hands dirty, and I want to afford them that opportunity.  I'm sure we'll learn a few things in the process.

I think we're going to see several different levels of activity.  Sometimes that may seem to blur the line of where we're headed, but rest assured, we're going to keep things slow and steady, and most importantly, moving.

For some this was just a thought a few weeks ago, so it may not seem so incredibly organized, but I can assure you there are discussions going on as to how to proceed, and we will solidify our direction as we get to things.

Rogue4ngel wrote: For some this was just a thought a few weeks ago, so it may not seem so incredibly organized, but I can assure you there are discussions going on as to how to proceed, and we will solidify our direction as we get to things.

Where are these discussions?

Some have been through PM's, though chats and other avenues.  They are very preliminary and will be brought to the forum as we move forward in getting things underway.

I'd rather not inundate the forum with too much or get too far ahead of ourselves before we have some of the very basic necessities.  It looks like we've decided on another mode of more real-time communication (Skype) and not working on the IDE.  Once those two things are set, we'll set a more formal schedule for how we'll approach starting up our project groups and what that will entail, as well as what will be the focus.

We still need to discuss more on what's currently available to us for SVN as well - there's a lot to be decided before we start deciding how curriculum will work and how we're going to approach it.

I apologize, Tim. I'll step out and give you guys time to get all of the planning and concept work in place. I misunderstood what was going on. Can't wait to see what you all put together! It's going to be very good for Joomla!'s future, I am *quite* certain!

All the best!
Amy

No need to apologize Amy!  We're all excited, and I'd love to get things going sooner than later, but as you mentioned, structure and set goals, as well as a scheduled approach are important.  Yes, it seems a bit haphazard with so many ideas going around, but rest assured we'll pull it together so our 'joombies' can try on their developer hats and see how they fit.

AmyStephen wrote: I can see I wasn't clear about my confusion. Here it is in a nutshell -- I do not understand what this "project work" is I hear some talking about? I had understood we were going to learn together - and build a curriculum in the process.  While I do agree actual examples are excellent for curriculum, I had understood that was the purpose of the "extensions" thread. To get examples for our learning - and curriculum.

To me, a project is something with a specific begin date, end date and it has a deliverable.  A project, in my mind, working on a project requires certain skills - skills we would have at the conclusion of Joomla! 101.

Hope that's not MORE confusing!!  :P
Amy

i think i initially referred to the word 'projects' in my initial request for directions post, and in that context i was more thinking of personal project ideas for joomla! cms, which was understood in that manner, and hence the interest for other coders to join in. i think a lot of us have personal projects, some of which we want to share, some of which is our own pet we wish to keep, and the bad ones we want to sell and this is what attracted many other coders online who sensed this. The word 'project' is dear to us coders as it is our 'pet projects' and i was using it in that context and in that tone.

your understanding and definition of the word 'project' Amy, would be correct in a highly paid glassy door water cooler enviroment of the corporate world. but that is not what i meant, and i think perhaps not applicable here.

To further clarify, i will have projects in future, and those interested in my projects can join in, maybe in my own upcoming website or by email.
When we encounter ideas or obstacles we come here to discuss about it, then go away mending our projects again, then come back beaming with yet another 'product'.

cetainly i won't have a deadline for my projects, no ! i wouldn't even think of it..lol.


as for classroom/education, now that is very useful. i'm all for it.

it would be nice to have a structured tutorial i can subscribe to that will send me its teachings chapter by chapter upon request. i dunno what to call it, it's kinda like the major domo thing....ah, mail server. so i'd say ( send email ) get 101 Chapter One and Chapter One gets delivered to my email. And only chapter one.

Of course all this also would be in the webpages, pointed to by forums headers as we already have so quickly...many thanks.
I go to a webpage now i get stuck, read the whole thing with full enthusiasm that my cats starve.

It would be nice to have someting on plain text which i can fold and read on the bus, in my own time, in an environent of my choice. Call me old fashion, but thinking in front of a webpage just doesn't do it for me.

And if there isn't a mail classroom service, i'll make one...


going backwards arent i ? lol

Hi guys!
Some time ago I taught math for US community colleges and universities. Five terms a year, for 8 years. I taught Math 101, Algebra 120, Trig 220, Statistics 240 and Calculus 260. Some students had the background to go straight to Calculus, but they were very few. Most started at Math 101, so that everyone taking the higher courses would have the same, appropriate skills to get the most from these courses.

Isn't that what Joomla! Coding 101 implies? An introduction to Joomla! Coding that will provide the skills to move on to more advanced coding?
If you have already have the skills to do Joomla! coding, and you are hanging out at Joomla 101, it must be to help the Joombies?

I can understand the desire to jump straight into projects, learning by doing is often the best way, but surely Joomla! Coding 101 needs to provide a basis for ALL beginners?

I think that having a Joomla! 101 Coding area is a great idea. But if you give it such a name, then it genuinely has to be appropriate for a beginner. If you are looking for project collaborators, then it aint 101 ...

I can't say that I agree it's not a place to come for collaboration.  I do understand your point, though, and there have been some discussion on where things will be going. 

And yes, we do still have to work out a framework to start initiating group oriented / community type of projects.  In the next few weeks, I'm hoping to initiate some continued discussion on some study material.  I forsee going through some of the J1.5 documentation, as well as getting familair with an IDE. We are considering jcode for our IDE.

A rush to project creation is not necessarily what we're looking for here, and I think as things move forward,  this will become more defined and apparent.  But since this is a new initiative, we're also not going to stifle any worthwhile discussion.  You never know what it may lead to.

dave76mc wrote: I can understand the desire to jump straight into projects, learning by doing is often the best way, but surely Joomla! Coding 101 needs to provide a basis for ALL beginners?

I think that having a Joomla! 101 Coding area is a great idea. But if you give it such a name, then it genuinely has to be appropriate for a beginner. If you are looking for project collaborators, then it aint 101 ...

I agree 100%. Have you been observing the Getting Started - JObject thread that uberlandia kicked off? I am starting to think that the foundations of the course are emerging in that thread. It's still a challenge for me, but, I read it a few times, I can see the J! framework - and Ian did a very informative post on object oriented programming, something I am *not* bringing to the experience and need.

Combine that with Chris's Joomla 1.5 Tutorial Guides post, the discussion on Components, Modules and Plugins and there is already a wealth of material.

Check it out and see what you think. Maybe if some of us real newbies can take these pieces - learn it - and consider sequence - curriculum might be emerging.

I don't think it will hurt if some of us are PHDs who have actually taught! (ok, maybe not "some", but "one!")

Good comments,
Amy

dave76mc wrote: Hi guys!
I think that having a Joomla! 101 Coding area is a great idea. But if you give it such a name, then it genuinely has to be appropriate for a beginner. If you are looking for project collaborators, then it aint 101 ...

well if it aint 101, then so what... so long as i have a place where i can find friends to do joint projects and with a schooling/education dimension added to it by amy, this place is the place for beginners to hang around and see if they can find what they like.

also, there are many ways to learn, not necessarily schooling. one can learn by doing.
in fact, sometimes, schooling may be disadvantageous due the wrong imposed 'education' given.

I have been real busy at work this week, but should have some time to play this weekend.
I like the Jobject thread. Here is my problem. It jumps right into the objects and how they are related.

I think what I am going to start with is just a basic concept of what are classes. How do you create instances of, extend, etc etc a Class in PHP.

In other words, I need to learn the basic capabilities of classes and what syntax is used to code classes. So when you see something like You can understand the  -> $ = () of it all

tjay wrote: I like the Jobject thread. Here is my problem. It jumps right into the objects and how they are related.

I think what I am going to start with is just a basic concept of what are classes. How do you create instances of, extend, etc etc a Class in PHP.



You can understand the  -> $ = () of it all

Agree. I think we might be able to reference resources from outside of J! for some of that, as well. There appear to be many available - maybe we could select three, or so, that we believe are worthy to build the foundation needed to even *consider* looking at J! code:

• Wikipedia has good OOP definitions
• Ian's use of OOP constructs and "real life" scenarios helps me understand basic concepts before PHP is introduced and people talking bar and foobar which mean *nothing* to me - sadly, BMI, I get!;
• Nefarious Designs has what appears to be an *excellent* Object-Oriented Concepts article with four parts specific to PHP: Object-oriented PHP Part 1: Definition, Object-Oriented PHP Part 2: Relationships, Object-Oriented PHP Part 3: Taking Relationships Further and Object-Oriented PHP Part 4: PHP5’s Improved Features (Wow! He's also got AjaxEvent: Using YUI custom events with Ajax. Do you think we will ever get there? hehe!)

I think it's always smart to find external resources for non-J! specific learning and reuse, whenever possible.

We need to start an thread for a curriculum outline. It'll be good to have our educator, Dave, help sequence and consider the material.

Getting good!
Amy

right now I see people hoping to get started while the more stable concepts and methods are being devised.
This is a good thing, but can often appear to be chaos to those coming for the first time.

So while we are adopting the larger scheme we need to throw out some munchies to the hungry joombies.
What I can do for now, is also self driven
I am off to buy some good books for my reference. I will start a basic syntax thread and reference the sources you mention Amy when needed.

I tend to write like I teach, sort of conversation style.
I did a tutorial for FF a couple years ago in that style. It seemed to make it easier for people who like me, understood the concepts but could not quite connect the dots. If any of you saw the assessment tutorial you know what I mean.

I was a trainer for many years with Maytag. One thing I learned from training is peoples eyes glass over if they do not get digestible concepts. Most training is written to cover a broad range of listener. That means most listeners kind of get it. I am hoping to write it so the people at my level get it, because I just now got it.
They call those AHA moments. So call me the clown ( cant claim king ) of AHA.

LOL

Any way this should feed the anxious joombies while we settle in on more formal things 

jalil wrote:

dave76mc wrote: Hi guys!
I think that having a Joomla! 101 Coding area is a great idea. But if you give it such a name, then it genuinely has to be appropriate for a beginner. If you are looking for project collaborators, then it aint 101 ...

well if it aint 101, then so what... so long as i have a place where i can find friends to do joint projects and with a schooling/education dimension added to it by amy, this place is the place for beginners to hang around and see if they can find what they like.

also, there are many ways to learn, not necessarily schooling. one can learn by doing.
in fact, sometimes, schooling may be disadvantageous due the wrong imposed 'education' given.

So what? You will alienate genuine Joombies who come here to learn. If you want to bring in newcomers and enthuse them for Joomla!, it need to provide the basics, and not be another area which tells them to go away and learn elsewhere until they reach the level where they can participate.

"so long as i have a place where i can find friends to do joint projects"
If you are just interested in what YOU need and want, then it aint for others, it's for YOU. Call it like it is.

Well, I suppose opinions are a'flyin' in here regarding what Joomla! Coding 101 should be or not be. The name does (intentionally) imply a beginner level, but it also implies a beginner level at coding for Joomla. I don't think the original idea was to be "Programming 101" or "PHP 101", although there is some of that happening already and it is good stuff that should be continued as there appears to be a desire to present it.

I think Amy said it earlier, that we need to determine a curriculum and get it outlined. Perhaps she meant outlined in the form of layered forums since that appears to be the forum of choice at the moment, perhaps not. I personally think the material itself would be better collected and presented in a web page format (e.g., Wiki), which would make information easier to find. Having said that, this Wiki would need to be writeable by those in this group who are "in the know" about the specific topics covered there and be primarily for the benefit of the people we now seem to be calling "joombies". Continuing a trend to provide instruction in this forum is going to make it hard to find the information or put a structure to the learning process. Some topics are already being repeated.

This thing already has legs and is trying to walk. Soon it will be running. We need to get organized ASAP.

Dumb question...Doesn't the Joomla! documentation team already have a Wiki? Is there a place in their table of contents for some chapters on beginner level tutorial information and some of the other topics already being discussed in J!101? Do we need our own documentation team?

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of high-energy synergy here already and it's very exciting. We just need to channel all this energy and knowledge somehow. There's a lot of expertise here already, and lots of "hungry joombies" that need to be fed!

bascherz wrote: Dumb question...Doesn't the Joomla! documentation team already have a Wiki? Is there a place in their table of contents for some chapters on beginner level tutorial information and some of the other topics already being discussed in J!101? Do we need our own documentation team?

Yes...  we do have a wiki already.  If permission is granted by authors as they write, the material from this thread will likely end of there.  I'm guessing we'll have to find a place for it soon   But it is my hope that not only will this be a place where more experienced developers share knowledge, but also where new developers share what they have learned as they proceed on the journey of learning to develop for Joomla!  We have a doc team, but it can only be barely called a team.  The stuff going on here is great and will end up being a good contribution to our efforts.

Ian

ianmac wrote: ...it is my hope that not only will this be a place where more experienced developers share knowledge, but also where new developers share what they have learned as they proceed on the journey of learning to develop for Joomla!

Agreed. However, a line still needs to be drawn between what is fact and poignant documentation versus what is anecdotal. Everybody's input definitely has value. My suggestion in that vein may perhaps be to allow comments on the Wiki topics. That's an existing separation that should do the trick and, hopefully, not supplant these forums.

bascherz wrote:

ianmac wrote: ...it is my hope that not only will this be a place where more experienced developers share knowledge, but also where new developers share what they have learned as they proceed on the journey of learning to develop for Joomla!

Agreed. However, a line still needs to be drawn between what is fact and poignant documentation versus what is anecdotal. Everybody's input definitely has value. My suggestion in that vein may perhaps be to allow comments on the Wiki topics. That's an existing separation that should do the trick and, hopefully, not supplant these forums.

Definitely.  We've been reluctant to open up the wiki to discussion because of concern over spam, but I'm recently had thoughts about how we might make this work and it is on my list of things to do.

Ian