Plone Conference 2010 – Where we go from here

Where we go from here.

Plone 4.1 and beyond

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

...or...


Things I’ve realized over the past 24 hours.

14 rules for Plone’s future.


1.Communicate.


1. Communicate.•Where is Plone headed?

•Why?


1. Communicate.•Not the Framework Team’s job

•Reactive, not proactive


1. Communicate.•“Pete & Andy”


1. Communicate.•Welcome to step 1


2.Acknowledge our

weaknesses.


2. Acknowledge our weaknesses.

•Python will never be as popular as PHP

•Steep learning curve

•Developer experience


3. Play to our strengths.


3. Play to our strengths.•Workflow & Security

•No revolutionary changes here

•Expect some evolution

•Site admin role

•Workflow manager



3. Play to our strengths.•Workflow & Security

•No revolutionary changes here

•Expect some evolution

•Site admin role

•Workflow manager

•Local roles viewer




•UI

•We’re 10x better than anyone else

•Should be 100x

•Accessibility, Usability

•Mobile devices



•UI Team

•Alexander LimiSisi NuttMark CorumNathan Van GheemDenys MishunovGeir Baekholt



•UI Team

•Evaluate new features for usability, accessibility

•Generate UI "style guide"

•Propose changes to existing features

•Wireframe new ones


4. Decide who we want

to be.


4. Decide who we want to be.

•Describing Plone is difficult

•Intranets, Complex sites

•Workflow, security, many editors

•Mid-to-Large sized sites


5. Answer “What do I

do now?”


5. Answer “What do I do now?”

•What are the first-steps with Plone?

•What should I be able to do after 1 day?

•1 week?

•1 month?


5. Answer “What do I do now?”

•Day 1

•Amberjack

•Week 1, Month 1

•Deco, Dexterity


6. TTW is A-OK.


6. TTW is A-OK.•Stop running from it

•Make it both possible and practical


6. TTW is A-OK*.•*As long as you can export your

changes.

•Nobody likes the ZMI.


6. TTW is A-OK*.•Exports? We can do that.

•Wait... we can do imports too!

•Workflows

•Dexterity types

•Diazo themes

•Templates/Images/CSS/JS


6. TTW is A-OK*.•So?

•Download and install themes, types, workflows all without restarting Plone.

•Coming in Plone 4.2


7.Don’t invent new technology, if you

can help it.


7. Don’t invent new technology, if you can help it.

•Leverage outside technology, where possible

•KSS

•Begin to deprecate in Plone 4.1

•Gone in Plone 5.


8. The revolution will be

backported.


8. The revolution will be backported.

•Revolution happens in Plone 5.

•Those ideas will mature in Plone 4.x



•Practical considerations prevent inclusion in Plone 4

•Work (for some definition of “work”)

•Integration, with varying amounts of effort



•Chameleon

•Render your templates faster

•Needs valid templates

•No RestrictedPython support



•Dexterity

•Works in Plone 4

•Doesn’t quite integrate

•Will improve with each 4.x release



•Diazo

•Works now

•Trivial template cleanup

•Plone 4.2?



•Deco

•“Runs” in “Plone 4”

•Doesn’t necessarily make sense in that context.

•Plan: It works, but limits what your Plone site can do.


9. Keep moving

forward.


9. Keep moving forward.

•Give a compelling reason to upgrade

•Carrots and sticks



•Continue the move to ZCA

•Tools to Utilities and Views

•Persistent data stored in plone.app registry

•Restricted Python to Views

•Old-style templates to Views



•Continue the move to ZCA

•CSS/JS/images to browser resources


10. Shrink the stack.


10. Shrink the stack.•Remove unneeded dependencies

•Zope

•CMF


10. Shrink the stack.•Plone 4.1/Zope 2.13

•Welcome to the Zope Toolkit

•Less Five.* integration layers

•zope.app.* removal


11.Don’t break sh*t.


11. Don’t break sh*t.•Provide smooth upgrade paths for

data

•Provide clear product migration instructions


11. Don’t break sh*t.•Deprecate, don’t decimate

•We’re much better at this than others

•Stop saying “will go away”


11. Don’t break sh*t.•For example, Archetypes

•Still around in Plone 5

•At a cost

•Gone in Plone 6

•~5-6 Years

•Plan accordingly


12. Install everywhere.



•Debian/Ubuntu, Redhat packages in the works

•VMWare images

•EC2



•CPanel

•Relstorage + WSGI

•Within the year



•CPanel

•Welcome to $20 hosting

•Easy-to-get = easy-to-evaluate

•Equal footing with Joomla, Drupal

•Kick ass


13. Distributions will be

important.


13. Distributions will be important.

•Provide one-click sites for specific use-cases.

•Education

•NGO

•Intranet

•Social



•Not just add-ons

•Clear set of policies for integration



•Plone 4.1 makes it easier

•Package to include new defaultadd-ons

•Exclude existing ones



•Go see my boss

•Education distribution in the works now.


Sidebar!

•Stop using “Plone4*” name

•Plone4Artists

•Plone4Universities

•You’ll feel silly when Plone 5 comes out.


14.Quality. Quality.

Quality.


14. Quality. Quality. Quality

•Improve quality control at all stages of the development process



•PLIP Process

•UI Team

•Documentation



•Testing

•Continuous integration testing

•As soon as it’s changed, it’s checked

•Catch regressions as they happen

•Selenium



•Testing

•Load testing

•Plone 4 is fast

•We want to keep it that way



•QA Team

•Test releases before they go public

•“soft-release”

•Catch regressions before hurt users



•QA Team

•[email protected]

•Open session on Friday

•QA sprint on Saturday


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


•QA Sprint

•QA checklists

•Selenium testing

•Performance testing

•Free food!


Technology

Plone Conference 2010 – Where we go from here