[wtp-dev] Fw: [wtp-committers] XML based milestone plans

[Craig Salter <csalter@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi David,  

Thanks for the feedback.  I'll
try to address your comments below.

>    1.  Why are we
still using wtp-committers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx list? 

Perhaps I misunderstood the purposed
of the list?  I thought it was the channel to direct information to
other commiters ... but I'm happy to post to wtp-dev if no one minds the
extra noise.  

>    2. I think it'd be
nice if "low", "medium", "high" was also
"printed out" on web rendered version  perhaps in brackets
immediately before item? 

Sure I'll make that change.


>    3. I'm not sure of the relation of "top items"
and the rest of list .... shouldn't the top items be only "high"
priority 
>        items we consider "stop ship"
if not met for milestone? (In that case, is there a way they can be automatically
>       "picked out" of whole list and put
in the "top" section?). Even if have to be manually duplicated,
I think that 
>        should be the objective of that section,
right?). 

I don't think 'top items' are required...
I'm still thinking thru what level of detail need to be exposed on the
'overview' plan and how we can organize our items in our component plans
to also produce a good overview.  Any suggestions are welcome.  Even
without much effort our current component plans appears to generate a fairly
good overview [1] (though
there's a few minor naming/uppercasing problem we'll ne to sort out to
make our links work).

>      4. In the item element, I'd suggest a "detail"
tag as well as a "description" tag. The description would be
>      "picked out" for most high level project
wide plan displays, but the 'detail' could be ignored, but via
>       different URL, or what ever, developers and co-developers
focused on one particular component could 
>       also see the detail if they'd prefer. That way,
there's a clear "short" version that gives gist of item and a
>       clear "long" version of the item (when
desired) that gives more details some developers might need 
>        to know. For example (only), 

Makes sense...  I'll add this to
the schema and provide a way to view the detail in the generated html.
 BTW, you can add any HTML markup you choose to the content of the
description tag... so if you feel a need to  HTML markup to your descriptions
(e.g. bold tags, links to bugzilla bugs etc) that should all work for free.

[1] http://eclipse.org/webtools/development/milestone_plans/reports/report-milestone-overview.xml


thanks 

Craig


Craig Salter
Rational Studio XML Web Services
Internal Mail: D3/RY6/8200 /MKM 
Phone: (905) 413-3918  TL: 969-3918 FAX: (905) 413-4920
Internet: csalter@xxxxxxxxxx     Notes: Craig Salter/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA

David M Williams <david_williams@xxxxxxxxxx>

01/11/2005 03:09 AM

To	wtp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
cc	wtp-committers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject	Re: [wtp-committers] XML based milestone plans

Very cool ... now if we just had a web app to update and maintain the lists
:) 

I do have a few comments and suggestions: 
        1.  Why are we still using wtp-committers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
list? I don't think we need it now that we have 
improved eclipse infrastructure support and better defined voting processes
-- no offense to object web and 
many thanks for helping us get started!, but I believe anything on this
list can and should go on wtp-dev list. 
(If there's no objections, or reasons I'm missing, perhaps Naci could have
other list "turned off" (or auto-reply 
to sender with appropriate message?). 

More to your point, 
        2. I think it'd be nice if "low",
"medium", "high" was also "printed out" on
web rendered version 
        perhaps in brackets immediately before item?
        3. I'm not sure of the relation of "top
items" and the rest of list .... shouldn't the top items be only "high"
priority 
        items we consider "stop ship" if
not met for milestone? (In that case, is there a way they can be automatically
        "picked out" of whole list and put
in the "top" section?). Even if have to be manually duplicated,
I think that 
        should be the objective of that section, right?).
                4. In the item
element, I'd suggest a "detail" tag as well as a "description"
tag. The description would be 
        "picked out" for most high level
project wide plan displays, but the 'detail' could be ignored, but via
        different URL, or what ever, developers and
co-developers focused on one particular component could 
        also see the detail if they'd prefer. That
way, there's a clear "short" version that gives gist of item
and a 
        clear "long" version of the item
(when desired) that gives more details some developers might need 
        to know. For example (only), 
                    
   <item
priority="high">
                    
     <description>
                    
           Document Designs, API, and JUnit
tests 
                    
     </description>
                    
     <detail>
                    
           During M3 we'll focus primarily
on core (model) Designs and APIs. 
                    
           We'll detail not only "standard"
DOM APIs we support, but also, the 
                    
           extensions to that API, related
to Adapters and ReadOnly APIs. 
                    
     </detail>
                    
   </item>


But don't let these minor comments detract from the fact that I think this
*is* very cool, and *very* 
helpful to having better milestone plans. 

Thanks very much, 

David

Craig Salter <csalter@xxxxxxxxxx>

01/10/2005 11:51 PM

To	wtp-committers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
cc
Subject	[wtp-committers] XML based milestone plans

Hi folks, 

I've checked in some XML based milestone plans (well ... preliminary plans)
and related stylesheets into the WTP website.  Here's a description
of how they work, how you can use this for your own simple milestone plans,
and some more advanced milestone planning stuff you can do if you're keen.
  Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.


Component Milestone Plan Document 

Here's a link to a simple  milestone
plan for the xsd component
 [1].  It was designed to resemble a typical eclipse milestone
document (e.g. the jdt
ui milestone plan [2]).  By
virtue of an XSL style sheet the file appears in a web browser as though
it's a pretty HTML document, but in fact it's just a simple XML file (use
'View Source' in your browser and see for yourself).    Here's
a simplified overview of how the plan document is structured (note that
an XML
Schema for a milestone plan
[3] is provided).     

plan                  
   component 
       milestone     <-- one or more ... usually
a 'current' plan and a preliminary plan for the next milestone)
          category   <-- work items are
categorized according to function (e.g. 'Quick Fix & Quick Assists')
              item   <-- straight
forward items can be described as a single bullet
               
              item   <-- more
complex work items can be broken down into multiple 'teps, which appear
as 'sub bullets' 
                step 
                step

          category 
              item
                step
                step
                step



Combined Overview Documents 
               
Once the milestone plans are in XML format its easy to write additional
reports that can query across multiple component plans to create summary
documents.  For example, here's a Milestone
Overview document  [4]
that queries all of the component plans (well for now there's just a couple)
to produce a list of noteable items.  Note that in order to make items
show up in the overview just specify a 'priority' attribute on the <item>
element in the mile stone plan xml file.  In this way we're specifying
that the item should be called out in the overview document (BTW I find
the 'Top Items' listed in a component milestone plan are a good fit for
'notable' items in a combined overview).. 


Milestone Schedule Calendar Reports 

Optionally, component milestone plans can be 'annotated' with additional
scheduling or planning information.  For example work items can be
assigned to developers and sizing information can be added.  Here's
an example of a work item that's been annotated with additional scheduling
information. 
               
       <!-- here's a work item without any 'scheduling
info' --> 
       <item>
               <description>Provide
XML Schema refactoring support</description>
                    
  <step status="in-progress">
                    
          <description>Component
renaming - update references to renamed
component</description>
                    
  </step>
                     
  
       </item>
       <!-- here's the same work item with added 'scheduling
info' --> 
       <!--
the 'developer' element
specifies the owner of the     --> 
       <!--
the 'start' attribute
specifies the milestone week when work should begin -->
       <!--
the 'length' attribute
specifies the milestone week when work should end -->
       <!--
the 'pds' attribute
estimates the 'person days' of work required to complete this work -->
       <item>
               <description>Provide
XML Schema refactoring support</description>
               <developer
name="ebelisar@xxxxxxxxxx" />
                     
          
               <step
status="in-progress"
start="2" length="1" pds="2">
                    
  <description>Component
renaming - update references to renamed component</description>
               </step>
       </item>

Given this extra information we can generate a calendar
report for a group of developers
[5].   Notice that value in brackets to the right of each developer's
name specifies the number of person days of work that have been allocated
to the developer.   I find this calendar view handy when planning
work to make sure that developers are allocated work evenly and according
to their  available time.  It also looks good hanging on the
wall beside your monitor :-)   Finally I should point out that its
easy for other groups to customize this calendar report for their own components
and developers by modifying the 'report'  xml file.


[1] http://eclipse.org/webtools\wst\components\xsd\M3\xsd_milestone_plan_simple.xml
[2] http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/jdt-ui-home/r3_1/main.html#Overall_Plan
[3] http://eclipse.org/webtools/development/milestone_plans/milestonePlan.xsd
[4] http://eclipse.org/webtools/development/milestone_plans/reports/report-milestone-overview.xml
[5] http://eclipse.org/webtools/development/milestone_plans/reports/report-calendar-by-developer.xml


thanks

Craig

Craig Salter
Rational Studio XML Web Services
Internal Mail: D3/RY6/8200 /MKM 
Phone: (905) 413-3918  TL: 969-3918 FAX: (905) 413-4920
Internet: csalter@xxxxxxxxxx     Notes: Craig Salter/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA