Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
88 lines (63 loc) · 3.34 KB

ROADMAP.md

File metadata and controls

88 lines (63 loc) · 3.34 KB
Raw

ACT REDESIGN ROADMAP

The goal is to redesign Act entirely, based on the experience on running 150+ Perl conferences over a decade.

The main requirements for the redesign are:

  • maintain the old URL for the past conferences running the legacy Act
  • keep the old conferences running at all times
  • use modern Perl libraries and design
  • add new and powerful features that were too complex (or impossible) to add to the legacy Act
  • enable new contributors to join the project

Timeline

The Act redesign is object-driven, centered around the "conference data", managed by way of the entity objects (Act::Entity::).

The following definitions will be used:

  • mod_perl: the Apache application that is running since 2004, built on top of Act::Object
  • legacy URL: the URL served by mod_perl, and that are linked from many places over the Internet
  • old_schema: the database schema used by the mod_perl application (using it also implies using the act.ini files to get some of the data)
  • Act2: the newer version of Act running on entities
  • new_schema: the improved database schema that might be need to support new features in Act2

Stage 0

Only legacy URL exist, served by mod_perl on top of old_schema.

Stage 1

Entity objects are designed, work on Act2 starts. The entity objects are fleshened from the data in old_schema, and the data is saved there too.

A "beta" site can be setup, running the Act2 code. Since it's connected to the same database schema (old_schema) as the mod_perl application, old conferences can be seen in the new context, and managed with the parts of Act2 that are already available.

A subset of the Act2 application can be made to support some of the legacy URL, to be able to continue serving the old URL in the future. This must be done using entity objects, because the old_schema will go away in the future. However, there is only a need to support the "read-only" URL, because the "write" operations will be performed by Act2.

Note: there can be several versions of Act2, living in separate branches or repositories.

Stage 2

Act2 is ready to go out of beta, i.e. it is complete enough to support a complete conference over its lifetime. Act2 also supports serving legacy URL using entities. Act2 is still using old_schema and act.ini files.

mod_perl becomes completely obsolete, and can be shut down. The legacy URL supported by Act2 are locked down to the list of all conferences at this point in time (i.e. past conferences only).

At this stage, anyone running Act using the mod_perl application on top of the old_schema should be able to upgrade to Act2, while keeping all the legacy URL working.

Act2 MUST be a drop-in replacement for Act at this point. When upgrading from legacy Act, one should start from a specific commit that will have a well-known (to be defined) tag from which a smooth migration path to the latest development version will be provided.

Stage 3

Act2 is the only application managing conferences. The lockdown of old_schema is dropped, and work can start on new_schema to better support the entities and the new features.

Beta versions

To encourage contributions, working beta versions will be installed on top of the production schema. This implies such a beta version MUST be using the Act::Schema in the spec branch.