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Discussion forum for CSLA .NET
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Some suggestions to help CSLA gain traction with users and community #918

Open BlagoCuljak opened 4 years ago

BlagoCuljak commented 4 years ago

Hello, I have given some thought about CSLA project and I have some suggestions that hopefully could help new people with CSLA, and to get more and more community users.

  1. The "Why CSLA" I don't think that tagline "A Home for Your Business Logic" is not enough "attractive", nor it describes CSLA in full. Reusable logic is way better, but some 5-10sec.gif explaining that business logic rule of "no letter Z" in code, in WPF, in Xamarin and in Blazor works across UI's, then things should be whole lot different. This would be on CSLA Readme.MD, and on CSLA.NET website.

  2. The "Jumpstart" For those users who want to learn more, Rocky has a great set of books, but for those who are having first contact with CSLA, the getting started should be straightforward. Right now, when you go to the samples, there's a whole bunch of them. You just don't know that ProjectTracker is the most universal as it gets. The suggestion would be to make subfolder "Other samples" and Project Tracker, and only those those should display, when you open up samples.

  3. The "Plumbing" Project Tracker is a great resource for all sorts of things, but still, some issues remain, like with a hardcoded DataPortal URL in the code, AppServer and Entity Framework mock data, they do not connect to a real database. Project Tracker, in my opinion should have AppServer with a connection string example, so people can waste less time on this issue, that can have a major impact when going into production. Maybe we can drop Postgres DB or SQL DB to code and let people deploy DB and to connect to real DB. Although, this is not CSLA issue, this can help a lot, but the focus needs to remain on CSLA. Mocking data can stay default, and un-commenting code should connect to DB.

  4. The "UI apperance" The UI projects are generic as it gets, and do not differ from any other, for eg. "Blazor Counter" apps, that we see in million other repositories. Some UI skills should be applied to all those project so it would appeal to possible new users. This is less important issue, but still a valid reason.

On some of these issues, I can contribute.

What do you think, do we need bigger user base, and how to get them?

JacoJordaan commented 4 years ago

Very good suggestions. Especially with Blazor coming on the scene, CSLA will be even more relevant.

It will be a good time to get these in place to attract new users.

rockfordlhotka commented 4 years ago

Nice suggestions @BlagoCuljak

Regarding ProjectTracker, that solution is a core part of the CSLA books, and I update the projects/code as I update the books. Sadly, writing books takes a long time, so there's often a delay.

For example, all the data portal code will be getting updated in the near future as I get fully into the update of the Using CSLA: Data Portal Configuration book.

Chicagoan2016 commented 4 years ago

I might have asked this question before, but does anyone of us any of the 'professional' mocking frameworks? Thank you

rockfordlhotka commented 4 years ago

I wonder if number 2 in the original list could be accomplished by having a readme.md in the root of the Samples directory that explains the nature of the samples?

BlagoCuljak commented 4 years ago

Well, it depends... If I'm browsing repo using browser, trying to find Blazor sample, I would enter BlazorSample, and not even go to bottom to read Readme. Whats the shortest path for average new user to get started?

Readme in repo opening is a must read, and maybe link from that readme to sample readme would be good solution.

BlagoCuljak commented 4 years ago

What Project would be the best place to record .gif as described in no. 1? I'm trying to use Project tracker, but it doesn't have any working edits that are use buis. rules. WPF/Winforms admin doesn't have working Edits on Resources, although Blazor works on Resources. Didn't try Xamarin, I need to install tooling.

What would be the best place to screencast 10sec of rules, Desktop, Blazor and Xamarine? I think that those 3 UI samples would be most appealing.

rockfordlhotka commented 4 years ago

The *Example apps are best - they are all the same basic app, just different UIs, and I use them when speaking at conferences because I can cover all the key aspects of CSLA live on stage in a relatively short period of time.

BlagoCuljak commented 4 years ago

Sure, I will snoop into those projects. Does anyone beside Rocky can help with the Sample readme?

BlagoCuljak commented 4 years ago

I have a first glimpse of gif explainer, please share your thoughts. Also, I will add Xamarin. CSLA

BlagoCuljak commented 4 years ago

Also, a refresh of logo, if it's needed... .ai (vector) is also available. CSLA