JCB JUG - Meeting Notes - 2022-04-04

[cpaschen]

Here are some notes from today's meeting.
Hopefully these provide a quick update to anyone who couldn't be there.
Main 'topic' today was the status of J4 along with a very detailed explanation of what needs to happen to get to J4 and the establishment of a Working Group to help move the process ahead.
(feel free to update/append as needed)
JCB JUG 2022-04-04-.md
JCB JUG 2022-04-04.pdf

Group 'business'

• Meeting - 1st Monday of each Month
• We will not record the meetings
  • To motivate people to attend live
  • To allow participants to speak more 'freely' (about projects, etc.) without their comments being shared publicly in a video

J4

• New Release (just released) 
  • JCB Powers Library
    • Adding Utility classes
      • Some of these classes used to (and still) live in the helper classes
  • Moving into a namespace implementation
    • ex. Array helper has an array helper class
  • "Add new utilities abstract class" addition in the git
    • Adding namespacing
    • Add changes to the compiler
• Everything that we do to move JCB to J4, it will automatically make all the extensions built with it do the same thing
• If you are using the old classes  (CompontentbuilderHelper::checkArray)
  you will need to change to the new (ArrayHelper::check)
• JED
  • Working on JED checker to alert you to things that need to be changed
• Have been changing JCB to move to the namespacing structure of J4
  • Problem during this process ...
    • JCB Pro - has a new area called powers (power/powers)
    • All the extra classes are build in the powers area
    • In the Utilities class - adding all the helper class & creating wrappers
      • Adds the Utilities as a 'trait'
    • To make this available to everyone Powers will need to be public (or everyone will need to buy in - not just for pro)
    • This will make the move to J4 better for all
• Working group for J4 development
  • All members would have access to a joint system
  • Group will meet more often (possibly 1x week)
  • More collaborative distribution method of the Powers code
• Snippets
  • Has get snippets - gets snippets from github
  • repository on github - where people would contribute snippets
  • Eventually hoping that this will take off
  • "Jooma-component builder snippets"
    • See example snippet
  • In site view in the 'select a snippet' you can use the snippet in your code (copy paste)
    • This is managed by that snippets repository
• Moving everything how JCB builds models, controllers, etc. ... into this type of approach
  • Central repository where they are maintained
  • Within powers you can control what is done, how things are done
    • ex. Have different way to build a certain type of component, with a power that can control that and be shared
  • Similar to creating dynamic emails
    • using GUI inserts like you would use fields in a dynamic email
  • Moving the compiler to powers will be the basis of moving to J4
• What can we do to help?
  • Become part of the volunteer group - working group
  • Access that central J site
• Time Frame
  • Wanted to have it done 3 months ago
  • Every time we give time frame we miss it, so reluctant to give it a time frame
  • Was going to do a 'legacy' approach (create a J3 component that would work in J4)
  • Decided no use creating legacy Joomla 4 code
  • The new J4 architecture does things better
  • We are doing fairly complex things in JCB now to make it work, we won't need to to do that in native J4 - so we need to 'dumb down' JCB.
  • Not an easy process to refactor the compiler
    • we will be modernizing the way the compiler works
  • Already done
    • compiler/joomla3/ settings.json
      • settings used to build your whole system's file structure
      • Detect the files to use
      • Global settings for building everything
      • you could override the settings.json and change the way it compiles
      • if you change that file it changes for all components
      • Added the ability to have a settings file for specific components
      • Allows you to make custom changes to files
        • updates do not replace your changes
  • Hesitant to set a date in June at this point
  • Some developers have reached out to see if we could put funding on the table to get it going faster
    • Not eager to do that model
    • Add new sponsoring tab on sponsor tab - specifically for J4 transition
      (on the Open Collective page)
    • If we get enough sponsorship it will speed up the process
  • Not a question of ARE we going to do it but WHEN
  • No way for us to move to J5 without going to J4
  • Compiler is stable but is designed by one
    • Ideally would have multiple contributors and has other input from other more-advanced
• Moving the compiler to a more abstract structure
  • More interest by other/outside developers
  • Could bring more life to Joomla
  • Will make it even more powerful to build many different possibilities than current compiler
  • By making things module - the compiler can target different outputs/structures
  • Will it cause a slowing of the compiler
    • Some others don't feel that it will be an issue

Other topics

Backward compatibility of code

• • C++ still respects 'old people' - you can still write C in C++
    - PHP doesn't necessarily respect 'old people' 
    - things break with new code
    • JCB still has code to support older extensions that JCB built
      • you can still build it
    • Learning Management (public) is the oldest extension
    • JCB is the 2nd
    • Stable because it is being used every day
    • Used by the developer/s by own projects

Working Group

• • • More meetings shorter discussions
      • Possibly via CodeSprints
      • Meet Monday evenings at 8
        • 1st Monday will still be the regular JUG
        • Other Mondays will be the working group meeting
        • Starting next Monday
        • Notice will be posted in the JCB Telegram group
        • Live meeting will be held there
      • Telegram will be the communication channel for the group
      • Llewellyn to do most coding to start but to include others
        • collaborative review of how things are being done
      • Files will be stored on JCB git (not github)
      • If we make changes, how will that look to 'older people' (older projects)
      • Specific development discussions:
        • Concern about speed of compiler
        • Make sure that the compile process doesn't crash (or require extra system resources/memory)
      • Watch YouTube video "JCB Compiler Explained (the code)" playlist
        • Write down any questions that you have after watching
        • Bring questions to the meeting
      • Planning to participate: Llewellyn, Martin, Georgios Papadakis (FLEXIcontent), Emmanuel

[TLWebdesign]

Wow very detailed. Thanks! I'm impressed. 😮