Call for Features - Help Steer Mach-II 1.8!

Fresh off the release of Mach-II 1.6.0 this past week, we wanted to start the process to get community feedback for Mach-II 1.8.0 rolling while we have this great energy going. So we'll doing a call for features for Mach-II 1.8.0 - be heard and help steer future framework development by participating.

Our Current Feature List

First, we want to mention that Team Mach-II has already been hard at work at enhancements that are natural extension to the features we already offer in the current stable releases of the framework. We seriously plan and discuss everything that goes into Mach-II. Feature and enhancement development is an intensive process that is just "behind the scenes" to most users of the framework and a big group effort. The end product is that we end up with better results than if the framework was developed in a vacuum by a single developer.

Before I get into the specifics on how to make feature suggestions for our next release, we did want to mention a few major features that are already on our list - many of which have already been implemented in the BER. Since we've already started talking about them, there is no need to suggest them again unless you would like to convey a specific concern or argument for or against the potential feature.  Your comments and feedback are welcome - even if it just a "right on" or "exactly what I need to X done".

Your Suggestions

Feedback from users of any project is the only way we can develop software that works for you. No suggestion is too stupid to be said here, but don't be offended if we question if it is in line with the core values behind Mach-II. This is our job ;-)

How To Suggest a Feature

Since Mach-II is open source, we want to share as much with you as possible. We would prefer that people make suggestions via our so everybody can participate. We started the Mach-II Development Google Group to reduce the chatter on the main group so only those who are interested can participate. Here are the guidelines for suggestions:

  • Please start a new thread for your suggestion on our
  • If you feel uncomfortable sharing your suggestion via Google Groups, please direct your idea to info@mach-ii.com.
  • Provide a use case as a concrete reason or example goes a long way to illustrate why something is needed.
  • Show us code! Provide quasi-code to convey your idea. This is especially useful when talking about how things would look in the Mach-II configuration file. Giving us quasi-code will reduce confusion and give us more to talk about.
  • Again, tell us why you want it. Something like "All Mach-II developers need IDEA 1 because of X, Y and Z. This will help us do A, B and C better. We cannot implement IDEA 1 correctly in the current version of Mach-II because we don't have access to method A or it becomes kludgey because of 123."

We Can Do It (With Your Help!)

We have a lot on our plate and we still need to get our new support architecture in place for the project. We can't do it all without you!

If you are interested in volunteering some of your time to Mach-II, please let us know at info@mach-ii.com. Here are some of the things we can use some your mind-power on:

  • Contributing enterprise quality Filters & Plugins for Mach-II "Exchange" (we haven't come up with a name yet)
  • Documentation such as contributing a FAQ or new tutorials
  • Updating sample applications
  • Creating new sample applications

If you are uncomfortable about putting your name on a sample application, then contribute a FAQ or help out with documentation. Even if you have an idea about what plugins and filters you would like see, then at least you're participating! Just imagine if we got just 1% of all the developers that use Mach-II to help. Code for thought...

We're Community Driven

We plan, implement and drive on forward with all of our by listening to our users. We can't move forward without your help and that is why Mach-II is a great community for CFML developers.

2 Comments  |  0 Trackbacks  |  Mach-II 1.8  |  Send
Posted 2/18/09 @ 7:00 AM by Peter J. Farrell

Comments

Is there any way we can get the Environment Property as an incremental release before 1.8? Would be nice to stop rolling my own solution to this stuff.

Jeff

Posted by Jeff Battershall at 2/19/09 6:24 AM

Jeff, thanks for the suggestion. We're working on having a more frequent releases than we've had in the past. I'm not sure we're going to deviate from our current time line, but rest assured that we're planning the beta for 1.8 in mid-March which isn't any longer than doing an intermediate maintenance release.

The EnvironmentProperty has already been implemented and in the 1.8 core -- feel free to download a nightly release.

Posted by Peter J. Farrell at 2/19/09 11:26 AM