[OSLC-CM] Update on our demo OSLC-CM V1 server (0.5)

[Olivier Berger]

Hi.

We've been working on the Demo OSLC-CM V1 server
(https://picoforge.int-evry.fr/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Oslc/Web/WebHome)
these last days. 
I intended to prepare an update report for yesterday's meeting, but was
busy hacking on it, so couldn't make it on time (nor attend meeting,
sorry).

So far, we haven't implemented anything about services provider, and
only worked on the basic REST methods (nothing UI/AJAX-wise either) that
are essential for the -CM aspects.

The server uses PHP 5 (object oriented code) and Zend (MVC) and
currently uses a CSV file to provide a read-only "database" of change
requests.

The GET, PUT and POST methods are implemented in minimal way, both for
XML (RDF and ATOM) or JSON. POST and PUT just simulate modifications to
the content loaded from the CSV : no writes / no sessions yet. Pretty
basic but it's only 0.5, and we try and "release early, release often".


Next step will be to try and test with clients (Mylyn OSLC client for a
start ;).
Then we'll work on specializing the abstract classes we have so far to
more realistic ones (interacting with a DB), to be able to implement
plugs to real bugtracker APIs (Mantis and FusionForge as first
candidates).


There are probably tons of details that'll need fixes over the current
code. Especially for things which are not described in sufficient
details in the V1 specs to allow direct implementation, where we had to
guess (still, thanks for responses we've received so far from the list).

Several details of the formats of the XML or JSON documents exchanged
during the REST transactions (and some details on the application
behaviour) currently require some more examples in the wiki, I think.

We'd like to be sure that our implementation is barely correct without a
reference product to look at, so that we can be considered as a minimal
"reference" implementation for the strict OSLC-CM V1 requirements. If we
miss things, then it would draw a list of fixes for the specs ;)


So I think we'll probably come back to the list with many questions in
the near future, to propose snippets of XML and ask for feedback /
validation.


We would also be glad to help people test the current status of our code
(as of HEAD in SVN, as it evolves at a regular pace), to help improve
these details on the contents of the changerequests format, for
instance. 
It should only require a homepage on a PHP-enabled web server (for
instance Apache with mod-rewrite) where one can host a .htaccess and be
able to change allowed requests (PUT for instance), and of course where
Zend has been installed. No DB, so probably easy to test at most
places...

The project is developped on our forge, and can be opened to any
contributor, while the code is available for public checkout from the
SVN (see details at
https://picoforge.int-evry.fr/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Oslc/Web/Downloading )
Just ask and we'll try and explain missing details on how to test and
eventually contribute ;)

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Best regards,

-- 
Olivier BERGER <olivier.berger at it-sudparis.eu>
http://www-public.it-sudparis.eu/~berger_o/ - OpenPGP-Id: 1024D/6B829EEC
Ingénieur Recherche - Dept INF
Institut TELECOM, SudParis (http://www.it-sudparis.eu/), Evry (France)