r4 - 05 May 2004 - 12:45:53 - DuckySherwoodYou are here: OSAF >  Journal Web  >  PastIRCSessions > ChatLog20030515
Session Start (irc

Session Start (irc.osafoundation.org:#chandler): Thu May 15

 

 

<mitchell> It's 1:00, so we'll start our official IRC"session." Today's topic isan overview of Projects.

<morgen> I guess no takers on my spawnl question

<mitchell> Our featured experts are Mitch Kapor andChao Lam.

<mitchell> Mitch is the founder of OSAF, and creatorof the original vision for Projects. Chao is OSAF's product manager, responsible product planning and authorof the roadmap.

<mitchell> If anyone wants to say hello and give us asentence about you before we start, feel free.

* chao takes a bow

*** RaviR (~rrshanks@SABRINA.process.com) has joined channel#chandler

*** Ducky is now known as DuckyOSAF

<mitchell> If no one says anything, I'll start thingsoff by asking Mitch and Chao a question or two. Feel free to jump in with follow up questions or differentquestions altogether.

<chao> I'll kick off by saying a few things aboutChandler

<chao> It's an inter-personal information manager

<mitchell> ok, chao, I'll save my softball questionsfor later :-)

<chao> it will handle your email, calendar contactsand stuff

<chao> We have a few "compelling" featuresthat we would like to stress:

<chao> a) Chandler is inspired by Lotus Agenda. Wefeel information is extremely inter-related. Users only want to see what'srelevant at any one time

<chao> b) Especially with the internet, sharing &collaboration of information is crucial

<chao> c) we are going to include many "poweremail" features which Ducky can elaborate

<mitchell> Chao: can you describe how the userscan change the way I want to see information displayed?

<chao> d) We want Chandler to be an application aswell as a platform. So extensibility and customizability is extremely importantto us

*** Signoff: ricardo (Ping timeout: 201 seconds)

<jonathanOSAF> how much do you see Chandler as acollaboration tool vs. a *personal* information manager?

<chao> well, it's *personal* info first

<mitch> i've got this one

<chao> ok, Mitch go ahead

<mitch> The PIM funtionality is much better defined,but Chandler as platform will support collaboration and we're working onspecifics of what that will mean.

<mitch> ultimately it's a dessert topping and a floorwax.

*** ricardo (ninguna@200.70.113.248) has joined channel#chandler

<Empty> another way to put it is that in theinformation age, any correct PIM is a collaboration tool

<mitchell> jonathanOSAF: do you see the two as anything other than complementary

*** DuckyOSAF is now known as ducky

<jonathanOSAF> I

<chao> largely yes, we need to consider the securityimplications

<jonathanOSAF> I'm not clear on the question

<chao> when personal & group conflict

<chao> i.e. the user should decide what info isprivate and what information and tasks needs to be collaborated upon

<jonathanOSAF> sure

<jonathanOSAF> I'm thinking that"collaboration" tools imply explicitly working with others to developa joint solution

<jonathanOSAF> more than just sharing access to thesame info

<mitch> agreed

<mitchell> Chao and Mitch: maybe you can gie an idea of the kids of collaboration that willbe available early on in chanlder's life?

<mitch> getting the info sharing right is aprerequisite to getting collaboration right.

<chao> Mitch likes to say Chandler should be the bestof what wiki and email offers in terms of collaboration

<mitch> collaboration tools do involve an active groupprocess, not just sharing

<mitch> i think what's wanted is something which canrepresent both the flow of discussion and the current state od knowledge

<chao> Users like to mark up or annotate a documentcollaboratively. We also like to have threads of conversations (usually throughemail) about a collaborative doc

<mitch> discussion flows can be done via email, IM,bulletin bvoards, etc.

*** trilluser (~trillian@adsl-61-101-144.mem.bellsouth.net)has joined channel #chandler

<mitch> state of knowledge can be represented as webpages, wiki pages, etc.

<mitch> the hard part is getting simple, elegantcoordination between the two

<luther> Will there be some abstraction to hide thedifferences between synchronous data (chat) and asynchronous (email)?

<mitch> i have some ideas on this but frankly they arenot worked out yet

<mitch> so i'd say the collaborative tools are ofnecessity going to come somewhat later

<jonathanOSAF> after version 1.0?

<chao> no, more like after we work out the basicarchitecture

<mitchell> luther: do you have expertise in the area of differneces between synchronous andasynchoronous data?

<mitch> honestly, that's not clear yet. we could get lucky, figure out a simplewinning thing to do and get it in. butcertainly not committed at this time.

<luther> I've been doing some thinking but certainlynot an expert.

<mitch> luther: yes there will be such anabstraction. a stream of emails and astream of IMs both amount to sets of items

<mitch> and we will have simple powerful ways to viewsets of related items regardless of their type, i.e., email or IM

<mitch> this is something being actively worked on atthe moment under the designation "superwidget"

<chao> on the issue of inter-relatedness: here's anexample. You want a view of the current task, say "write an IMAP parcelfor Chandler"

<luther> And a way to determine on the fly which set(or sets) an item belongs to as it comes in?

<mitch> you need to be able to deal with heterogenoustypes of items to show related emails, events, contacts, and tasks in the samedisplay region

<chao> so you should have a view of all your emails,events, contacts, etc. related to that task e.g. "write an IMAPparcel"

<mitch> luther: the architecture recognizes theimportance of pluggable parcels which can parse items and derive meta-data.

*** Signoff: jbotz (Ping timeout: 201 seconds)

*** Signoff: jurgen (Ping timeout: 201 seconds)

<mitch> we will write some "recognizers" andexpect it will be fertile ground for community devleopment

<luther> mitch: Good. I thought I read traces of suchthings in various wiki docs... even the agent framework. :-)

<joe> er, "recognizers"? Can you elaborate abit?

*** Signoff: sprout (Read error: 104 (Connection reset bypeer))

<mitch> reognizeris my term for a parcle whosefunction it is to look at raw input and guess or derive the values of keyattributes such as relate to subject, person, date, etc.

*** Main.DavidPaigen (~paigen@dsl093-130-125.sfo2.dsl.speakeasy.net)has joined channel #chandler

*** sprout (~twl@ns1.sauria.com) has joined channel#chandler

<mitch> Lotus Agenda has rudimentary recognizers fordates and a few other things. We wantto generalize this.

<mitch> Microsoft tried something like this with"smart tags" but done in their own way, which was not universallypopular.

<Main.DavidPaigen> The Agenda recognizer was MAJOR COOL andI miss it a lot.

<mitch> modern email clients have built-in recognizersfor things like URL's and email addresses, etc., etc.

<trilluser> loved the Agenda recognizer

<mitch> so, like Agenda on steroids

<trilluser> do you have a list of things youd like torecognize?

<trilluser> can that go on the wiki somewhere

<chao> that's another example of inter-relatedness...contacts can be recognized in calendar events, notes can recognize events anddates

<mitch> i'd have to check to see if it not therealready.

<trilluser> thanks

<Main.DavidPaigen> As I recal, Agenda had a rudimentarymethod to create your own recognition tags.

<ducky> I don't think it's on the wiki already.

<Main.DavidPaigen> I assume Chandler will be even betterthan that.

<chao> It's called "content parsingframework" on the wiki

<mitch> my short list: dates, names of people,organizations, places, many kinds of Proper Nouns, WikiWords, URL's...

<chao> Not filled with much info yet tho'

<mitch> we will make sure that some particulars getadded to the content parsing framework entry on the wiki

*** jurgen_(~jbotz@adsl-64-165-202-96.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net) has joined channel #chandler

<jurgen_> phil: op jurgen

<phil> You are not an identified user.

<jurgen_> bah

* Empty wishes he could somehow dowload the wiki into hisbrain.

<mitchell> jurgen: shall we all tell phil to shut up?

<Empty> phil: op jurgen

<phil> You aren't allowed to do that.

<mitchell> jurgen is the systems guy at OSAF

<morgen> phil: you're fired

<jurgen_> jurgen just crashed his Linux box

<mitchell> but his bot phil seems to be in rebellion

*** jurgen_ is now known as jurgen

<Main.DavidPaigen> Something I remember from Agenda that isabsent in Chandler 0.1....

<trilluser> thank you chao and mitch

<Main.DavidPaigen> ...is the free-form item/columnframework.

*** Mode change "+o jurgen" for channel #chandlerby morgen

<ducky> (I just put Mitch's short list onto the wikicontent parsing framework doc)

<trilluser> real-time system design!!

<mitch> the superwidget i referred to is somethingJohn Anderson and I are working on, with Chao's help, which the spiritualdescendant of the Agenda view with its free-formitem and column editing

<mitchell> except that Mitch would prefer somethingmore polished:

<mitchell> but ducky posted it anyway :-)

<trilluser> wiki = make a start.. then refine

<Main.DavidPaigen> Ah, since I joined late, I missed themention of the superwidget. WikiPage?

<mitch> output from John's brain will be channeledonto the wiki as soon as if feasible

<mitch> ducky is going to create a wiki page for thesuperwidget and we'll start populating it with current thinking

<chao> John's going to write up his current thinkingon the widget too.

<Empty> But the thing which makes "recognizers" powerful, that I can't dowith my e-mail, is to treat recognized attributes exactly like all other firstclass attributes,.

<luther> empty: so I can sort on messages (chat,email) that contain the WikiWord "ObjectModel", right?

<mitch> Empty: exactly.

<Empty> luther, what mitch said.

<trilluser> can the recognizer perhaps identify thingsas "already an item".. "maybe an item- need user toconfirm", or "not an item" (should I use the word "attirbute"instead of "item")

<Main.DavidPaigen> I would like recognizers to be able tocontain math, conditionals, WTH, python

<chao> exactly ... we'll need to do more user-testingfor the best user interaction

<mitch> items are the basic stuff of content containerin Chandler -- jsut to be clear.

<mitch> attributes are parts of items.

<chao> DavidPigen: you mean recognizers should be ableto evaluate recognized patterns and synthesize?

<mitch> Main.DavidPaigen: having an extensible frameworkfor recognizers is what will facilitate coordination of independent efforts tobuild special-purpose recognizers for math, conditionals, etc.

<mitch> recognizers need to be able to be chainedtogether and work in concert. the agentframework has to coordinate the operation of multiple recognizers.

<Main.DavidPaigen> chao: I want to be able to program myown recognizers

<Main.DavidPaigen> chao: I want automatic recognizers

*** ant68 (~chatzill@198.96.180.245) has joined channel#chandler

<Main.DavidPaigen> mitch: I want a gui for making simplerecognizers

<trilluser> perhaps recognizers could be like littleagents...

<Main.DavidPaigen> mitch: I want a full programminglanguage for adding recognizers

<Empty> recognizer by example might be cool. i mark up the text and a recognizer getsbuilt.

<chao> Main.DavidPaigen: yes, as a further example toJohnathan's point. we want such third-party recognizers to be sharable too.

<mitch> Main.DavidPaigen: we recognize the need. Andy Hertzfeld and I have brainstormedthis. We think we have to deliverthings like a working email client first, but in the fullness of time...

<trilluser> and also that they could be shared betweenusers.. (or copied from one user to his/her associated

<trilluser> associates

<luther> empty: Template programming.

<mitch> the programming language for addingrecognizers will be... Python (to begin with)

<mitchell> since this was billed as an Overview ofChandler, and we've been deep in specifics

<Main.DavidPaigen> I wonder about your development andadoption strategy re: PIM vs. KM

<mitch> but having gui's and template editors is partof the plan too -- even build your own recognizer editor. how recursive is that?

<mitchell> let me encourage anyone with a general,high-level question to jump in

<mitchell> I'm happy to ask a few myself, but would benice to know if there are people hanging around

<trilluser> most users will not want to program recognizers... but simply mark checkboxes and fill in text boxes.. in a dialog box

<Main.DavidPaigen> Cool about the recognizers, you guysseem to already have dealt with my thoughts there

<jonathanOSAF> mitch - getting back to the"compelling" features of Chandler -- how would you explain the roleof "recognizers" to non-technical endusers?

<mitchell> who are interested in high level stuff likethe roadymap and general plans

<jonathanOSAF> I'm interested in that high level stuff

<luther> Will the AgentFramework make it into 1.0?

<mitch> if I type "a week from tomorrow" Iwant Chandler to automatically translate this to May 23, 2003. Make it easy for me.

<joe> You referred earlier to the basic architecture -what are the main issues at this time?

<Main.DavidPaigen> jonathanOSAF: the power of recognizersis easy to demo and grasp

<chao> luther: yes, we will have version 1 of theframework in version 1 :)

<mitch> there are a whole set of open issues. database architecture probably being themain one.

<chao> luther: naturally, the agent framework is goingto evolve and take many iterations

<Main.DavidPaigen> jonathanOSAF: when you type in"tennis with jon two weeks from saturday" and Chandler understands

<mitch> pointer to discussion on open technical issuesbeing located by mitchell

<luther> chao: understandable.

<trilluser> if I type.. "meeting on paradox in smithfield room 123 at 9 "

<trilluser> tomorrow

<mitchell> heres the wiki page that lists big openissues

<mitchell> (Link:http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/IssueSummaryTableOfContents)http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/IssueSummaryTableOfContents

<phil> Shorter URL: (Link:http://l.aloha.osafoundation.org:8765/1)http://l.aloha.osafoundation.org:8765/1

<trilluser> then date time place project and attendeesshold be recognized

<mitchell> These are the issues that have been hard tosolve

<mitchell> and, shut-up phil.

* ducky slaps phil

*** phil has been kicked off channel #chandler by jurgen(phil)

*** phil (~phil@aloha.osafound.org) has joined channel#chandler

<mitchell> we're in the process of working through theopen issues

<luther> Poor bot.

<mitch> how do you slay an errant robot?

<morgen> kill -9

<chao> that's something Chandler is NOT going to fix:)

<Empty> hey, i just watched the animatrix shorts,killing the robots is a bad idea, don't go there.

<luther> empty: we just didn't kill them all...

<Main.DavidPaigen> What release will the superwidget becomeavailable in?

* Empty grins

<mitch> other big open architecture issues: the agentframework, extensibility in general see the IssueSummary URL above

<Main.DavidPaigen> And lets talk more about compellingreasons for adoption

<chao> David: we're trying to get a very basic versionof the superwidget in 0.2... but no promises

<Main.DavidPaigen> Cool

*** Signoff: phil (Remote host closed the connection)

<trilluser> can I help with creating "end userdocumentation - various chapters"???

<chao> David: regarding adoption. We are targeting the*info-centric* user

<chao> ...

<Main.DavidPaigen> I suspect that linking knowledgemanagement features into a basic PIM will go farther than a slick PIM

<ducky> You can look at the Chandler Compelling Visiondoc at (Link: http://www.osafoundation.org/Chandler_Compelling_Vision.htm)http://www.osafoundation.org/Chandler_Compelling_Vision.htm

<chao> ... so 1) people who need to process andorganize lots of info spanning multiple topics and inter-related in manydifferent ways

<chao> 2) little reliance on organizationalnon-standards-based infrastructure

<trilluser> by the way.. this is Dennis Lynch.. I havecontributed to the lists.. and to the wiki

<chao> 3) has a need and desire to share andcollaborate with like-minded info-centric individuals in ad-hoc and informalgroups

<mitch> hello, dennis

<trilluser> hi!!.. *S*

* ducky waves at dennis

<Empty> empty: Shorter URL:(Link: http://)http://*bang* *thud* .... *guggle*

<mitchell> trilluser: we can certainly use help

<chao> So, the first version, *Canoga* will focus onpeople who can help themselves

<mitch> by the way, i've just figured out three basicways to improve IRS for this sort of discussion. anyone want to hear what they are?

<trilluser> waves

<mitchell> and thanks for identifying yourself

<mitch> not IRS, IRC.... undelete spelling.dll

<Main.DavidPaigen> chao: so you have identified who, butwhat are you offering as "compelling"?

<trilluser> sorry I didnt get it right when Ientered.. haha

<mitchell> trilluser: let's talk later about end user docs.

<chao> David: 1) the superwidget which represents"soul of agenda"-like inter-related ness features

<trilluser> thanks mitch... send me a note offline ifyou like

<chao> 2) ability to share such info

<Main.DavidPaigen> I guess I am jumping the gun then.

<chao> 3) power email features

*** Signoff: alspar (Client Exit: ChatZilla 0.8.26 [Mozillarv:1.4b/20030507])

<Main.DavidPaigen> I must admit I was somewhat dissapointedwith 0.1

<chao> 4) extensibility (Chandler as platform)

<luther> mitch: one of the three ways help to indicatethreads?

<mitch> what were you disappointed about?

<mitch> luther: yes, that's one

<mitch> luther: and another would be if I type a URL,it can automatcially drive browsers of other users to that page

<Main.DavidPaigen> Hmmm, well, the lack of a superwidget...

<joe> #2 sounds open to misuse!

<Main.DavidPaigen> No obvious way to try it out on my emailrisk free

<mitch> i wouldn't do it literally as described, butthat's the gist of the idea. maybelinks which are sent are clickable

<Main.DavidPaigen> Chandler will become interesting(compelling) to me when I can start...

<Main.DavidPaigen> ...it up in the morning and beginprocessing me email into MH folders.

<mitch> i've just been told links are lcickable --just not in my client... later for more discussion on this

<Main.DavidPaigen> ...And have the superwidget athand. :-)

*** nick (~chatzill@nick3.Stanford.EDU) has joined channel#chandler

<joe> yes, I'm using xchat which does the clickablelink thing already

<Main.DavidPaigen> mitch, what were your ideas aboutformatting the chat?

<chao> I guess we don't want the browser to open whatPhil says ;)

<mitch> one idea was using different screen regionsfor distinct threads rather than mixing them all together

<jurgen> but how do you know what belongstogether? you need the IRC equiv ofeye-contact!

<Empty> using hydra (multi-user editor) made me thinkthat it might be a better tool than irc for chats, because the collaborationwould sort of format itself ovewr time. just a little structur

<mitch> on the issue of when chandler gets interestingto use... chao's product road map talks about getting as quickly as possible ota version for daily use by hard coe early adopters

<mitch> there could be the equivalent of a replycommand which would be used as a cue

<Main.DavidPaigen> If you can supply even half of whatAgenda was, I will be a hard core early adopter

<chao> ... and realistically even hard core earlyadopters won't find much daily use until ...oh... 0.5

<jurgen> hard me core

<jurgen> mitch, the "reply equiv" can bementioning the other party's name, like here...

*** Ilan (Gorvok@user-152-16-70-183.adsl.duke.edu) hasjoined channel #chandler

<mitchell> a way of keeping threads separate would begreat.

<mitchell> but chandler ought to come first?

<trilluser> jurgen:.. "what belongstogether"?... what does that mean.... I just hope everything can have lotsof attributes.. and be sorted/filtered together based on the attributes

<jurgen> trilluser, right, "trilluser" is anattribute of this message

<Empty> the chat recognizer would have to somehowintuit the structure (you could hint it), and then each user could choose howthe structured data was displayed, as a stream, as an outline, as a blog, etc.

*** Signoff: ricardo ((null))

<Main.DavidPaigen> And "trilluser" could also beassociated with an email address, another nickname, a real name...

<trilluser> yes.. also true... as well as to a numberof projects.... and addresses...

<Main.DavidPaigen> The Agenda superwidget allowed me tocreate a new parcel containing all items associated with trilluser

<Empty> parcel in chandler-speak is a piece offunction. i don't know what we call inchandler speak a pile of data

<Main.DavidPaigen> Which I could then seperate intosections for email, phone calls, documents, etc (more attrs)

<Main.DavidPaigen> ...and each section could be sorted andfiltered individually...

<mitch> A pile of data (set of items) can be displayedin a view. that's current Chandlerterminology

<mitchell> We're coming up on 2:00 pm pacific time.

<mitchell> so I want to offer anyone with questionsthat didn't get answered a last chance for today:

<Main.DavidPaigen> I thought a Chandler Parcel == an AgendaView

<trilluser> thx for having this... it was useful

<joe> yes, very informative

<Main.DavidPaigen> Which Mitch is which?

<Empty> i guess that's true, david constructs a viewand shares it, but do we need to talk about the data in his view, or are wetrying to make it feel like the view is the data?

<mitch> you're all welcome

<mitch> Mitch = Mitch Kapor

<jurgen> mitchell==Mitchell Baker

<mitch> Mitchell = Mitchell Baker

<jurgen> mitch=Mitch Kapor

<Main.DavidPaigen> Thanks. :-)

<mitchell> Also, I should mention that we're workingon a developer event on the San Francisco peninsula

<mitchell> free.

<Main.DavidPaigen> Is a parcel all the non-data things thatmake up a view?

<mitchell> if you're local and can make, there's awiki page for which i'll give the address in a moment; please add your name

<mitchell> there's also a page for those who want toattend but arent' close enough.

<jurgen> anyone have a good log of this session? I lost mine when my machine froze...

<pieter> wiki page for event (Link:http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/AttendEventSpring2003)http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/AttendEventSpring2003

<Empty> Parcel is the word we are using for the unitof extension for chandler functionality.

<luther> it appears to me that the Projects.OldDataModelPage isconverging on "everything is an item". Is that a correct assessment?

<mitchell> jurgen: that darn phil

<pieter> I have a log

<chao> David: we have a Chandler glossary thatexplains more about Chandler terms: (Link:http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/ChandlerGlossary)http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/ChandlerGlossary

<trilluser> will this chat transcript be on the wiki

<sprout> jurgen: I have most of it, but not all of it,I had a crash too.

<jurgen> trilluser: yes

<mitchell> transcribed? We'll post a log

<Empty> luther, yes

<jurgen> ok, tnx pieter

<mitch> parcelis an aggregate object, conveyed in a single file, that adds new functionalityto Chandler; it's the main way of distributing Chandler extensions. A parcelmay contain Chandler data items (contacts, calendars, images, etc), plus Pythonscripts to implement new types of views and agents, as well as version anddependency information, and cryptographic credentials. Chandler will bedistributed with a few built-in parcels, but others can be downloaded

<mitch> from the glossary

<sprout> ?

<mitch> (Link:http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/ChandlerGlossary)http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Jungle/ChandlerGlossary

<sprout> whoops

<Ilan> How much of the e-mail message part of theschema is set in stone?

<ducky> none of it'

<sprout> chao: I'm interested in talking aboutZaoBao..

<Ilan> The reason I'm asking is there's something Ifeel that should be added.

*** Signoff: ant68 (Client Exit: ChatZilla 0.8.23 [Mozillarv:1.3/20030312])

<mitch> go for it

<trilluser> zaobao looked like fun!!.. and could beuseful

<jurgen> llan: things can always be added....

<Ilan> I think that each e-mail message should includesome sort of UID from the account it was downloaded from

<mitch> yes, it's important to be able to keep trackof that.

<jurgen> llan, hmm, interesting idea

<Ilan> It would be kind of handy for folks with morethan one e-mail account.

<mitch> thanks all, see you later.

<mitchell> OK, it's 2pm now, we had our last call forquestions

<Ilan> You could hit reply to the message, and youwouldn't have to worry about which account you were sending from

<mitchell> so that's about it for the formal session

<jurgen> l8tr, mitch

<trilluser> later

<luther> mitch: ciao. chao: mitch.

<mitchell> everyone is welcome to remain, or course

*** RaviR has left #chandler

<Empty>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<chao> thanks everyone!

<trilluser> I will remain a little

*** Signoff: joe (Client Exit: Client Exiting)

<mitchell> ok sounds good

<mitchell> I'll be distracted for a few minutes here

* jurgen is distracting mitchell

<Main.DavidPaigen> I'll keep my chat window up for a bit,but I need to get some work donw

-- PieterHartsook - 05 Jun 2003

Edit | WYSIWYG | Attach | Printable | Raw View | Backlinks: Web, All Webs | History: r4 < r3 < r2 < r1 | More topic actions
 
Open Source Applications Foundation
Except where otherwise noted, this site and its content are licensed by OSAF under an Creative Commons License, Attribution Only 3.0.
See list of page contributors for attributions.