HTML5 editor

Looks great !
Way better than TinyMCE or FCKEditor ! But much more immature and less features.
in reference to: Aloha Editor - The HTML5 Editor (view on Google Sidewiki)

DocBook collaborative Editing Web Platform

Really great. Still alpha stage at this point, depending on the browser, but very promising !
Maybe looks a bit complicated, but since it is Open Source, it will be possible to simplify and modularize it.
I am watching with great attention !

in reference to:

"collaborative Editing Web Platform"
- Calenco XML CMS (view on Google Sidewiki)

WikBook, Wiki 2 Docbook java translator

Nice to see that there are still ongoing efforts to produce Docbook. But:
- Currently only produce "Book" this may be overkill for document < 20 pages, where an "article" is lighter.
- You have to install the tool (I need a web site ala SaaS)
- You need to run the translator and then the docbook tool chain to finally open the resulting html or pdf file and see the result
- no annotation support

in reference to: wikbook - Project Hosting on Google Code (view on Google Sidewiki)

Structured editor

I am still searching a structured editor. A WYSIsWYM (What You See Is What You Mean) kind of editor.

At this stage, I am very disappointed with the new Google Doc. They could have done something well structured with HTML, but their new markup is just format oriented. A lot of span containing inline style. Unusable. (Same with Zoho and ThinkFree.)

The best structured editor I could find is Syntext Serna: Open Source, Free, multi-platform, supports XHTML, DocBook, DITA and more! 

I tried a lot of other tools:

• Amaya : the usability is far below Syntext Serna. Maybe an option if you are in XHTML, MathML, SVG trip. But it doesn't seem to support even HTML 5. 
• Lyx: again the usability is not there. It is way too complex. Only an option if you are in the  TeX/LaTeX trip.
• XML Copy Editor: Maybe in ten years ...
• Gwennel: FreeWare WYSIWYG and WYSIWYM editor for Windows only, supporting natively the Open Document Format.
• Conglomerate "XML editor that everyone can use. In particular, our primary goal is to create the ultimate editor for DocBook and similar formats". (GTK ; Died in 2005)
• DocBook Wiki "display DocBook documents online. Different from the other applications, which convert a DocBook document into HTML first, in order to display it online, DocBookWiki converts it on the fly, so that the format for saving the document will still be XML". (Died in 2005 too)
• There is also XML Mind : it is a very good structured editor, but it has too many restrictions: non Open Source, free only for non-commercial use.
• I admit that sometime I just use MS-Word in outline view :-) If interested, there are also commercials: ArborText, FrameMaker ...

More recently I searched for online structured editor. Google Doc is out, I tried Zoho and ThinkFree without luck.

I also searched Chrome Extensions:

• ScribeFire: nice for blog, but not structured.
• Chrome Editor: a bit strange. I have to investigate more.
• PageEdit it uses CKEditor, it might be configured to produce structured HTML. I have to investigate more.
• iDoc: too simple and lack usability.

Sequence Diagram: DSL or not DSL ?

I had to produce some UML Sequence Diagram and I tested some Graphical and command line tools.
With UML tools there are 3 possibilities (sometimes mixed in a single application):

• Draw your diagram (UMLet, ArgoUML, Violet ...)
• Reverse engineer your code. It can work for Class Diagram, but the result for Sequence Diagram is generally unusable. (ArgoUML ...)
• Describe your diagram in a DSL (PlantUML, UMLGraph, ...)

There is no "Best Option" since it depends on your use case:

• for quickly puting an idea on paper, I like UMLet very much for Class, Component ... But I have to admit that VioletUML is way better for Sequences ! 
• When I want to keep my diagram in sync with the code and documentation. The DSL/Reverse Engineering approach allow me to put the diagram description in the JavaDoc. The setup in the Maven POM file (with UMLGraph, should be possible with PlantUML too).
• I never have the case where a DSL would be that useful. But you just got all the benefits of text files obviously: diff, grep ... and some tools allow you to embed your description in Wiki, LaTex, Word ... (PlantUML).

I tested several DSL:

• PlantUML Sequence  mostly reuse and extend WebSequenceDiagram
• WebSequenceDiagrams only Web
• EasyUMLEditor is a proprietary software also very close to WebSequenceDiagram
• UMLGraph to complicated
• DSL for UML Sequence Diagram (transform to UMLGraph) Still to complicated, but interesting
• Quick Sequence Diagram Editor (SDEdit) again too complicated. A nice thing is that it handles the life line activation and there is a GUI, not just a command line.
• Diagrammr way too limited (=unusable)

I have to admit that I am a bit deceived with the current state of DSL for Sequence Diagram.

• They are not that obvious. The easiest is "Client -> Server : HTTP request" with PlantUML. But with SDEdit you would read: "Client:Server.HTTP request" !?
• They could do more (like automatically activating the lifeline upon message reception). With PlantUML you pollute your description with numerous "Activate Server" ; "Deactivate Client" ...
• They quickly becomes hard to read and maintain. Two main problems:
• If you send a message at the beginning and got the response at the end. The message/response link is lost in the distance introduced by all the dialogs in between. You can use indentation, but it is up to you, not a DSL feature.
• When you have parallel executions or interlinked messages, even the indentation won't be a solution. I don't even see how it could be solved.
• You really need to see the resulting diagram as you type, if you don't want to end with a lot of rework.
• The tools I used didn't show you the result "out of the box". You have to setup some schell scripts or other tools. (SDEdit being the exception.)

I think that it is not an inherent problem with DSL. But we didn't find a suitable DSL for Sequence Diagrams and an intelligent application that would really understand Sequence Diagram, and not just describe lines with labels. This would introduce more constraints. There are certainly things that we wouldn't be able to describe as we want, but it should solve 80% of the cases hopefully.

Some ref.:

• Modeling Languages: UML Tools
• My page on UML / SQL tools

Mashup Integration SOA

The first 40 min are really worth listening. He cleans up a lot of confusion about mashup, integration, SOA
and the generated buzz fog.

en référence à : InfoQ: Enterprise Mashups: Why Do I Care? (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)

Differences between distributed databases

Distributed Databases (AKA NoSQL) exist in very different flavor. This article explains and details their architectures and features.
Now, it is up to you to see which one fits your use case.

in reference to: Survey distributed databases - CloudDBPedia (view on Google Sidewiki)