IDE Charter v2

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Introduction, including status of this document

This document contains the proposed text for the updated version 2 charter for the IDE Working Group. This updated charter will replace the version 1 charter that expires on Dec. 31, 2008. For more information, please refer to the following other important wiki pages:

This version 2 charter for the IDE Working Group is still under development and has not yet been approved by the OpenAjax Alliance Steering Committee. This charter is being developed collaboratively by the Members of OpenAjax Alliance for future review/approval by the Steering Committee, in accordance with the OpenAjax Alliance Development Process.

This wiki page should not be changed except via coordination with the Chair(s) (see below). The preferred approaches for feedback on this document are the IDE committee mailing list (ide@openajax.org), the public mailing list (public@openajax.org), or the discussion tab on this wiki page.

Rechartering timeline

The rechartering phone call for the IDE Working Group (formally known as the "Creation Review" phone call) occurred on:

  • Friday, Dec. 19, 2008, 10:00am PT, 1:00pm ET, 7:00pm Europe
  • US toll-free: 1-888-227-9220, Int'l: 719-785-4480, Passcode 871757

Minutes from that phone call:

Members will vote on the rechartering during the following time period:

  • Dec. 22, 2008 to Jan. 6, 2009

The rechartering voting page is at:

Assuming members approve, then Steering Committee voting on the rechartering will occur just after Member voting.

Initiating Member and Proposal Lead

The OpenAjax Alliance Development Process requires that the initiating Member identify its Proposal Lead:

  • Initiating Member: IBM
  • Proposal Lead: Jon Ferraiolo <jferrai(at)us.ibm.com>

(Note that the above single-person "Proposal Lead" is just to match what is expected from the Development Process during the rechartering period. Once the charter is approved, the chairmanship will be shared between Jon Ferraiolo of IBM and Lori Hylan-Cho of Aptana.)

Definitions

"Visual and non-visual Controls and their APIs" is used below to mean visual controls like data grids, sliders, form elements, GUI containers; Non-visual controls like data objects, communication objects, events; and the application programming interfaces (APIs) developers would use to instance, query, modify, and execute aspects of those.

Mission and Scope

The IDE Working Group has responsibility for industry standards for describing Visual and non-visual Controls and Ajax library APIs for use in design-time and potentially run-time scenarios that address any of the following scenarios:

  1. provide a predictable way for makers of libraries and controls to publish metadata about their libraries and controls useful in authoring and potentially run-time processes
  2. provide a predictable way for makers of IDEs and authoring tools supporting Ajax development to consume metadata about Ajax libraries and controls useful in authoring and potentially run-time processes
  3. provide a list of IDE features that would be "nice to have" for Ajax authoring cycles in IDEs, (e.g. auto-completion, type-ahead, code completion, type checking), and provide a standard way to comment and annotate Ajax controls, libraries, and potentially custom Ajax application code (user defined classes and application logic) to dove tail with these features
  4. provide a standard approach to commenting Ajax source code such that a common set of utilities could be created to generate the metadata (either statically in advance as a separate file or by the IDEs dynamically upon loading or registering a new Ajax class object)
  5. define standards and/or best practices in the area of Ajax application debugging, such as recommendations about the availability of debug versions of Ajax libraries that can be integrated into IDEs

The specifications produced by the WG will target design-time integration with IDEs as the primary use case, but the WG will develop appropriately generalized technologies on an opportunistic basis to design features in a manner that promotes maximum reuse in other usage scenarios, such as runtime-integration in mashup environments.

The WG may pursue industry-wide activities on behalf of the Ajax IDE industry, such as collecting and publishing market research.

The WG will pursue industry promotional activities to spur adoption of the WG's technologies.

The WG will continue to leverage work to date from the IDE Integration Task Force (/member/wiki/IDE_TF).

The WG will be responsible for addressing development issues associated with IDEs for creating Ajax solutions on all Ajax-enabled devices. As such, its responsibilities would go beyond desktop computers into mobile devices and other computing platforms where Ajax can be used.

This charter allows for the WG to define specifications and features as necessary without rechartering so long as those specifications and features are consistent with the mission of the WG and are thus focused on cross-product interoperability arising from the integration of Ajax libraries and Ajax controls into Ajax IDEs. On the other hand, if new features are proposed that go beyond this interoperability scope, a new or revised charter will be necessary.

Work plan

Deliverables

Ajax IDE Integration Use Cases and Requirements Documents

The WG may update the IDE Integration Use Cases and Requirements documents that the previously chartered IDE WG has developed.

OpenAjax Metadata 1.0 Specification

The WG will produce an OpenAjax Metadata 1.0 Specification that specifies metadata and other integration technology requirements consistent with the Mission and Scope (see above) that will enable Ajax libraries and Ajax controls to be integrated into IDEs. The Use Cases and Requirements documents will guide the process of developing the Specification.

Updates and Revisions to the OpenAjax Metadata 1.0 Specification

Depending on perceived industry need, the WG might produce updates to the OpenAjax Metadata 1.0 Specification, perhaps a version 1.1 specification. The update(s) might includes minor feature additions and/or fixes in the same general technical areas as the 1.0 Specification.

In particular, the update(s) might include additional features to support widgets within mashup scenarios. If so, these updates will be developed in collaboration with a separate activity (e.g., the Gadgets TF) which will do the majority of the technical work in the mashup space.

Other Materials

The WG may produce other Materials, including Specifications, other relevant technical documents, tests, and sample applications, so long as they are consistent with the Working Group's mission and scope.

Coordination with other Working Groups and Task Forces

This WG will coordinate with other activities at OpenAjax Alliance as follows:

  • Gadgets TF (or future WG) - Mashup integration issues, particularly around the ability to reuse Ajax library widgets within mashup scenarios
  • Interoperability WG - IDE integration issues that overlap with Ajax library runtime scenarios
  • Security Task Force (or future WG) - IDE integration issues that overlap with Ajax security issues
  • Mobile Task Force (or future WG) - IDE integration issues that overlap with Mobile Ajax issues

If new OpenAjax activities are started during the duration of this WG, the WG will determine what coordination activities are required with the new activities.

Schedule

Duration

This WG will be chartered to run until Dec. 31, 2009.

Revisions to this charter might shorten or extend the duration of this WG.

Milestones

The following milestones represent expected delivery dates, but the WG can use judgment to update delivery dates using its own discretion.

  • A stable draft of uses cases and requirements was available by the December 2007.
  • A nearly feature-complete draft specification was available by July 2008 such that multiple vendors were able to participate in the 2008 InteropFest.
  • It is expected that a revised and final feature-complete draft specification will be available by end of February 2009.
  • It is expected that an approved version 1.0 specification will be available by March 31, 2009.

Success and completion criteria

This WG can consider its efforts around the Specification to be successful if:

  • Some popular and specialized IDEs ship with abilities to load and unload individual or collections of Visual and Non-Visual Ajax Controls and library APIs conformant with the specification
  • Some popular and specialized Ajax toolkits provide mechanisms to have their libraries be used by IDEs that support the Specification
  • Some independent Ajax control providers support the Specification

Further success is measured by the degree to which the IDEs support the additional Ajax authoring features this WG's reasearch shows developers would like to have in their IDEs.

Relationship to other forums

  • Whenever possible, Specifications should reference industry-accepted relevant Ajax industry standards (de jure and de facto) rather than develop conflicting new features or authoring redundant feature definitions.

Communications mechanisms

Email

Email will occur on ide@openajax.org. This email list will be read-only to people who are not representatives of Members of OpenAjax Alliance. Public discussion will occur on public@openajax.org.

Phone

Normally, there will be weekly or bi-weekly phone calls, but phone calls may be added or cancelled at the discretion of the chair(s).

IRC

The IRC channel for this WG is: irc.freenode.net, #oaa-ide

Chair(s), expected membership, and operational rules

Lori Hylan-Cho of Aptana and Jon Ferraiolo of IBM are the proposed co-chairs for the rechartered IDE WG.

It is expected that the people who are currently involved in the existing IDE WG will participate in this WG.

There will be a consensus decision process managed by the chair(s) that aligns with common practice in Web standards (e.g., W3C consensus process) and open source activities (e.g., Apache voting process), where a particular decision process used to resolve a particular issue is chosen by the chair(s) based on appropriateness to the given circumstance. This WG produces recommendations to the Membership and Steering Committee about activities and material to be published, in accordance with process defined by the OpenAjax Alliance Members Agreement and OpenAjax Alliance Development Process.

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