[Kde-pim] Akonadi architectural knowledge

[Mark]

On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Morten Larsen <mortl at itu.dk> wrote:
> Hello Akonadi developers.
>
> A brief introduction: I am a taking a course in software architecture at the
> IT University of Copenhagen. I am doing an assignment where I have to find
> out about architectural knowledge management in a software project of my own
> choice, and I have chosen Akonadi.
>
> My objective is to study and describe the practices (e.g., design review,
> design meetings, sharing design decisions) and tools (e.g., wikis, emails,
> blogs) used informally or formally to document and share architectural
> knowledge among team members in the Akonadi project, as well as the
> practices and tools used to disseminate architectural knowledge to other
> developers.
>
> I hope some of the developers who work on Akonadi will take the time to help
> me by answering a few questions. First, however, let me state what I have
> found out myself by browsing the KDE web sites.
>
> Documentation of the architecture itself:
>
> 1) Drilling in from http://techbase.kde.org/Development one can end up at
> http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Architecture/KDE4/Akonadi where the main
> components of the architecture are briefly described
> (server/agents/applications).
>
> 2) http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/PIM/Akonadi (outdated? - stops at
> Akonadi 1.4) has a little architectural in its FAQ (e.g. on the DBMS used)
> and some (unstructured) in the "Braindump".
>
> 3) http://api.kde.org/kdesupport-api/akonadi-apidocs/ has a fairly detailed
> overview of the components of the Akonadi server (but no API docs - is this
> an error in documentation generation?).
>
> 4) http://api.kde.org/4.x-api/kdepimlibs-apidocs/akonadi/html/index.html on
> the other hand documents client library API, but does not have any
> architecture level documentation.
>
> 5) http://community.kde.org/KDE_PIM/Akonadi has some basic information on
> Akonadi architecture, mainly the "pie gone supernova" architecture diagram.
> There are also links to a lot of presentations on Akonadi, many containing
> architecture information and a master thesis on the server architecture.
>
> Documentation on the rationales behind the architectural decisions and any
> alternatives considered are a lot harder to find. Reading through the
> meeting notes of some of the PIM meetings (esp. Osnabrück 4) you can find
> some information, including original ides and requirements.
>
> Now for my questions:
>
> a) Is there anything I have missed? E.g. where would I look for information
> if I wanted to interface to the Akonadi server but not use the client
> library?
>
> b) Is there a notion that someone(s) have an "architect" role in the Akonadi
> development team?
>
> c) When and how are architectural decisions made? In the meetings? In
> mailing list discussions? Other?
>
> d) Is there an architecture review process? (I am not talking about code
> review, but design review).
>
> e) Are the rationales behind architecture design decisions captured? Are the
> inputs (e.g. requirements, alternative designs) captured?
>
> f) Do you get and answer questions in the mailing list or IRC channels which
> can be considered to be architectural in nature (i.e. not on low level
> design such as detailed questions on the API)?
>
> I would be very grateful if some Akonadi team members could take the time to
> anwer just some of these questions.
>
> All the best,
> Morten Larsen
> _______________________________________________
> KDE PIM mailing list kde-pim at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-pim
> KDE PIM home page at http://pim.kde.org/

You should have signed up for the KDE PIM sprint:
https://sprints.kde.org/sprint/110 i also don't know much about
akonodi, but i'm expecting to learn a lot about that specific KDE part
on the sprint. I think you can still sign up if you want. To be sure,
ask Andras Mantia (the organizer).
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