Grouper Users - Open Discussion List

[Martin van Es <>]

Hi Tom!

On Wednesday 09 September 2009 17:21:53 Tom Barton wrote:
> Hi Martin,
> 
> Good to hear from you again. I'm more than a little curious about the
> new project you're working on. Is there a link to further background
> info? Even in Dutch? :-)

Right now we're still setting up all prerequisites for the project and a 
communications platform is one of them (svn/trac/wiki etc). I'll discuss 
access for you with the project members when it's all set up and running, ok?

> The initial form of grouper's new attribute framework will indeed debut
> in v1.5, which we expect to release in the first half of November.

That's what I wanted to know. Thx.

> Multivalued attributes are part of that. We don't plan to bundle any
> particular use of them in 1.5, so they'd merely be infrastructure
> available for you to use. Might that fit your needs?

As long as I can use the values to search for groups (like filtering with 
labels/tags) in the API I'd be more than happy.

As for Chris' question:

> an you tell us what deficiency stems have that makes you want to get rid of 
> them?  Any more info including examples could help the discussion.

Stems don't have any shortcomings it's just that while brainstorming for the 
project we imagined having multiple reusable labels more efficient than 
building a strict stem system. E.g. groups (of students) would belong to a 
certain school/university but also to one or more departments (depending on 
the school they're enrolled at) and we would like to find them either way. 
Using stems we'd probably have a hard time preparing all possible 
schools/departments/whatever combinations to possibly fit every(?) 
organisational setup that may or may not be used. Labeling groups would make 
it easier to cross-search all groups for shared "stems".

Actually, it's really like comparing conventional mail folders and gmail's 
labeling solution. We have a strong feeling that labels would help a lot in 
this specific setup of Grouper.

Hope this answers your question?

Regards,
Martin van Es