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Posted to dev@lenya.apache.org by Johannes Jander <ja...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> on 2005/03/20 18:38:23 UTC
CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
At 11:09 Uhr -0500 20.03.2005, Gregor J. Rothfuss wrote:
>there is something particular about cms requirements that makes
>people much more willing to do all the work themselves than in other
>software categories. reuse is low, check the number of cms projects.
>why is that?
Because you don't just install a CMS to replace another or static
HTML, you buy into a whole philosophy. Let me explain:
1) If you like to expand your site and move from one tool (let's say
Golive) to some other (a CMS), (usually) you'd like to retain your
URL scheme and categories - for your convenience and that of your
visitors. You look through the CMS' on the market and (almost
everywhere) no dice. You have to conform to the CMS' creators idea of
good URLs and rewrite them or install .htaccess redirects.
Not a biggie you say - but it puts a damper on your enthusiasm. The
software commands you instead of empowering you. No CMS I have seen
allows you do define a URL/hierarchy scheme and then import an
existing site according to this scheme. WYSIWYG HTML editors - in
contrast - allow you to import HTML written by (almost) any other
editor and export it again.
2) CMS usually don't offer a host of options regarding the backend.
There are those relying on file system and those relying on
databases, but few ask you which backend you would like to store your
data.
3) CMS usually are cumbersome to configure and not very
user-friendly. I toyed around with zope/plone and could not get a
site up in some hours. Maybe my dumbness, but of course, I abandoned
it - even though I would eventually succeed. Documentation detailing
the first steps and the usual questions is mostly lacking or
inaccurate. Lenya is better, but only for the first impression -
configuring the HTML skeleton and including feedback forms support
was troublesome (this was in last August).
Now, someone said that webcontent management is either trivial or
impossible - but at first it seems trivial to develop something
better than the existing solutions. I developed my own mini-CMS back
in 1999 in Perl and this took me about a month. It is completely
coded to my requirements, but fulfills them marvelously - I still use
it for some specialized tasks and could not replace it by any
existing CMS I am aware of because of the reasons detailed above.
I dabbled around with Lenya for some month and even published a site
on it - but in the end, the amount of work I had to put into it was
frustrating, and even though the server is not the slowest on the
planet, the site is horribly slow. It might be different now, but it
has cooled my interest remarkably. To be quite honest, I have
frequently thought about rolling my own solution again - this time
using cocoon.
Please don't take this personally - I admire the work you all put
into Lenya, and maybe I am unjust since I have not tried the 1.4
versions. It is in fact one of the most promising CMS I know of. But
it still is not up to par when it comes to flexibility and usability.
Yours
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by "Gregor J. Rothfuss" <gr...@apache.org>.
Johannes Jander wrote:
> I dabbled around with Lenya for some month and even published a site on
> it - but in the end, the amount of work I had to put into it was
> frustrating, and even though the server is not the slowest on the
> planet, the site is horribly slow. It might be different now, but it has
> cooled my interest remarkably. To be quite honest, I have frequently
> thought about rolling my own solution again - this time using cocoon.
>
> Please don't take this personally - I admire the work you all put into
> Lenya, and maybe I am unjust since I have not tried the 1.4 versions. It
> is in fact one of the most promising CMS I know of. But it still is not
> up to par when it comes to flexibility and usability.
understood, and appreciated. unfortunately, rather than voicing these
opinions and filing bugs (which would go a long way to address the
problems), people instead put the energy into doing their own thing.
more feedback, good or bad, is very much appreciated, since the main
develpers of any project usually develop a blindness to the project's
shortcomings, and need the occasional kick to make sure they are
actually solving real problems.
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by Michael Wechner <mi...@wyona.com>.
Gregor J. Rothfuss wrote:
> Michael Wechner wrote:
>
>> flexibility and having defaulst do not bite each other at all and I
>> don't see
>> this as a reason for these problems at all.
>
>
> the way they used to be implemented created lots of headaches.
badly implemented stuff can also be cured by improving the implementation
and not necessarily by just removing the whole thing as it would be cancer.
One very good example is the sitetree implementation or the sitetree
navigation
implementation within the info area.
> see recent discussion about back doors.
Well, I would say that's another issue and I could also refer
to the sitetree re that.
But it doesn't make sense to point fingers, because we all make mistakes.
We just have to improve stuff ...
Michi
>
>
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>
--
Michael Wechner
Wyona Inc. - Open Source Content Management - Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com http://lenya.apache.org
michael.wechner@wyona.com michi@apache.org
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by "Gregor J. Rothfuss" <gr...@apache.org>.
Michael Wechner wrote:
> flexibility and having defaulst do not bite each other at all and I
> don't see
> this as a reason for these problems at all.
the way they used to be implemented created lots of headaches. see
recent discussion about back doors.
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by Michael Wechner <mi...@wyona.com>.
Gregor J. Rothfuss wrote:
> Michael Wechner wrote:
>
>> Lenya actually allows any kind of URL scheme, but the default
>> publication doesn't
>> without customization and I think this is a big mistake, so I
>> perfectly understand your reasoning here
>
>
> disagreed. the default publication has a sane URL structure that
> strikes a good balance between being widely useable and having a
> reasonable implementation effort.
as a default it might make sense (whereas I still think
..../tutorial/index.html
is better than
..../tutorial.html
actually I wanted to fix the redirect some time ago, such that at least
the redirect is working correctly, which AFAIK doesn't make sense at the
moment at all)
but it should also allow other URL schemes if necessary and this without
real
customization needed
>
>
>> I think Lenya was really even worse on this, but is improving
>> continuously and
>> that's very promising
>
>
> yes. it is improving because there are now sensible defaults instead
> of offerering unlimited "flexibility" that complicate development and
> deployment.
flexibility and having defaulst do not bite each other at all and I
don't see
this as a reason for these problems at all.
Michi
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@lenya.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@lenya.apache.org
>
>
--
Michael Wechner
Wyona Inc. - Open Source Content Management - Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com http://lenya.apache.org
michael.wechner@wyona.com michi@apache.org
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by "Gregor J. Rothfuss" <gr...@apache.org>.
Johannes Jander wrote:
> I am not the only one who feels strongly about this - cf.
> http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html for a very well thought out
> discussion on why cool URLs don't change - esp. "We would like to, but
> we just don't have the right tools." I can sympathize with. URLs don't
> belong to the realm of the system (like internal GUIDs) but mine.
i am very open to implement
http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25009 if the problems
mentioned there can either be solved or shown to be irrelevant.
for other url schemes, you can either implement your own
DocumentIdToPathMapper, or use mod_rewrite.
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by Johannes Jander <ja...@zedat.fu-berlin.de>.
At 15:39 Uhr -0500 20.03.2005, Gregor J. Rothfuss wrote:
>disagreed. the default publication has a sane URL structure that
>strikes a good balance between being widely useable and having a
>reasonable implementation effort.
Sorry, but this is missing the problem completely, imho. Of course
the lenya URL-structure is sane - after all, it was designed by very
capable people. Alas, there ist not one sane URL structure, but many
- and a tool should not force me to adopt to its way, but adapt to my
way.
I have a fairly large site (~3000 pages) I would like to move to
_some_ CMS finally - it is currently managed by a multitude of
scripts and homegrown mini-CMS. However, I cannot switch to a new URL
scheme - there are links to the site dating back to 1998 and they are
never going to be updated in my life. If I was sure I had to break
the current URL organization once and then continue with a new for
the future, I'd script me a large htaccess file.
But what happens if for some reason Lenya is not the thing for me 10
years down the road? Maybe the developers in the future take a new
direction that does not suit me and don't provide any security fixes
for obsolete versions? Maybe the Lenya project dies and I am forced
to switch to another CMS - the one sure thing is, I will have to
reorganize the URL scheme again to suit the new tool. Then it's two
generations of htaccess rewrites or broken links.
I am not the only one who feels strongly about this - cf.
http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html for a very well thought out
discussion on why cool URLs don't change - esp. "We would like to,
but we just don't have the right tools." I can sympathize with. URLs
don't belong to the realm of the system (like internal GUIDs) but
mine.
I know the feeling if you have been working on something, and then
late in the day, someone comes along and just says "yeah well, but
why don't you..." - but as far as I am concerned, I don't really care
if a CMS is based on Java, PHP or .NET/C#. What I care for is
usability - a friendly first impression and a system I can easily
mend into the form I want to see.
Good night :)
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by "Gregor J. Rothfuss" <gr...@apache.org>.
Michael Wechner wrote:
> Lenya actually allows any kind of URL scheme, but the default
> publication doesn't
> without customization and I think this is a big mistake, so I perfectly
> understand your reasoning here
disagreed. the default publication has a sane URL structure that strikes
a good balance between being widely useable and having a reasonable
implementation effort.
> I think Lenya was really even worse on this, but is improving
> continuously and
> that's very promising
yes. it is improving because there are now sensible defaults instead of
offerering unlimited "flexibility" that complicate development and
deployment.
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Re: CMS shortcomings, was: Re: [ANNONCE] Myotis 0.80
Posted by Michael Wechner <mi...@wyona.com>.
Johannes Jander wrote:
> At 11:09 Uhr -0500 20.03.2005, Gregor J. Rothfuss wrote:
>
>> there is something particular about cms requirements that makes
>> people much more willing to do all the work themselves than in other
>> software categories. reuse is low, check the number of cms projects.
>> why is that?
>
>
> Because you don't just install a CMS to replace another or static
> HTML, you buy into a whole philosophy. Let me explain:
>
> 1) If you like to expand your site and move from one tool (let's say
> Golive) to some other (a CMS), (usually) you'd like to retain your URL
> scheme and categories - for your convenience and that of your
> visitors. You look through the CMS' on the market and (almost
> everywhere) no dice. You have to conform to the CMS' creators idea of
> good URLs and rewrite them or install .htaccess redirects.
> Not a biggie you say - but it puts a damper on your enthusiasm. The
> software commands you instead of empowering you. No CMS I have seen
> allows you do define a URL/hierarchy scheme and then import an
> existing site according to this scheme. WYSIWYG HTML editors - in
> contrast - allow you to import HTML written by (almost) any other
> editor and export it again.
Lenya actually allows any kind of URL scheme, but the default
publication doesn't
without customization and I think this is a big mistake, so I perfectly
understand your reasoning here
>
> 2) CMS usually don't offer a host of options regarding the backend.
> There are those relying on file system and those relying on databases,
> but few ask you which backend you would like to store your data.
again, Lenya allows this and was intended to do so from the very
beginning, but it needs customization. I hope that the Jackrabbit
integration will improve this situation, whereas something just comes to
my mind ... but more on this on another mailing list ;-)
>
> 3) CMS usually are cumbersome to configure and not very
> user-friendly. I toyed around with zope/plone and could not get a
> site up in some hours. Maybe my dumbness, but of course, I abandoned
> it - even though I would eventually succeed. Documentation detailing
> the first steps and the usual questions is mostly lacking or
> inaccurate. Lenya is better, but only for the first impression -
> configuring the HTML skeleton and including feedback forms support was
> troublesome (this was in last August).
I think Lenya was really even worse on this, but is improving
continuously and
that's very promising
>
> Now, someone said that webcontent management is either trivial or
> impossible - but at first it seems trivial to develop something better
> than the existing solutions. I developed my own mini-CMS back in 1999
> in Perl and this took me about a month. It is completely coded to my
> requirements, but fulfills them marvelously - I still use it for some
> specialized tasks and could not replace it by any existing CMS I am
> aware of because of the reasons detailed above.
I can perfectly understand this :-)
>
> I dabbled around with Lenya for some month and even published a site
> on it - but in the end, the amount of work I had to put into it was
> frustrating, and even though the server is not the slowest on the
> planet, the site is horribly slow. It might be different now, but it
> has cooled my interest remarkably. To be quite honest, I have
> frequently thought about rolling my own solution again - this time
> using cocoon.
I often think about creating a new CMS project for several reasons ;-),
but fortunately
I do not find the time to do so ;-)
>
> Please don't take this personally - I admire the work you all put into
> Lenya, and maybe I am unjust since I have not tried the 1.4 versions.
> It is in fact one of the most promising CMS I know of. But it still is
> not up to par when it comes to flexibility and usability.
It's good that you are saying your opinion, because I think the Lenya
devs really
that.
Thanks
Michi
>
> Yours
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@lenya.apache.org
>
>
--
Michael Wechner
Wyona Inc. - Open Source Content Management - Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com http://lenya.apache.org
michael.wechner@wyona.com michi@apache.org
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