RE : Jetspeed and community portals

[Marie Mazerolle <ma...@cipanb.ca>]

Thanks for answering my questions, Scott.  It's very much appreciated.

Marie

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Weaver, Scott [mailto:Sweaver@rippe.com] 
Envoyé : 11 juin 2003 11:11
À : 'Jetspeed Users List'
Objet : RE: Jetspeed and community portals

Hi Marie,


> 1.	Aside from Jetspeed's obvious features (wap-enabled, ability to
> display applications in a portlet, internationalization), why would
you
> recommend it, and not other open-source portal solutions?

I have not really used any other open-source portals so I cannot give a
valid or fair comparison.  However, I will tell by Jetspeed is so darn
great ;)

Jetspeed has an active user and developer community.  The user mailing
list is quite amicable and you will never see any rude RTFM or "better
than thou" comments from the community.  The developers welcome comments
and criticisms and are more than willing to try and integrate any
changes into the code base that user submit, with due credit given to
that user.  

Jetspeed is 100% pure Java, and I prefer java-based solutions above
scripting language ones like PHP, especially when scalability is
involved.  Jetspeed 2, which is currently in development, will also be
the JSR-168 reference implementation.

The one thing that is important to remember is that Jetspeed is more of
a framework for you to build your own portal than an out-of-the-box
solution.  This may mean more work up front but you end up with a
solution that works how YOU want it to not how the vendor expects it to.

> 2.	Do you think Jetspeed would be suitable for a community portal,
> or is it more appropriate for enterprise portals? (I don't want to use
> it if it's not suitable.)

Check out the CHEF project, http://www.chefproject.org/index.htm, it is
built using Jetspeed.

> 3.	Jahia (
>
<http://www.jahia.com/jahia/Jahia/site/jahia_com/cache/offonce/pid/153>
> http://www.jahia.com/jahia/Jahia/site/jahia_com/cache/offonce/pid/153)
> has the following comments about jetspeed:
> 
> " If you need a lightweight portal server for a java prototype or a
> restricted number of users and if you are familiar with java
> development, Jetspeed may be a solution."
> 
> We only have 600 members at the moment, but this number could grow to
> 10,000 members.  Is Jetspeed capable of handling such a number?

I don't see why not, however I cannot give you any real numbers or
stress test results to verify this.

> 4.	We currently have a small number of web applications built with
> php and perl.  Is it possible to display these within portlets or
would
> I have to re-write them in java?

The IFRAME and/or Web page portlets would work equally well for this.

> 5.	I talked to another programmer about Jetspeed, and his advice
> was to stay away from java because of maintenance costs.  What are
your
> thoughts on this?

Please explain "maintenance costs."  Java is probably one of the most
productive "true" object oriented languages around.  I don't consider VB
a true OOL.  Things like PHP and Cold Fusion are easier to use, to a
point.  I have worked with entirely script-based application languages
before.  They might be easy in the beginning but trying to maintain and
debug scads script files is a nightmare, especially if the person
writing the code is not much of a programmer.

> 6.	https://okc.erdc.hpc.mil/index.jsp uses Jetspeed and lets users
> customize the interface (colors).  Is this a feature of Jetspeed, or
is
> additional programming required?

This is part of Jetspeed's built-in skinning mechanism.

I built my own theme/skinning mechanism to replace Jetspeed's.  Have a
look if you want.

http://216.68.253.181/integration/portal
login: example/example


*===================================*
* Scott T Weaver                    *
* Jakarta Jetspeed Portal Project   *
* weaver@apache.org                 *
*===================================*
  


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marie Mazerolle [mailto:marie.mazerolle@cipanb.ca]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 3:44 PM
> To: jetspeed-user@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: Jetspeed and community portals
> 
> Hello,
> 
> My organization has developed a community portal using a commercial
> product.  We're now looking to build v.2 and want an open-source
> solution.
> 
> I've searched the net for a while and the Jetspeed offering is at the
> top of my list, mostly for its features and because this would be a
> great opportunity to extend my knowledge of Java.  But I know I will
be
> asked why I don't want to use phpNuke (boring!) or a similar product,
so
> I'm looking for additional ammo.  I would be grateful for any answers
to
> the questions below:
> 
> 1.	Aside from Jetspeed's obvious features (wap-enabled, ability to
> display applications in a portlet, internationalization), why would
you
> recommend it, and not other open-source portal solutions?
> 2.	Do you think Jetspeed would be suitable for a community portal,
> or is it more appropriate for enterprise portals? (I don't want to use
> it if it's not suitable.)
> 3.	Jahia (
>
<http://www.jahia.com/jahia/Jahia/site/jahia_com/cache/offonce/pid/153>
> http://www.jahia.com/jahia/Jahia/site/jahia_com/cache/offonce/pid/153)
> has the following comments about jetspeed:
> 
> " If you need a lightweight portal server for a java prototype or a
> restricted number of users and if you are familiar with java
> development, Jetspeed may be a solution."
> 
> We only have 600 members at the moment, but this number could grow to
> 10,000 members.  Is Jetspeed capable of handling such a number?
> 
> 4.	We currently have a small number of web applications built with
> php and perl.  Is it possible to display these within portlets or
would
> I have to re-write them in java?
> 5.	I talked to another programmer about Jetspeed, and his advice
> was to stay away from java because of maintenance costs.  What are
your
> thoughts on this?
> 6.	https://okc.erdc.hpc.mil/index.jsp uses Jetspeed and lets users
> customize the interface (colors).  Is this a feature of Jetspeed, or
is
> additional programming required?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Marie Mazerolle
> 



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