[SGVLUG] Test site update -- mambo stuff

[Dustin]

On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Tom Emerson wrote:

> On Sunday 07 August 2005 8:57 pm, Dustin wrote:

> > Is that your way of saying that we have a winner? :-)

> Unless someone willing to take up the plone, twiki, phpweb, or >gasp< 
> edit-by-hand banner and put forth a rallying cry for that as the new site, 
> well, then yes.

I suspect if anyone is waiting to champion one of the others we'll need to 
smoke 'em out, so let's go into the sudden-death round.  Unless someone 
chimes in with Trenchant Observations or Profound Objections, let's select 
Mambo as the clear winner and have done.

> (*) The way I see it, the spectrum from imposes-the-most-structure to
> least is probably mambo, phpweb, plone, twiki [edit-by-hand can fit
> anywhere, depending on the skill and perserverance of the author...]

Er, I'd say that edit-by-hand is by definition the least imposed structure
of all!

Jean, I know you preferred Twiki and Plone and didn't much like Mambo, so
it looks like you preferred the less structured systems.  Care to chime
in on why?

> To be honest (fair?) there are some things I DON'T like about the way Mambo 
> "does things now" [as well as many things I think could be done better].  The 
> big winner, though, is the fact that Mambo is a bit more structured(*) than 
> the others.

How much.  Enough to be interested in alternatives still, after all this?

I've been told recently that Mambo's major competitors are Drupal and
Xoops (http://www.xoops.org/), neither of which I tried.  That probably
means that I didn't pick the right alternatives to compare (though in all
fairness I was trying to get a wide variety not just one narrow segment).  
In any case I didn't do a great job of research; I only came across Drupal
after I was tired of installing web pages, and missed Xoops entirely.

The point: likely one or both of them imposes more structure like Mambo,
or at least like phpwebsite.  If you're complaints about Mambo are serious
we can always see if they provide a better implementation of the structure
you like.  If not, perhaps everyone just wants an end to the testing
process. :-)

The only reason I even suggest Still More Testing(ack!) is that once
SGVLUG is done playing with my CMS Farm From Hell(TM) I am going to wipe
the accounts and then have my youth crew kids evaluate them for their own
website (I may be hosting CMSes for a while!).  So I can justify spending
Yet More Time installing a never-ending stream of CMSes even though SGVLUG
is probably bored to tears.  So, given that I'm likely to try them anyway,
instead of going with Mambo we could down-select and eliminate all the
current systems except for Mambo and one or two others for a more focused 
comparison.

That's what I'd do if I were betting the web presence of a fortune-500 
company on it, but SGVLUG can be much more casual!  I'm guessing people 
are tired of this process.  Or is it enough of a learning experience to be 
worth the trouble in its own right?

>   -- Dustin observed the following about plone: plone is for people who 
> eventually want to learn zope.  (roughly paraphrased)

That's not even a rough paraphrase--it's much better, but I think it's
your own expression of my vague observation.  It is what I'd have said
instead if I could have been succinct enough. :-)

I've seen some plone sites that look more or less like the base install, 
and that strikes me as a profound waste.  It appears to be incredibly 
configurable, but the base install is quite plain.  If you're just going 
to stick with the base, why not use a less powerful but simpler system?  
Kinda like how the base phpwebsite skin sucked but there were some very 
nice ones available.

Dustin