Re: GNOME.org update

I think it's a case of evaluating the right tool for the job. Wordpress is
an amazing platform, but putting that aside it's very much designed from the
ground up as a blog platform. It can work nicely as a simple CMS system, but
anything outside of a basic setup requires some extensive modding / coding
to achieve the functionality you would need for building an enterprise class
website.

I have worked on a number of migration projects where the initial choice of
architecture was built around a tool similar to  Wordpress / Typepad /
Expression Engine / Joomla and found it can only take you so far in
achieving what you need from a CMS system.

For CNN I built a proof of concept site to migrate away from expression
engine to Drupal. The site was eminently more scalable and a lot of the
"shoe horned" functionality from the blog platform, had native hooks in
Drupal which made it easier to add extensive functionality without a heavy
development footprint. Drupal was designed for that specific purpose and
Wordpress for another.

I think it all comes down to comfort level, I am comfortable to with both
platforms, but for a website of the complexity and scale of gnome.org I
would recommend Drupal, the multisite features alone would work well with
all the different websites that make up the Gnome brand.

Apologies if my email is intruding on the conversation, I am new to the
group and love every aspect of the Gnome project.

Cheers Guys

Andy Thornton
mobile: 404.932.7858

www.bohemianpixel.com | @bohemianpixel<http://www.twitter.com/BohemianPixel>


On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Jonathan Wilde <[email protected]>wrote:

> I'm concerned about the lack of information here about this new
> WordPress implementation.  I don't know if a demo site will offer
> enough information to make an informed decision.  Is there a public
> source control repository somewhere where we could review the code?
>
> I also have concerns regarding the long-term flexibility of WordPress
> for GNOME.  I've worked with WordPress for years and have been
> continually pleased about how WordPress makes it very easy to get a
> site up.  However, I've found that it is often rather difficult to
> make significant design/architectural changes to large WordPress sites
> after-the-fact without essentially re-writing the custom components.
> And judging by the stops-and-starts we've had here, a theme rewrite,
> regardless of which platform we choose to build on, will be difficult.
>  Being a very active and vibrant organization, I think that we can
> expect that GNOME will have changing needs over time.
>
> As with anything else, it's important to choose the right tool for the
> job.  Would you build server software with Actionscript?  No.  Even
> though Actionscript might be an easy-to-learn solution, you'd be
> better off in the long-run using Erlang or Scala because they tend to
> scale better in concurrent environments.
>
> Similarly, WordPress is an easy solution that is great for smaller
> sites with relatively static needs.  But will it be flexible enough
> and scale to GNOME's needs in the long run?  I'm not so sure.  On top
> of this, data migration is difficult.  It will probably be difficult
> to move over to another solution in the future.
>
> As for issues with the existing Plone instance:
>
> Paul Cutler wrote:
>
> > > Our largest blocker has always been localization support and the demo
> > > did include basic localization support
>
> I've seen some tweets [1] regarding issues with LinguaPlone, but
> haven't been able to find what the specific issues are.  Is there an
> IRC transcript that you could direct me to that might contain further
> information regarding that?  The current blocking issues might be easy
> to mitigate.
>
> > I think we need to be honest with ourselves about the progress the Plone
> site has (or
> > has not) made over the last year or two
>
> I agree.  I'll be more than happy to help get the Plone theming work
> completed.
>
> I've had trouble finding an up-to-date task list for what needs to be
> completed on the Plone work.  Bugzilla's issues seem to apply to the
> old-2008 wgo refresh and not the latest refresh.  If you could direct
> me to that, I'll be happy to help you finish the Plone work.
>
> Hope I can help,
> Jonathan (aka speedbreeze)
>
> [1]
> http://www.google.com/search?q=linguaplone&hl=en&prmdo=1&tbs=mbl:1&filter=0
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Paul Cutler <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2010-08-04 at 21:04 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:
> >> On Fri, 2010-07-30 at 11:54 +0200, Paul Cutler wrote:
> >> >
> >> > There has been some discussion about switching away from Plone at
> >> > GUADEC
> >> > and a demo of the new site running in Wordpress was shown this week.
> >> > Our largest blocker has always been localization support and the demo
> >> > did include basic localization support.
>
> >>
> >> Hang on. This is rather brief. Does it just allow translated text to be
> >> entered, or can it show when, and where, translations need to be updated
> >> when the original text changes? Does it show how much of the site is
> >> translated for a language already? If it can't do this (and if it never
> >> will) then I don't see how it can be good enough for the long term.
> >>
>
> >
> > That's why we'll get a demo site up and compare and review.  Even basic
> > localization support that doesn't address your concerns above is better
> > than what we have today on gnome.org (which is none) and I think we need
> > to be honest with ourselves about the progress the Plone site has (or
> > has not) made over the last year or two.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnome-web-list mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-web-list
> >
> _______________________________________________
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