Re: CMS Review: Bricolage on the Nautis Project

Scott Lanning wrote:
> I should've replied more...
> I was just amused by how our reactions to the article
> were completely different.



> More comments inline:
> 
> On Wed, 22 Aug 2007, cdmiller wrote:
>> Just read this, and fact checking is certainly in
order.
>>
>> "Delivery options that WCMS owners have come
to take for granted such as
>> blogs, wikis, and FAQ tools are missing from
Bricolage."
> 
> Is this not true?
> 

Comparing Bricolage to a blog or a wiki or Drupal
demonstrates a lack of
understanding of the CMS product space, and is misleading. 
It's a
common mistake by folks unfamiliar with the different types
of CMS.

A community driven set of templates providing blog, FAQ, or
wiki
functionality would be cool.  Perhaps an example set that
simply
publishes Drupal or PHPWiki or something, heh.

> 
>> "The lack of an inline editing feature is also
a serious drawback."
> 
> First, do you not agree that it lacks inline editing?
> I think it does, if by inline editing we mean the
ability
> to, say, click on a previewed page and edit it in
place.
> I agree with him that that'd be an awesome feature to
have.

The author states this is a serious drawback, but then
contradicts by
stressing the importance of workflow.  The inline editing to
me implies
editing a live site, rather than a previewed page.  Further
there is no
mention of the existing Bricolage WYSIWIG options.  Editing
a preview in
place would be cool, if it did not bypass template controls
on the
content.  This is like dissing TEX or LyX for lack of
"inline editing".

> 
>> "Bricolage is built specifically for
Linux"
> 
> That's obviously wrong.
> Being generous, he probably was thinking Unix-like,
> as opposed to Windows.
> 
> 
>> "For all of its strengths, perl seems to be
going the way of the
>> dinosaur."
> 
> Very debateable. In fact in the last few weeks, there
have been
> arguments about this on use.perl, and I tend to agree
that Perl
> seems much less popular than before.
> On the other hand, people will argue that Perl is
continuing
> along very strongly, just it doesn't get much
attention.
> I don't know... I mean, look at David - he got a Ruby
job.
> 

Some would claim bourne shell scripting or awk or sed or
assembly
language went the way of the dinosaur, they are wrong.  The
real
question of course is "popular for what?"  I do
believe Mason made some
unwise choices with the amount of application breakage in
the move to
Mason 2.  I am unsure of the strength of the current or
future Mason
code base.  Bricolage and WebWork (mathematics homework
server) are the
only software I maintain that rely on Mason, but I have a
ton of stuff
relying on Perl.

> 
>> "Bricolage has no virtualization module to
view a site in its
>> pre-production state."
> 
> I didn't understand what he meant by that one.

To me it implied no preview functionality.

I have been watching the new dev efforts and the slowdown of
Bricolage
development.  I think the product is still very viable.  It
has reached
a stage where new groundbreaking relevant features are
harder to imagine
and more difficult to implement.  A mature maintenance phase
of the
software with fewer major releases.  In my opinion
Apache2/Mason2
support is probably the most important milestone to future
viability.

I see Bricolage at this point as a "Large systems"
CMS written and
maintained by "Large systems" CMS users, which
makes for a smaller
development community who value stability and tight control
over their
content more than user interface bells and whistles.  The
developers
naturally have less time to devote to development while
maintaining
large deployments.  I am unsure if a large highly active
community is
really necessary, although it's always nice to have.

Speaking of slow dev and lack of time, I am still trying to
set aside
some time to put out a new VM, but if someone beats me to it
I won't be
disappointed or offended.

- cameron

On Aug 22, 2007, at 09:54, cdmiller wrote:

> Comparing Bricolage to a blog or a wiki or Drupal
demonstrates a  
> lack of
> understanding of the CMS product space, and is
misleading.  It's a
> common mistake by folks unfamiliar with the different
types of CMS.

Agreed. They should read my article:

   h
ttp://www.perl.com/pub/a/2004/08/27/bricolage.html

> A community driven set of templates providing blog,
FAQ, or wiki
> functionality would be cool.  Perhaps an example set
that simply
> publishes Drupal or PHPWiki or something, heh.

+1

>>> "Bricolage has no virtualization module to
view a site in its
>>> pre-production state."
>>
>> I didn't understand what he meant by that one.
>
> To me it implied no preview functionality.

That's the way I read it, too.

> I have been watching the new dev efforts and the
slowdown of Bricolage
> development.  I think the product is still very viable.
 It has  
> reached
> a stage where new groundbreaking relevant features are
harder to  
> imagine
> and more difficult to implement.  A mature maintenance
phase of the
> software with fewer major releases.  In my opinion
Apache2/Mason2
> support is probably the most important milestone to
future viability.

Scott's proposed plan for maintenance post Bricolage 2.0
reflects  
this, as well.

> Speaking of slow dev and lack of time, I am still
trying to set aside
> some time to put out a new VM, but if someone beats me
to it I  
> won't be
> disappointed or offended.

VM?

Best,

David