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Manageability Revolutions!
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Looking back to when I "reloaded" this site, I'm surprised to find that it's been 3 1/2 years since I had made the move to the Plone content management system. I've been procrastinating for the longest time on upgrading the site only to be finally forced to do so when my provider (i.e. Zettai) was forced out of business.
I've been on version 1.0.5 of Plone for about the longest time. I'm amused to find that its now up to 2.5 and I've missed two major revisions (i.e. version 2.0 and 2.1). I however can't quite put my finger on the health of the Plone ecosystem. When I hear that Zettai can't make a living on the platform and when I hear that Nuxeo is switching to Java, I start to get concerned.
I've found Plone to be quite a feature rich and robust content management system. Certainly much better than anything out there that I evaluated mid 2003. However, something inherent in the current and future offering is just not right. Has the world possibly caught up?
So banking om my own experience, the primary reason I never spent the effort to upgrade was that a lot of my data was not independent of the modules used for viewing them. The three main culprits were the Wiki system, the polls and the comments*. These pieces of content were extremely valuable to me and therefore wasn't worth the upgrade to a newer version of Plone. So, if you're scratching your head wondering what happened to them, then that's my explanation why they disappeared.
The lesson learned here is clear, never adopt a system where access to your data is tightly coupled to the code that renders it. The failure of Object Oriented Databases and Proprietary Code Repositories give ample historical lessons as why such an approach leads to failure over time. The flexibility afforded by a generically accessible data will always outweigh the benefits of structured data store access. In fact, I articulated this thought a couple of years ago when I wrote "Text Files Unfairly Compared To The Internal Combustion Engine". Now if I had only listened to my own advice!
So what shall I do next? Well that's something I plan on working on during the holidays. I'm thinking of moving to a JCR based system where I have better control of my data. It has taken me a while to grok the value of JSR-170, however in my own context, I can begin to see its value.
If you do have any good suggestions on a CMS, then please let me know!
* For some strange reason, you can still find the comments if you do a search. It's just not linked to the original post.Last modified 2007-11-07 04:10 AM
We use pebble for blogging
BTW, the RSS published by your site is abysmal...
Java CMSes
http://www.ghostganz.com/blog/articles/2006/12/14/cms_integration_hell
We fear we'll have to go the own-stuff-on-top-of-JCR path. The JSR-170/JCR stuff is the only thing I've seen that I've really liked in the whole CMS mess, from a programmer's perspective.
Daisy
We can't claim JSR170-political-correctness, but our users never complain about that. And having a high-profile user might tease us into revamping our comment system by untying it from the repository.
Re: JSR170: I never heard someone swapping repository implementations underneath a functioning CMS, as it only then that it becomes clear to users that a CMS is much more than a repository, and that there are more ties between a CMS and its repo than what the vendors want you to believe.
Use Plain Old Xml
I you can get your data in XML, you'll always be able to load them in an other system.
Program or systems can be replaced, not DATA. DATAs are your most valuable goods and can't be replaced.
I'm also pretty tired of tweaking caching products (squid & cache-fu) to make the system perform even close to respectable. And even when I get the caching set up correctly, if I'm logged in making edits and such, the caching doesn't help. Plone is just damn slow, even though I'm running it on a fairly respectable dedicated machine (Athlon 2600, 1 gig ram).
As a Java developer, I'd really like to go to a Java-based system. But honestly, I've played with almost every Java portal and cms available, and I'm just not impressed. Plone's easy-to-use functionality and wide variety of products has spoiled me, and I have yet to see something in Java-land that is even close. Alfresco looks impressive, but the videos give me the impression that it is way to complicated for single-person cms use.
Further, I'm somewhat afraid that JSR-170 repositories are going to have the same pitfalls as Plone. I could be wrong on that one.
Seeing how speedy and useable most Drupal sites are, that also perks my interest. Only issues, it's not Java, and it's not using a repository standard like JSR-170.
Most of all, I fear the thought of having to migrate content to any new system.
I'll look forward to seeing how it goes for you.