Re: GNOME.org update

[Paul Cutler <pcutler gnome org>]

On Wed, 2010-08-04 at 14:12 -0700, Jonathan Wilde 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?

What lack of information?  I was actually proud that I sent an email to
the list based on two conversations at GUADEC - can't get much more
transparent than that.  I also don't understand your comment about a
demo site - how can it not have enough information?

The repo is at:  http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnomeweb-wp/  I'm waiting
for Vinicius to upload his theme and then I'll ask a sysadmin to get the
Apache configs updated to a sub-domain.


> 
> 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.

The theme is already done - I'm waiting for it to be uploaded to the
repo, but based on the fact that one developer was able to do it in one
afternoon gives me hope that we can actually deploy something this year.

>  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.

I'm not going to get into a WP vs Plone debate - we'll get a demo site
up, just like we have today of Plone, and review.  My biggest concern
right now is that in almost 5 years of development we don't have a site.
Considering this has taken that long, I think Wordpress would be far
more flexible than what we have today.  As far as data migration, the
content for most of the pages has already been written, so I'm not
seeing issues around data migration.  We need to get the theme uploaded
from the design team and then add the pages and copy / paste the text
into it from lgo.

Paul

> 
> 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 <pcutler gnome org> 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
> >
> >
> >
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> >