[webdev] ACLUG Website - which way to go...

[Tom Hull <thull2@xxxxxxx>]

I want to move this discussion back to webdev (previously on local).

Dale W Hodge wrote:
> 
> Aclug @ NeuralMatrix is mostly complete, but lacking content. That's been
> the major problem with Aclug's website all along, severe lack of content.
> Otherwise, I just need to find a classifieds module and need suggestions on
> what other features might be missing.  At that point, we'd need to go
> googling for a module or find someone proficient in php to write it for us.

I don't think the decision as to which website technology we go with should
be based on which kit has the niftiest modules. (If it did, I have another
dozen modules up my sleeve. On the other hand, I've run into technical snags
on getting RSS feeds working.) I think the decision should be made on the
following criteria:

  1) Who's willing, eager, and competent to work on which platform?

  2) What's the big picture concept for the website?

In my mind, #1 is critical. In that case, my position is that if I am
the only person who is willing/eager/competent to work on openacs, then
I'll vote for postnuke.

As for #2, I think the alternatives are:

  1) My concept for the openacs system was to provide two main things:

      a) an extensible repository of help information
      b) a set of user services and inter-user communication tools

     There are lots of other things one can do with openacs, but these
     are things that it excels at (albeit with a little extra work).
     The emphasis here is, I think, community building.

  2) The typical use (therefore what it is most fit for) is to provide
     a news portal. The emphasis here is, I think, information access.

I think that if you find #1 more attractive, openacs is the system of
choice; OTOH, if #2 is the thing that most interests you, then postnuke
is a system that will give you that with significantly less work.

That "less work" is a significant issue. As Dale has pointed out, I
started working on the openacs system six months ago, and it hasn't
gotten very far. A lot of that is my fault -- I've had a number of
distractions, and haven't actually been able to put a helluva lot of
work into the project. I also see more distractions on the horizon,
so maybe you should make a choice that is less dependent on me.

On the other hand, I want to point out one more thing: the postnuke
approach depends on adopting beta software which will certainly be
changing frequently and will inevitably force you to go through any
number of upgrade cycles. By contract, the openacs approach starts
with mature software that is not being updated: while this sounds
worse at first (no freebie new features) it is in effect a much
cleaner and more stable platform to build on. (We can, of course,
port new features from other systems on an incremental basis, but
we'll never have to go through a total system port, which can be
seriously painful, especially if we develop our own things.)

I think that it is probably the case that Dale's proof-of-concept
system is mature enough (as is the openacs-based system) that we
should start moving toward a decision here. Let's thrash that out
in email here on webdev, then have a meeting to finalize a decision.
OK?

-- 
/*
  *  Tom Hull * thull2 at cox.net * http://www.tomhull.com/
  */