[Smaug] CMS strengths/weaknesses

[cerise@armory.com]

On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 01:38:53PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> But, of course, nobody said anything about being caring whether people
> can "tell what CMS generated the code for the site".  That's Phil's
> invention du jour.

<TYPICAL-DULL-RICK-EGO-DEFLATION>
Actually, Rick, my invention du jour is a multithreaded improvement to
a signal processing suite.  It's quite good.  The numbers show it.

Since you insist on playing this game, you may wish to remind yourself
of this post:
http://lists.svlug.org/archives/smaug/2005q4/001372.html

In which you say:

"Problems of CMSes include:

[snipping point 1 for brevity -- Ed.]

2.  They passively but massively resist customisation.  Drupal in 
particular is infamous for this.  What I mean is:  Everyone starts out
with:  "Oh, but our Drupal site _won't_ look like a funny looking
Slashdot, unlike every other one out there."  And yet, they always do --
because although in _theory_ you can customise and theme your way out of
that trap, in practice nobody ever does. 

E.g., after years of unfulfilled promises, SSC, Inc.'s rump version of 
Linux Gazette at http://www.linuxgazette.com/ _still_ looks like a
funny-looking Slashdot (after 100% of the magazine staff decided to pull
up stakes and move the magazine to http://linuxgazette.net/).

I cannot offhand think of a Drupal site that's an exception.  I welcome
counter-examples, and welcome even more so tips about how they achieved
that."

While we're on the topic of inventions du jour, I'm pleased in a parental
sort of way that you think I invented your words.  It remains insulting,
of course, that you think I'd invent something so poor as your words (as
wonderfully and coincidentally illustrated by your lapse in grammar).  I,
nonetheless, assume the slight wasn't intended as you clearly seem to
enjoy reading yourself type.
</TYPICAL-DULL-RICK-EGO-DEFLATION>

Oh, and since we appear to be back in that mode, I'm going to revive my
policy from the SlugLUG days when you got uppity -- this is my last
reply to you on the topic of whether or not appearing like Drupal is
a problem.

Meanwhile, back to the important stuff...

Jay, you're absolutely right.  I've heard a number of comments about how
the SlugLUG is alive and well based on their website, but I suspect that
the same effect can be had with some regular website maintenance.

For one, I believe Drupal will be a major step up in that realm.  Editing 
and submitting new pages via CVS on a remote system is a nice idea, but a 
bit unwieldy in practice.

-Phil/CERisE