Yves,
I am, as well as you say to be, not a programmer. Education-wise I have finance background, albeit I was always attracted to the techie side of my profession.
While I would agree with you that running something like postnuke (ar most other LAMP-type solution) is easier, I would not go as far as to say that OACS has never been easy for a non-programmer. It has become (a lot) more difficult for a non-programmer in 4 and 5 incarnations, but 3.x was quite easy.
The general issue is that many of alternatives are wel-packaged things that one can either RPM or apt-get install, while it is generally not the case with at least 2 main componanets of OACS: AOL Server (in OACS-acceptable config) and the toolkit itself.
Yet even first time around, nearly 3 years ago, it has not taken me more than a day or two to get a 3.4 (I think) running under Vmware on Debian GNU/Linux (not even a recommended RedHat, mind you).
On your second comment -- I'd tend to sympathise with you more than on the first. I also feel that to wrap my mind around current toolkit I'd need to spend *a* *lot* more time on it than I can/have. I simply lack proper training/background to be efficient.
Lastly, on the newbie forum -- I amnot sure that it' such a goof ides. If anything, the forum you've posted into should be the noob one -- developers have a spearate OpenACS Development one.
