Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Would OpenACS be a good choice for my web site?
this is how I see it, being - like you - someone who has little experience with programming.
I started using the excellent "Project-Open"-ERP in my company three years ago. Because it is based on OpenACS (although on an earlier version of the plattform), I recently got curious about how things work inside.
Well, it has been really frustrating. OpenACS is hard to install, very badly documented (the "up-to-date" documentation refers to a previous version of OpenACS). Afer all the hassle you just see a very spartan thing, where nothing seems to be there. You start installing packages, but some of them don't work (Photo Album). You uninstall them, reinstall, and they still don't work. You browse/search the forums, and there are confusing replies ("try this ... might work") and high nosed technical discussions. A quiet frustrating enterprise.
For your need I'd recommend a CMS like Joomla or Drupal. You can install then in no-time. They are attractive, easy to use and quiet reliable.
OpenACS is fascinating, but intended for software engineers only (in my oppinion).
Michael,
On Sun, 10 Aug 2008, mailto:m.marti.menzel@eurotransmit.com wrote:
this is how I see it, being - like you - someone who has little experience
with programming.
I wouldn't exactly say I had little programming experience. All my
experience might be described as "amateur" experience, though. I started
programming in BASIC in junior high and high school(mid to late '80s).
Although I went on to college after high school I unfortunately I dropped
out towards the end of my second semester. But, while I was there I
learned Pascal on a VAX 11/750, and dBase on PCs(286 PCs at the time to be
exact). At home I did quite a bit of dBase and Clipper programming
through the years, and still do. I'm currently using clip, a open source
Clipper compatible compiler from www.itk.ru, on my FreeBSD box at home.
For the past decade or so I've been working as an IBM mainframe operator.
At work I've done a bit of COBOL, Eztrieve, and Gener/OL programming and
have picked up the basics of IBM mainframe assembler. And, as for web
environments I've tried PHP, Python, and Ruby.
Well, it has been really frustrating. OpenACS is hard to install, very
badly documented (the "up-to-date" documentation refers to a previous
version of OpenACS). Afer all the hassle you just see a very spartan
thing, where nothing seems to be there.
Installation can be a challenge. I've got it working on FreeBSD using the
OpenACS port from the FreeBSD ports collection, and I've also managed to
get it working installing everything from source on OpenSolaris.
After a couple of tries it's become obvious the OpenACS community doesn't
want newcommers. My post you replied to is about a year old which is back
when I first tried OpenACS. Back then I ran into problems just trying to
get through the developer's tutorial, which one would expect to be one of
the first things a new developer would try. One problem I was told was
due to a four to five year old bug that should have been fixed long ago.
Well, I'm back a year later and the tutorial hadn't changed, and the same
bugs are still present. I posted to the forum and received no replies.
Eventually I tried asking a few questions on the IRC channel and finally
got through the tutorial with some help from there and a couple of
patches. Then, I was told the tutorial in no way, shape, or form
resembles current best practices. It was written before the content
repository TCL API was complete. And although the content repository TCL
API is now complete, the tutorial has never been updated. This is a
paragraph near the beginning of the tutorial:
This tutorial uses the content repository package. This radically
simplifies the database work, but forces us to work around the content
repository's limitations, including an incomplete TCL API. So the
tutorial is messier than we'd like right now. Code that is temporary
hackage is clearly marked.
It's clear parts of the tutorial were meant to temporary. But, as long as
it's been since the tutorial has been updated those parts are bordering on
being permanent.
The rest of the documentation is in a similar shape. The front page of
the web site says 5.4.1 is the current version. The project status page,
from the link in the "About OpenACS" menu on the right hand side, says the
current version is 5.3.2. The FAQ says PDF documentation is available,
but the link from the FAQ is to a forum post, which in turn has a link to
a rough draft of some 5.2.x PDF documentation.
I asked on IRC if someone could point me towards some packages that were
examples of current best practices. I was told there are none. I even
offered to try to write a tutorial from a newbie perspective if someone
would give me some example code showing current best practices. I was
told that would be great, but no one has come forward with any code
examples. I think I've just about given up on OpenACS. A little while
back I converted one of my web sites to Django to see how I liked it. I
like it fairly well but I'm considering moving towards Ruby on Rails. I
think I like Ruby a little better than Python.
Another bit of misleading documentation - The main page on the OpenACS web
site says it's one of the most active open source projects in the world.
That would imply that there are lots of folks working on it. If that were
true, one would think some of the folks actively working on OpenACS would
concentrate on documentation, and that some would be willing to help
newbies. Of all the times I've recently visited the OpenACS web site, the
largest number of members I've seen signed on has been two. Right at the
moment, none are signed on. That doesn't sound very active.
You start installing packages, but some of them don't work (Photo
Album). You uninstall them, reinstall, and they still don't work.
I've gotten the Photo Album to work on all my installs. On my most recent
installs I couldn't get it to install from the repository. I had to
download the package manually, then install from the local files.
You browse/search the forums, and there are confusing replies ("try this
... might work") and high nosed technical discussions. A quiet
frustrating enterprise.
You couldn't be more right there.
For your need I'd recommend a CMS like Joomla or Drupal. You can install
then in no-time. They are attractive, easy to use and quiet reliable.
OpenACS is fascinating, but intended for software engineers only (in my
oppinion).
Well, I've looked at both Joomla and Drupal in the past but I don't care
much for PHP. For now Django is serving me well, and Rails might be
serving me well in the near future.
Kevin
http://www.RawFedDogs.net
http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org
Bruceville, TX
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
Longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla!!!
