I've read several post declaring that it was the existence of "step by step" online help/guides -- that specified particular versions, software and locations with links -- that enabled the poster to get ACS installed, learn what they needed to produce useful sites and succeed with ACS.
I think, for the community to thrive and grow -- with the enthusiasm regular infusions of new blood provides -- that there needs to be the same sort of step by step detailed guides for newbies now as there was when RH 6.2 was current. One for each platform known to work be it RH 7.2, FreeBSD, OpenBSD Potato or whatever. A guide someone new to *nix could sit down with and, assuming no incompatible hardware, follow to have a working Open/ACS system to learn and grow on.
While it's true that "you can just use whatever you like" and "lots of folks use RH 6.2 in production just fine", things are not quite so easy for a newbie. Take RH 6.2 for instance. The newbie will install the base distro -- then be faced with applying all the patches before they get rooted. Quite a task for a newbie to even get to the point of being able to do useful ACS stuff. For someone who has applied the patches over time, no big deal. It is a big deal for a newbie starting from scratch with the base distro. If there were a distro consisting of RH 6.2 with all patches applied and an up to date 2.2.20 kernel -- along with RPMs of the other packages needed for OpenACS, then "use this/our distro based on RH 6.2" would be OK advice for newbies IMO. But such is not the case today AFAIK.
I wish I had the time and expertise to produce the above. Because I would. Lacking the existance of said newbie resources, I think it would be quite helpful -- and in the community's benefit -- for current documentation to be at least updated with an eye to current versions and platforms that work -- and preferably enhanced to be more like the step by step guides of old geared to newbies working through the home study course and problems sets.
It's these newbies that will grow into producing and enhancing new ACS packages/modules. IMO, this community could really benefit from having OpenACS specific problem sets for working thru similar (or even the same, updated) learning task as existed in 1999 for Classic ACS, but dealing with Postgres instead of Oracle. The old problem sets have links to resouces that no longer work. Not good for newbies.
Again, I want to be able in good conscience to steer newbies to Open/ACS; but need to both know what specific advice to give as to what platform to get started with and know there are enough workable learning resources for them to sink their teeth into and learn how to develop useful communities and sites -- very similar to what one would learn working thru the Classic ACS problem sets in 1999.
Thank you for your input on this,
Louis
