Forum OpenACS Q&A: Off topic: MMbase

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Posted by Jun Yamog on
Hi,

Anybody have good knowledge of mmbase? (mmbase.org)?

Yes I love OpenACS, Aolserver Tcl, etc. but there still some clients
and solutions that prefer other things than OpenACS.

mmbase is a java servlet based framework also have a nifty object
based was of organizing content.  I have ask the dev community there
about how it compares with OpenACS.  I guess they haven't heard about
OpenACS.  They are apples and oranges but still they have some stuff
in common.  And besides I come from OpenACS and would like to compare
roughly what mmbase can do and can't do.  What are the pluses and minuses.

I wont go for ACS Java, its very similar with Tcl so very little
pluses and minuses.  The languages does not make a big difference.
Also ACS Java has almost no community support and now no commercial
support.

Anybody in the OpenACS community that uses another platform other than
OpenACS?  - pretty silly question to be asked on openacs.org.
Preferably a platform that complements with OpenACS, attacks the same
problem with a very different method.

Dont get me wrong I love OpenACS and will contine to help but there
are some clients and solutions that OpenACS does not fit well.

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Posted by defunct defunct on
We've previously developed a system using Tomcat 4/JBoss for a J2EE style development.

I won't bore you with the details here, as I hoped to post up a more formal comparision at some point.. but what I can tell you is..

I'll definately be pushing customers even harder toward OACS. I think the big problem that Java based solutions have in the web world is, and I apologies for paraphrasing Mr. Greenspun in this, is:

  • Websites are pretty easy.
  • Java is pretty hard work compared to TCL.
  • The web is strings based, Java is not (TCL is).
  • It takes *at least* twice as long to do a service in a Java stylee as it does to use the OACS.
  • Although Tomcat 4 is pretty quick... JBOSS runs like a dog... therefore benefits lost...
  • I still haven't found a better more all-round web server than AOLServer.
  • I can't stand compilers! (Thats a purely personal preference)
  • But most importantly, the Java community is almost TOO big. Its full of good ideas, good startpoints and lots of clever people doing their 'thing'. Unfortunately I did find that it lacks coordination and too much software is re-inventing wheels, or just never really gets finished.

    I still think OACS wins over VS a Java approach, if for no better reason than, its matured better. I do hope to write up a better comparison of the the two projects I'm referring to, but not quite had time yet
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    Posted by Jun Yamog on
    Thanks Simon for the reply.  I appreciate the inputs.  I hope more people will put their real experiences with other platforms.  I look forward to read your study about this.

    I am interested in mmbase as a complement alternative platform not as a replacement for OpenACS.

    OpenACS is very good, I love it and will continue to develop on it but its not the only platform.  It has its strengths and weaknesses.  Its like Windows and Unix, my stand is that both have its places.  But I do love Linux and wish windows to crash and crash... hehehe.  The same stand that I have with aolserver and java servlets, both has its uses.

    As I have noted OpenACS may not be for all clients and solutions.  We even had a client that dictated to use Windows + Apache + Perl + Access.  It was really funny at first but in the end it was a better platform than OpenACS.  Also we had a happy client and did not have to fight about his insistence of his platform.  Because the web app is in a CD that was installed in small businesses.

    I find mmbase to be different just take a look at this:

    http://www.mmbase.org/projects/remote/mmbaseremoteservices.html

    I dont think it would be logical to reimplement that on aolserver tcl.  The same way it was not logical for aD to reimplement what they had on tcl in Java.

    mmbase and openacs also have some overlapping stuff.  This why I am looking for community members in OpenACS that may have knowledge and experience on it or similar to mmbase.  OpenACS is not heard in the mmbase community so here I am with this off topic post.

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    Posted by Don Baccus on
    Interesting ... I've done a little poking around. Being able to hook up arbitrary hardware to your website (or expose your CD ROM player to anyone on the net) is indeed probably something not on the horizon here!

    I find the home page claim:

     MMBase separates content from layout, in this way information can be reused easily.
    
    interesting when they then define SCAN, a scripting language not terribly unlike the ATS language in look-and-feel, EXCEPT that SCAN includes tags to embed SQL snippets directly.

    So a web designer using this apparently is supposed to understand a little SQL on the side. If they use SCAN - they also say that the community focuses on JSP. This means that their target web designer is really a JSP scripter, much like ours is a Tcl scripter.

    Anyway, while all the content is in the DB (sounds familiar) any SCAN page that retrieves content has to know something about how things are stored in the DB. So "content is separate from layout" but the folks doing layout at the "web designer" level need to know how to tease content out of the RDBMS.

    It would be interesting to see what their object datamodel looks like ...

    Their editor section (docs for people called "editors") talks about a bunch of canned editors (canned doc types) you can use to add content of various types. This sounds conceptually about what ETP+Templates wants to be when it grows up and has a lot more templated options available for it "out of the box"? Or what CMS+Templates wanted to be except maybe MMBase is a lot more user-friendly in the UI department?

    This is all from a 15 minute reading of docs. I get the impression that they actually divide the world in much the way the OpenACS 4 world is divided except in our world if you want to hack packages you need to learn Tcl (while in practice it sounds like you probably need to be able to hack JSP, not just SCAN, pages in theirs). In principle non-hackers might be able to customize ATS pages a bit more easily than SCAN pages (or at least with less risk of mucking them up) simply because SCAN pages do have those embedded SQL snippets in them.

    My other impression is that on the pure content managment level they're considerably farther along than ETP or CMS. It might be worth investigating for ideas on UI etc.

    And as Jun says, they do some things that we just don't and probaby won't do in regard to distributed stuff including distributed hardware stuff.

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    Posted by Jun Yamog on
    Hi,

    One thing I can say is that their interface is not as good as you would think.  They also have a more technical interface much like OpenACS.  Although maybe due to their design they have a unified editor that is able to edit almost all of their contents.  I think this editor also gives users the power to relate one object to another.  The one that I have seen that has a good interface is opencms.  It really puts my work in modetp to shame.  But I think opencms is too specific for its tasks.

    You can check out the screen shots of mmbase editor here:

    http://www.mmbase.org/mmbasenew/index2.shtml?about+1069

    I have tried the editor myself.  It does not have a fancy interface but it sure can edit almost all objects in mmbase plus adding relationships.  On the post URL above you can also see the apparent design of the system on the left hand right hand side.  Those images, people and urls appeared there because it was related to that article.
    So as I see it mmbase approaches the problem of cms with different objects that can relate to each other.  When an object is pulled it shows also other related objects.

    OpenACS ETP approaches it to be at this context want content will I display.  Then according to the template it may show objects at the same level, lower level or higher level on its context.

    Both approaches has its merits and uses.

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    Posted by Don Baccus on
    It wouldn't be that hard to add the relationship-between-objects stuff to ETP's datamodel, but maybe figuring out a sensible UI that still fits nicely with the existing paradigm might be hard?

    Thanks for the note about their UI being weaker than one might think from reading their overview, I'll try to get some time to chase that link soon.

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    Posted by Jun Yamog on
    Hi Don,

    I guess it would not be that hard for ETP 2.  I will bring this up with Luke.  Currently all ETP cr_items uses the a cr_folder as a parent_id.  So there is nothing stoping us using the parent_id to another cr_item.  Then build upon the interface.

    Right now the current direction of ETP 2 is use a more simple UI or specific for a content type rather than the extensible ETP 1 UI.  The plus of this is that we will have a better interface.  This is also a proof why mmbase does not have a good interface (but good enough) since the editor is a jack of all trades content editor.