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From: Philippe M. <mak...@fi...> - 2009-11-18 09:07:23
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Hi all, tjelvare [09-11-06 21.50] : > It seems like everyone agrees on that a new site is a good idea. > > * Are there any useful drafts done, functionality, layout? > > * Does the current site has any specific server-functionality > that the dev-team are dependent of? > > * I can setup an open wiki with drafts and roadmap. > Please inform me regarding need of approval from foundation. > > (I registered for the website@-mailgroup but still dead silent) So I break the silence and push this thread here. Can we move on that ? Is there one of us than can make a clear standing of what can be done, when and by who ? Some members gave money for that (http://www.firebirdsql.org/html/web_redevelopment.html) I saw from time to time some suggestion, but nothing else. So please jump, and see together if we can rewamp the Firebird web site for our 10th anniversary in 2010 (31 Jul 2000 : The Firebird Project was born). |
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From: Helen B. <he...@ii...> - 2009-11-19 00:21:40
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At 07:49 AM 19/11/2009, tjelvar eriksson wrote: >Finally I belive we're not getting anywhere - I'm not happy anyway. Talk is cheap. These discussions never go anywhere because people like you always insist on putting the cart before the horse. What we need - and always have needed - is a team of people who are willing to take responsibility, coordinate their efforts and do the actual work. How it is done emerges from the skills and time available in that team. That means figuring out *first* what we want to have on the website, *next* how to get it (today, tomorrow, next month, next year) and *finally*, how to deliver and maintain it. >Thing are compex. Yes... Not as complex as you (and other talkers-not-doers) seem to want them to be. >Efforts have been made. Yes.... ..but any progress? Progress happens when efforts are targeted and people are motivated. Cosmetic attempts are fun for the cosmetician but they don't address the objective in any practical way. "Analysis first" is a principle most of us should be familiar with. >Do we wan't firebird to be fairly unknown? Maby. It's convinient in a >way. Work out something intelligent to define what you think "known" (and "unknown") mean, what is good or bad about both and what you could do to improve the situation. >But if firebird is an true open source project, A true open source project is one where the source code for a software product is available to anyone. So Firebird is a true open source project - no "if" about it. >the community should be heard and invited. OK - start by defining this "community" - especially the ways that people (including yourself) make it "a community" and earn the right to "heard and invited". Try to define just *who* has the duty and obligation that you imply in these assertions of yours that always invoke "should" and *why* such people have these obligations >PAUL, Are you still the official Coordinator of firebird documentation >project, share your thoughts! If you were in any way involved in the community of Firebird workers (which we know you are not) you would not need to ask that question. But, since you asked the question, Yes, he is, and he won't tell you that it's only a name for what he does for you, on his own time for no reward and rarely any thanks. Paul develops and maintains the toolset that generates our online and downloadable documentation. He documents everything he does so that it is ready and available for anyone else who comes along with a genuine desire to be a documentation worker. He keeps that documentation online and up-to-date as well. If that were not enough, he is, in reality, the default editor and rewriter of all the project material, although there's no contract that says he must be. Except for one writer who is developing fresh documentation for the command-line tools, it is Paul, alone, who has written virtually all of the documentation other than the release notes. >respectfully, Oh, really? Wickering and wibbling about what other people haven't done or should be doing is the antithesis of respect for those who actually DO something. It is demotivating. Demotivation inhibits progress in ALL areas of a voluntary community and will kill it, eventually. Think about that sometimes, when you troll in our lists. If you have talents that could be contributed to the cause of improving Firebird's web presence AND you are willing to contribute them, then list them out. That's a good starting place for *everyone* here who desires the improvement of our web presence and wants to participate in progressing it. Helen |
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From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-19 06:54:46
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Helen Borrie wrote: > At 07:49 AM 19/11/2009, tjelvar eriksson wrote: > >> Finally I belive we're not getting anywhere - I'm not happy anyway. > Talk is cheap. These discussions never go anywhere because people like you always insist on putting the cart before the horse. What we need - and always have needed - is a team of people who are willing to take responsibility, coordinate their efforts and do the actual work. How it is done emerges from the skills and time available in that team. That means figuring out *first* what we want to have on the website, *next* how to get it (today, tomorrow, next month, next year) and *finally*, how to deliver and maintain it. I'll snip the rest but I agree with all of Helen's comments. While I may seem to be pushing the 'wiki', I practical terms - personally - I see no problem with the existing web site. I had hopped by now a few more people would be supporting the wiki, with a view to expanding it's influence, and also integrating more directly into the documentation project - yes and the tracker - but that has not happened. If all that people want is a new theme for the existing site, then so be it. It's not something that interests me and I'll carry on working with my own developments in using Firebird to build dynamic web services. Currently there IS a good web presence for Firebird, across a number of sites, but I am sure that a single focus is required, which can then direct people to sites which support them in their own languages .... -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
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From: Tjelvar E. <tj...@fa...> - 2009-11-19 10:45:42
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Helen, I belive you missunderstand me. I'm not trolling the maillist - I have come up with ideas on how to get reinitiate a new site, as I was informed that current work had stalled. I have never tried to insult anyone for any work, neither web nor doc-team, on the contrary, I've stated that no team shuld be forced to abandon working way of doing things. I'm don't think i'm putting the wagon before the horse, (the expression is new to me), if you read my posts you may find that I'm trying to gather interest and engagement in a new site. I've pondered the list for any interest in a roadmap, requested drafts and whitepapers. I'm trying to find a new way of getting the wagon on the road, since the current situation seems to be half-abandoned attepmts that obviously hasn't reached the audience outside the allready initiated firebird-community. As I've stated I have years of experience with building web-applications with firebird as a fully functional database. Back in 2001 I migrated a fairly big 24/7 community from mssql/asp to firebird/php, the performance gains where huge. You may find me offensive, but I belive you should consider it as commitment. And I belive that "What we have works" is demotivating as well. Collecting ideas, requrirements, sketches before coding, making sure everyone's happy at the end, is still the best way to go forward. If BW fits the bill, perfect. This initial process could hopefully create engagement and create a working team. Since I'm abit new on the block I wouldn't suggest myself as the project team administrator, but if that's the actual need, I'd gladly aspire for the post. All the best, and respectfully, /tjelvare -- Ny e-postadress: Tjelvar Eriksson tj...@fa... -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and love email again |
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From: Daniel A. <d.a...@gm...> - 2009-11-19 12:50:39
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Hello, I'm watching this list because I reported a website-defect quite some time ago and stayed on the list because it is very low-volume and find this discussion both interesting and important. 2009/11/19 Carlos H. Cantu <li...@wa...>: [snip] > So, FirebirdSQL has news? Yes. Does it has articles (docs)? Yes, Does > it has Download area? Yes. So, imho, this is enough to justify using a > DB backend and dynamic pages. > > Also, DB backend makes it much easier to implement RSS feeds. Nowadays, > this is one of the best ways to keep people updated, and a must for > any decent site. I strongly second both points from Carlos. And I will further share my opinions and thoughts on this discussion when I find time to do so, maybe at the weekend. In short: - The Firebird-site should definitely switch to a CMS that supports Firebird as a backend, for (at least to me) obvious reasons. - There should be an "official" forum, because many people don't know how to use or don't want to use mailing-lists. - Firebird needs a more appealing website to attract potential users. Users judge the quality of a product by the website to quite a large degree. Regards, Daniel Albuschat -- eat(this); // delicious suicide |
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From: Philippe M. <mak...@fi...> - 2009-11-19 13:16:01
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Let move step by step we have few resources first I would thanks Marius as said Pavel > your help is greatly appreciated 1/ Can we first have proposal for a new web design (look) but still with the actual tecno used. It would be a good think to celebrate the new 2010 coming year. Marius, Pavel, Helen , your feeling about that ? Could Marius setup some proposal so we can vote for ? 2/ Thinking about improvement that could be done - may be we could think about setting a doc part the way PG have ie a doc with or without comments - about forum : I don't like web forum, but I can understand than some people prefer forum to mailing lists, so what about a forum linked to a mailing lists, like the newsgroup is linked to mailing lists This would have the main advantage that you don't have to follow various places. In fact IMHO, this are the only two new feature that would be needed in the Firebird web site, as said , there is no problem to link to other web site. And even for these new features for example if someone wanted to setup a forum linked to mailling list : do it and then we will link to it Same for the doc, if someone wanted to put the doc into a wiki so people can leave comments : do it, we will setup the links But please, we have a lot of work for few people involved, so KIS about database backend or not, I also prefer plain text than database back end but it should not be a religious point of vue. Let first decide what we wanted for the web site, and after that choose the right solution. |
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From: Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...> - 2009-11-19 13:58:53
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PC> Well, there are about ~20 news entries per *year* on our site. Doesn't PC> seems to me that it calls for a database. Articles are all static and PC> change rarely, except Documentation that is in fact a single page that PC> points to thousands of *generated* pages. Can't see how database fits to PC> it either. Download is just few fancy pages that point to SourceForge PC> downloads. Anybody can go directly to SF download page for them. Maybe one of the reasons for the "low volume of news/changes" is just the fact that any update must be done editing manually some page(s), and uploading it to the server, what I consider a boring task, specially for busy people. PC> What RSS feeds? For news? There are few and all are immediately taken by PC> FirebirdNews and other sites (that have RSS feeds and much much more PC> news content). "immediately taken" means that Marius and me needs to keep manually monitoring/checking FBSQL site everyday to know when something was changed, and replicate this to FBNews. Just look our "competitors", all of them have RSS in their pages, no matter how many times it gets updated over the year. BTW, I'm not trying to impose anything. I just commented my own experience. []s Carlos H. Cantu www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br |
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From: Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...> - 2009-11-19 15:57:43
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Helen Borrie wrote: > Talk is cheap. ... > Not as complex as you (and other talkers-not-doers) seem to want them to be. > ... > "Analysis first" is a principle most of us should be familiar with. > ... > > Work out something intelligent to define what you think "known" (and "unknown") mean, what is good or bad about both and what you could do to improve the situation. > ... > OK - start by defining this "community" - especially the ways that people (including yourself) make it "a community" and earn the right to "heard and invited". Try to define just *who* has the duty and obligation that you imply in these assertions of yours that always invoke "should" and *why* such people have these obligations > ... > If you were in any way involved in the community of Firebird workers (which we know you are not) you would not need to ask that question. ... > Think about that sometimes, when you troll in our lists. > > If you have talents that could be contributed to the cause of improving Firebird's web presence AND you are willing to contribute them, then list them out. That's a good starting place for *everyone* here who desires the improvement of our web presence and wants to participate in progressing it. > Are you sure this is thw way to make newcomers feel welcome and to encourage new contributions? -- Giovanni |
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From: tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...> - 2009-11-19 19:59:54
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Giovanni, Thank you for your support, Helen barked at me some years ago at yahoo, just by asking, so I was neither surprised nor intimdated, ;-) I agree with you completly regarding the visual differences, there is much that can be done. The sitemaintainers admits that they're not proffessional designers and there's nothing wrong with that. What matters is if we can work forward together or we're just hitting the fence. I'm pondering if a new "site/promition-group" should be initiated here and now, with a resulting draft / white-paper to the foundation for consideration, on the other hand, maby the foundation should first create a plan or at least an open topic / request for how to increase market share and public acknowledge, it goes in line with http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=ffoundation "To encourage cooperation and affiliation with individuals, other non-profit organisations and commercial companies involved in, or planning to become involved in the development, support and promotion of Firebird software projects and associated products and activities." Regarding the flatfile/ database - debate, it's perhaps irrelevant at current stage, however, if a drupal-powered homepage can create "increased market share and public acknowledge", this should be taken into account. All the best, /tjelvar 19 nov 2009 kl. 16.57 skrev Giovanni Premuda: > Helen Borrie wrote: >> Talk is cheap. > ... >> Not as complex as you (and other talkers-not-doers) seem to want >> them to be. >> > ... >> "Analysis first" is a principle most of us should be familiar with. >> > ... >> >> Work out something intelligent to define what you think >> "known" (and "unknown") mean, what is good or bad about both and >> what you could do to improve the situation. >> > ... >> OK - start by defining this "community" - especially the ways that >> people (including yourself) make it "a community" and earn the >> right to "heard and invited". Try to define just *who* has the >> duty and obligation that you imply in these assertions of yours >> that always invoke "should" and *why* such people have these >> obligations >> > ... >> If you were in any way involved in the community of Firebird >> workers (which we know you are not) you would not need to ask that >> question. > ... >> Think about that sometimes, when you troll in our lists. >> >> If you have talents that could be contributed to the cause of >> improving Firebird's web presence AND you are willing to contribute >> them, then list them out. That's a good starting place for >> *everyone* here who desires the improvement of our web presence and >> wants to participate in progressing it. >> > Are you sure this is thw way to make newcomers feel welcome and to > encourage new contributions? > > -- > Giovanni > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 > 30-Day > trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and > focus on > what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with > Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > Firebird-website mailing list > Fir...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-19 17:02:54
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Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a): > > Maybe one of the reasons for the "low volume of news/changes" is just > the fact that any update must be done editing manually some page(s), > and uploading it to the server, what I consider a boring task, > specially for busy people. Nope, we publish only news directly related to the Project (releases, events, etc.). We'll never be anything-remotely-related-to-firebird news service. At best, we could show some article headers from FirebirdNews using RSS syndication, but it seems pointless nowadays. Nice image link to the FirebirdNews on main page would be much better, thought. > PC> What RSS feeds? For news? There are few and all are immediately taken by > PC> FirebirdNews and other sites (that have RSS feeds and much much more > PC> news content). > > "immediately taken" means that Marius and me needs to keep manually > monitoring/checking FBSQL site everyday to know when something was > changed, and replicate this to FBNews. > > Just look our "competitors", all of them have RSS in their pages, no > matter how many times it gets updated over the year. Yes, I know. I want to use SourceForge RSS feeds to feed our own website for few years, but initial feeds were not usable, then SF was in constant redesign and changes, then we're at the verge of complete fb site redesign, so implementing some minor enhancements to "old" site was pointless. But don't worry, it's still a planed feature. best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...> - 2009-11-19 17:15:31
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PC> Nope, we publish only news directly related to the Project PC> (releases, events, etc.). We'll never be PC> anything-remotely-related-to-firebird news service. At best, we PC> could show some article headers from FirebirdNews using RSS PC> syndication, but it seems pointless nowadays. Agree. FirebirdNews is a site who mostly anyone can post, as far the post is related to Firebird. News from the community to the community. Of course the project site must have only official news from the project itself, and maybe one or other news from other sources (when its worth). PC> Nice image link to the FirebirdNews on main page would be much PC> better, thought. We already have a nice button image, and it would be nice to have it in fbsql mainpage: http://www.firebirdnews.org/?page_id=105 Can you do this? []s Carlos H. Cantu www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-19 17:59:06
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Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a): > > We already have a nice button image, and it would be nice > to have it in fbsql mainpage: > > http://www.firebirdnews.org/?page_id=105 > > Can you do this? Certainly. Take a look (sidebar, Community section). best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...> - 2009-11-19 18:14:46
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PC> Certainly. Take a look (sidebar, Community section). Great! Thanks! []s Carlos H. Cantu www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br |
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From: marius a. p. <ma...@gm...> - 2009-11-18 09:59:37
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On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Philippe Makowski <mak...@fi...> wrote: > Hi all, > tjelvare [09-11-06 21.50] : >> It seems like everyone agrees on that a new site is a good idea. >> >> * Are there any useful drafts done, functionality, layout? >> >> * Does the current site has any specific server-functionality >> that the dev-team are dependent of? >> >> * I can setup an open wiki with drafts and roadmap. >> Please inform me regarding need of approval from foundation. >> >> (I registered for the website@-mailgroup but still dead silent) > So I break the silence and push this thread here. > > Can we move on that ? > Is there one of us than can make a clear standing of what can be done, when and by who ? > > Some members gave money for that (http://www.firebirdsql.org/html/web_redevelopment.html) > > I saw from time to time some suggestion, but nothing else. > > So please jump, and see together if we can rewamp the Firebird web site for our 10th > anniversary in 2010 (31 Jul 2000 : The Firebird Project was born). I talked with my boss Dan Masca from reea.net and we will alocate people for this task (we have something like 100 people:designers/webprogramers/linux admins ) I will be the project manager and the contact point Also on the list we should talk about project specs 1.We need a few designs to choose from 2.From designs mockups I should create the html (modern css based) 3.On final stage we should implement it in the actual code (we need access to the code) Later we can Choose an cms that supports firebird : drupal or later next year wordpress (after is ported) or site must be codded in something modern like django/cakphp > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day > trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on > what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with > Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > Firebird-website mailing list > Fir...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website > |
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From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-18 12:45:46
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marius adrian popa wrote: > Later we can > Choose an cms that supports firebird : drupal or later next year > wordpress (after is ported) > or site must be codded in something modern like django/cakphp So you are not prepared simply to add a new theme to the existing working wiki? It's all up and running, but does not get as much use as it should :( -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
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From: tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...> - 2009-11-18 12:56:04
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I'm afraid I have to disagree, "up and running" is relative... One of the most important features is a well laid out documentation, searchable and with easy navigation, or am I wrong? My apoligies if I sound harsh, all the credits to all the hard work done by everyone, but I really belive fb needs more than a mockup. All the best //tjelvar 18 nov 2009 kl. 13.45 skrev Lester Caine: > marius adrian popa wrote: >> Later we can >> Choose an cms that supports firebird : drupal or later next year >> wordpress (after is ported) >> or site must be codded in something modern like django/cakphp > > So you are not prepared simply to add a new theme to the existing > working wiki? > It's all up and running, but does not get as much use as it should :( > > -- > Lester Caine - G8HFL > ----------------------------- > Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact > L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk > EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ > Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// > Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 > 30-Day > trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and > focus on > what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with > Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > Firebird-website mailing list > Fir...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website |
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From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-18 13:53:57
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tjelvar eriksson wrote: > I'm afraid I have to disagree, "up and running" is relative... > > One of the most important features is a well laid out documentation, > searchable and with easy navigation, or am I wrong? > > My apoligies if I sound harsh, all the credits to all the hard work > done by everyone, but I really belive fb needs more than a mockup. > > All the best If nobody can be bothered to use what we have had for some considerable time ... We have been asking for input - which includes theming - for two years. This was the first fully functional CMS system using Firebird out of the box ... how many more are currently available of the shelf. The only reason it 'looks like a mockup' is that those of us who do use it are more interested in keeping the relevant notes in one place than esthetics ;) Have you actually looked at what COULD be done if someone took a little time to play? > //tjelvar > > 18 nov 2009 kl. 13.45 skrev Lester Caine: > >> marius adrian popa wrote: >>> Later we can >>> Choose an cms that supports firebird : drupal or later next year >>> wordpress (after is ported) >>> or site must be codded in something modern like django/cakphp >> So you are not prepared simply to add a new theme to the existing >> working wiki? >> It's all up and running, but does not get as much use as it should :( -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
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From: tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...> - 2009-11-18 15:03:47
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Hi Lester, > If nobody can be bothered to use what we have had for some > considerable time ... > We have been asking for input - which includes theming - for two > years. > This was the first fully functional CMS system using Firebird out of > the box ... I'm not sure I understand You, I'm new in this game and don't know anyting about the cms you're mentioning. What's the name of it? > Have you actually looked at what COULD be done if someone took a > little time to > play? Is it live somewhere in some condition? I do see benefits, regarding development and maintainence, of using a widely spread cms, but as said before, I belive that's a later discussion. > those of us who do use it are more interested in keeping > the relevant notes in one place than esthetics ;) Oh, sorry again, I just don't agree... ;-) Let's work for something that's inviting, clean and comprehensive. And that lasts over time. Peace and love, //t 18 nov 2009 kl. 14.30 skrev Lester Caine: > tjelvar eriksson wrote: >> I'm afraid I have to disagree, "up and running" is relative... >> >> One of the most important features is a well laid out documentation, >> searchable and with easy navigation, or am I wrong? >> >> My apoligies if I sound harsh, all the credits to all the hard work >> done by everyone, but I really belive fb needs more than a mockup. >> >> All the best > > If nobody can be bothered to use what we have had for some > considerable time ... > We have been asking for input - which includes theming - for two > years. > This was the first fully functional CMS system using Firebird out of > the box ... > how many more are currently available of the shelf. The only reason > it 'looks > like a mockup' is that those of us who do use it are more interested > in keeping > the relevant notes in one place than esthetics ;) > > Have you actually looked at what COULD be done if someone took a > little time to > play? > >> //tjelvar >> >> 18 nov 2009 kl. 13.45 skrev Lester Caine: >> >>> marius adrian popa wrote: >>>> Later we can >>>> Choose an cms that supports firebird : drupal or later next year >>>> wordpress (after is ported) >>>> or site must be codded in something modern like django/cakphp >>> So you are not prepared simply to add a new theme to the existing >>> working wiki? >>> It's all up and running, but does not get as much use as it >>> should :( > > > -- > Lester Caine - G8HFL > ----------------------------- > Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact > L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk > EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ > Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// > Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 > 30-Day > trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and > focus on > what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with > Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > Firebird-website mailing list > Fir...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website |
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From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-18 15:32:35
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tjelvar eriksson wrote: > Hi Lester, > >> If nobody can be bothered to use what we have had for some >> considerable time ... >> We have been asking for input - which includes theming - for two >> years. >> This was the first fully functional CMS system using Firebird out of >> the box ... > > I'm not sure I understand You, I'm new in this game and don't know > anyting about the cms you're mentioning. What's the name of it? > >> Have you actually looked at what COULD be done if someone took a >> little time to >> play? > > Is it live somewhere in some condition? > > I do see benefits, regarding development and maintainence, of using a > widely spread cms, > but as said before, I belive that's a later discussion. > >> those of us who do use it are more interested in keeping >> the relevant notes in one place than esthetics ;) > > Oh, sorry again, I just don't agree... ;-) > > Let's work for something that's inviting, clean and comprehensive. And > that lasts over time. http://wiki.firebirdsql.org/ There is a nice firebird theme but it was switched off early on until the colours could be tidied up. It's powered by bitweaver which was ported from tikiwiki in 2004 or so. I've been working with bitweaver since day one after finding that tikiwiki had some major problems with 'plugability'. While I left tikiwiki with firebird working, the later 'developments' have now left only a couple of working databases and restoring firebird is not now practical. Trying to add 'compatibility' later is a major drain on resources, so it needs to be done from the start. Currently only the wiki package is being used, but it has almost every other package you could want, they just get installed when you need them. There are some sites ( unfortunately not Firebird powered :( ) that even have fully functional forum's with a working email interface. In theory the existing lists could be mirrored in bitweaver, but it needs someone who understands the email side of things. -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-18 15:25:13
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marius adrian popa napsal(a): > I talked with my boss Dan Masca from reea.net and we will alocate > people for this task (we have something like 100 > people:designers/webprogramers/linux admins ) > I will be the project manager and the contact point That's great and your help is greatly appreciated. > Also on the list we should talk about project specs > > 1.We need a few designs to choose from I'd rather start with content requirements / site layout, then we may proceed to actual design. I'll post my take on it as separate thread. > 2.From designs mockups I should create the html (modern css based) Actually, it should be a set of HTML templates. The "sketch" HTML could be a start until we'll decide what template system we'd use. > 3.On final stage we should implement it in the actual code (we need > access to the code) Although the current site uses PHP, the amount of code is minimal (plus a lot of now defunct artefacts). It's mostly a glue code to assemble pages from various bits and pieces. The content itself is stored in flat text files (HTML chunks or PHP variables as data records). It's quite simple but very effective. I'd like keep it that way, although I would rather abandon PHP for something better (Python or Ruby) to handle the glue, and real HTML templates stored separately (now it's inside the PHP boilerplate code). BTW, I'm willing to commit myself to write the glue code in Python once the site structure would be defined. It's actually not much work using Pylons or any other modern framework, because all we need is just intelligent URL routing and some information gathering for templates. The real devil is in the templates itself, which I'd gladly delegate to someone more skilled in web design :) > Later we can > Choose an cms that supports firebird : drupal or later next year > wordpress (after is ported) > or site must be codded in something modern like django/cakphp We used CMS before and ditched it in favour of flat files. Working with content via web interface is slow and complicated, backup is unnecessarily complicated especially when any database is involved, there are security risk etc. It's great for sites over you haven't full administrative control and where almost everybody makes content, but that's not our case. We have only few webmasters that work with the content and we have the full control over the website's computer. On the other hand with minimal code behind and no database, it's really easy to have a local copy of the site kept in sync via rsync, unison or any syncing tool you like, and edit the content in your favourite text editor. The side effect is that we have several backup copies of the site all the time (each webmaster has one). It's also possible to store everything into SVN. The content is now stored as HTML "chunks" in separate files which isn't the best option (one must know and use the HTML/CSS used by our site), so I'd like adopt some more markup-independent format (reStructured Text is great candidate) for new one, but I'd like keep the general concept for content management. best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-18 15:49:44
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Pavel Cisar wrote: > We used CMS before and ditched it in favour of flat files. Working with > content via web interface is slow and complicated, backup is > unnecessarily complicated especially when any database is involved, > there are security risk etc. Why is backup complicated? cron job drops a copy of the database into a suitable directory, and rsync clones everything. It's been working fine for me for some time now. If the main server goes down, just point to the backup. Advantage of having all the content in a database ... site search ... potentially across wiki, news, blogs, forums and file galleries. WHy would you not use Firebird ..... -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-18 16:31:58
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Lester Caine napsal(a): > > Why is backup complicated? cron job drops a copy of the database into > a suitable directory, and rsync clones everything. It's been working > fine for me for some time now. If the main server goes down, just > point to the backup. For "file copy" you would need to take the server down or use nbackup (which we'll do only over my dead body), or we'll have to go with gbak. I agree that it's not a rocket science, but it introduces additional points of failure to the system. We're running the website from relatively small VMWare virtual machine located at the other end of the world (no webmaster resides on American continents), so if we could avoid the database, then better for us poor admins. Tracker is enough for us to handle in such setup, and we have no intention to "promote" so far zero-maintenance website to this level. > Advantage of having all the content in a database ... site search ... > potentially across wiki, news, blogs, forums and file galleries. 1. Site search could be actually faster from flat files than from database if there isn't any full-text that could work with Firebird. 2. We don't need blogs, forums or extensive news on Firebird website. There are other sites that do them all already. Firebird website is for documentation, downloads, link "address book" to other resources and for Firebird project members (developers, docwritters, QA etc.) to help them do their work and to potentially attract new contributors. It's definitely not a community site and shouldn't become one. It should be a display case for the project, static and tightly controlled. 3. As wiki goes, it doesn't necessarily needs a database as backend, and we could probably use already existing one or use one provided by SourceForge anyway, and soft-embed it into our site. 4. Using a database would force us to work with site content over the web (or other) interface, which is unnecessary and in fact counter-productive in our case. > WHy would you not use Firebird ..... Database is a database, it doesn't matter which one. We use Firebird at our tracker, and as painless it is, it's still just a necessary evil (JIRA doesn't work without a database) that adds to administrator's responsibilities. I already have a headache over tracker's much needed upgrade (whole stack, OS, Java, Tomcat, JIRA, FB, with really nasty requirements and dependencies), as we're far behind in our duty to keep it current, patched and secured. The fact that it still works is a small miracle. So until you're not willing to provide an administrator that would commit her/himself to it's maintenance for foreseeable future, you shouldn't propose any database, CMS or whatever fancy thing you might be tempted to use. Any solution for our new website should have zero-maintenance and nearly zero-complexity for backup/update/upgrade. The fever "working" parts it would have, the better. best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-18 17:13:56
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Pavel Cisar wrote: > Lester Caine napsal(a): >> Why is backup complicated? cron job drops a copy of the database into >> a suitable directory, and rsync clones everything. It's been working >> fine for me for some time now. If the main server goes down, just >> point to the backup. > > For "file copy" you would need to take the server down or use nbackup > (which we'll do only over my dead body), or we'll have to go with gbak. > I agree that it's not a rocket science, but it introduces additional > points of failure to the system. We're running the website from > relatively small VMWare virtual machine located at the other end of the > world (no webmaster resides on American continents), so if we could > avoid the database, then better for us poor admins. Tracker is enough > for us to handle in such setup, and we have no intention to "promote" so > far zero-maintenance website to this level. Actually I meant cron job drops BACKUP into a directory .... My main machine is over in Germany and I have no problem maintaining it from the UK. If the current machine is a bottleneck I have more than enough space to add another site, and unlimited bandwidth. I had thought one of the complaints about the current setup was that things were very disjointed. I'm more than happy to maintain this - as far as I am concerned it is very little work. And properly set up, we can even maintain translated versions of the content in parallel. Perhaps at some point we can even integrate the tracker and considerably simplify maintaining that as well ;) ( I did offer to provide that via bw's tracker before it was changed! ) In the meantime the how about using the facilities that do exist rather than 'creating a wiki with drafts and roadmap' - just use the existing wiki ? People may find they like it :) -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-18 18:29:43
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Lester Caine napsal(a): > > My main machine is over in Germany and I have no problem maintaining it from the > UK. If the current machine is a bottleneck I have more than enough space to add > another site, and unlimited bandwidth. The problem is not in the machine. Actually, it works quite well, and occasional issues were always resolved "quickly" (there is some lag as Sean is in different time zone than most of us). Having someone closely related to the project in site to take care of it when necessary is also important. The website VM has no issues and require no maintenance in current setup, and any infrastructure upgrades wouldn't be any issue either as we don't use anything fancy besides Apache and PHP. The problem is JIRA VM. Again, the VM works ok, but due to all these fancy technologies used, it's very hard to maintain it (especially when one is no Java/Tomcat wizard). My point is that we want to keep the website simple and a breeze to work with, as there is no real reason to go JIRA-route with it. > Perhaps at some point we can even integrate the tracker and considerably > simplify maintaining that as well ;) ( I did offer to provide that via bw's > tracker before it was changed! ) Actually, the tracker itself works quite well (although it's not a speed daemon). However, it's not easy to tinker with its setup and nobody would dare to play with it directly and risk that he would break so important project facility. We really depend heavily on our tracker, and we can't afford to take it down for more than few hours. > In the meantime the how about using the facilities that do exist rather than > 'creating a wiki with drafts and roadmap' - just use the existing wiki ? People > may find they like it :) I'm all for using existing facilities :) Will take a look on its current state and we'll see how far it would go. best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-18 19:12:31
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Pavel Cisar wrote: > The > problem is JIRA VM. Again, the VM works ok, but due to all these fancy > technologies used, it's very hard to maintain it (especially when one is > no Java/Tomcat wizard). My point is that we want to keep the website > simple and a breeze to work with, as there is no real reason to go > JIRA-route with it. That was my own original objection to the new tracker ... ;) All my own sites use is Apache/PHP and Firebird and some I get phone calls within minutes if there is a problem, but touch wood - that is currently very rare. Apart from pigging Matrox disks, I can get in remotely and have them working again usually while they are still on the phone! -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
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