[Tclweb-admin] Re: Tcl Web Site(s)

[Mark H. <ma...@us...>]

Brent Welch <we...@pa...> wrote:
> My
> understanding is that the box running tcltk.com is also running some asiainfo
> services.

Yes, that's right.  Actually some very interesting services, in fact.

> Yeah, that's probably
> best.  We'll need to set up a commitinfo script so we can have several
> modules that are writable by different contributors.  Mark - are you open
> to that?

I don't even bother with the commitinfo... Unruly contributors (Michael
is a notable example) are held in check by the fear of receiving a
sternly worded note from me should they trespass their natural boundaries.

From your description my goals were probably a bit different for tclweb
and tcltk.com.  I wanted:

    1. a site that could be collaboratively managed via cvs
    2. a site that could be easily replicated to multiple servers
    3. a simple site
    4. one or two interesting features

Details:

1.  Many very complex solutions have been proposed for this problem,
    but CVS does just about everything you need for collaborative
    web site development.  It provides other benefits such as an
    increased level of security and accountability.

2.  I replicate the site to a box in China.  The speed difference
    is very noticable.  I hope one day that tcl will be popular enough
    that multiple sites will want to be a part of a worldwide mirroring
    system.

    To that end, I wanted the smallest administrative overhead necessary.
    To mirror tcltk.com, all you need is:

        an existing apache or iplanet setup
        a spare IP address on your box
        anonymous CVS client access to sourceforge
        willing to install the KAP plugin into your iplanet or apache server
        a few 10's of megabytes of disk

    This also makes it easy for contributors to develop content.  If you
    have a linux box with apache, all you need to do is add kap (about a
    10 minute job), checkout the project, and you have a full mirror
    on your desk.

3.  Coz my web pages are butt-ugly when I try to get fancy.

4.  Such as (on our china server only) serving WAP pages to GSM phones.
    In this sense it is a bit of a laboratory for some of my real
    work at AsiaInfo.

I'm not too concerned about having a comprehensive portal service,
and things like personalization are (imo) a bit overkill.  I like
sites like cpan.org and python.org, which have a lot of useful
material without a lot of fluff.

>  > Is this the same effort as the "tclweb" project?  If not, how do
>  > these two projects complement or compete with one another?

Brent's vision is grander than mine.  Scriptics had serious
portal intentions, and it shows.  I continue Alfredo's vision of
trying to put together some useful things.  I have new sets of
PFD docs waiting to be uploaded, for example.

>  > I want to help.  The natives on c.l.t. are growing restless in their
>  > desire for an "official home" for Tcl on the web.

I don't know how official it is, but I and several other people
amuse ourselves with it occasionally.  And it *is* referenced
by Eric Raymond, after all.

So if you would like to fiddle around, drop me a note and I'll
add you to the project.

[incr Cheers],
Mark

BTW, I've forgotten the administrative password to tclweb-admin,
so don't feel bad if you don't get approved.  Now that somebody
is actually showing some interest I'll move the mailing list over
to yahoo groups, which at least seems to remember my password
for me.