Re: [WebMacro-user] Performance of WM

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

Lane Sharman wrote:
>> I don't believe we have any stats but:
> 
> 
> not true. run ant test and then look at the working directory :).

I mean WM vs. PHP stats.

>> PHP is really a "quick fix" language, i.e. for hacking sites together 
>> quickly or using existing "Portal" tools like PHP Nuke. Serious things 
>> with scalability and performance considerations are much better done 
>> in Java, but take a bit longer to develop.
> 
> 
> I disagree with this last paragraph. php used properly and with its 
> object-oriented support can create superlative applications which are 
> "rendering (DHTML, CSS, JS) and database intensive". In other words, 90% 
> of the everyday web applications. If you are looking to create a 
> content-centric application (articles, feeds, users, shopping, calendar 
> and more), you absolutely must run to Mambo. I consider myself an 
> average web developer but with Mambo, I created something that everyday 
> gains users at the rate of 20-30 per day for a radio station in town ( 
> htttp://www.mighty1090.com ). In short, for content-driven applications 
> and CMS in general, do not overlook Mambo.

...I have recently investigated lots and lots of CMS systems using both 
PHP and Java, to try to not have to reinvent the wheel. 99% of the CMSs 
out there can only realistically produce "Portal" style sites, not 
"individual" looking "old fashioned" web sites.

If you want an instant "portal" style site, PHP Nuke / Mambo / Drupal 
etc are certainly the way to go.

However it doesn't take much googling to find that these solutions tend 
to degrade in badly in performance terms under heavy load.

...and so would badly written Java.


> I don't think in my 25 years of experience I have ever seen such a 
> promising technology as Java been so mismanged by its owner leading some 
> to call Java the Cobol of our generation.

I strongly agree. However we have to take some of the blame - the 
language creators of PHP didn't create these great applications, end 
users did.

Broadly speaking, PHP seems to have always been obsessed with web sites, 
whereas Java seemed obsessed with the Enterprise. Java wins in the 
enterprise, but loses on the web. ... currently.


I'm building a Java-based CMS. I mean a CMS for creating web sites, not 
just portals, and with a very simple user interface so your customers 
really CAN use it, not like most of the CMSs out there (Plone excluded) 
that pretend that you can offload content maintenance to your Newbie 
clients but in reality you simply cannot. The (free) Java CMSs out there 
are so over complicated and bloated, and typically use ridiculous 
Javascript mechanisms that break in browsers (try an IE5 MacOS 8.5 client).

Yes it will use WebMacro but not hardcoded to, that would sadly be a bad 
idea.

ETA? "Soon"? ;-)

The thing is WM really needs some major improvements to make it more 
embeddable. I hinted at these with my Ignition project but nobody seemed 
to take it seriously.

WebMacro is very hard to embed nicely. For example, what if I want to 
add directives to WebMacro at runtime, dynamically based on installed 
plugins in my CMS?

I want my CMS to be able add directives like #link at runtime, 
preferably without throwing away a WM instance and reconfiguring it from 
Properties (cluuuuuuunky!)

Death to the Broker! Kill kill!

:)

Cheers



-- 
Marc Palmer
Managing Director, AnyWare Ltd.