[Volunteers] Re: [Actionchix] The former website effort: an apology to Jen and Gloria

jennyw jennyw at dangerousideas.com
Wed Mar 21 21:53:22 UTC 2007


Gloria W wrote:
>
> I never got sudo access to the server, so I could not go further. I
> wasn't sure why that happened, but I was too busy to put huge effort
> into it back then. I know Jen was even busier than I was, and yet she
> found the time to do the compile/install and configuration. Hats off
> to Jen for doing that, and I understand why she is offended. I was not
> so offended, because I did not have the time back then to latch onto
> that project to understand why it was not succeeding, etc.
> I have to admit, I was not a Plone fan anyway, and almost expected to
> hit an impasse with that tool sooner or later. The fact that it
> happened sooner is, in my opinion, a good thing. At my day job, we've
> hit that impasse after months of DTML implementation, which cannot be
> reused anywhere else. I learned ZPT, but found it to be ugly, so we
> decided not to continue further with Zope. The Zope/Plone model was
> good in it's day, but it is too restrictive in it's template
> languages, db interfaces, it's levels of security and redirection, and
> skin configuration. I think it's time has passed, although I am
> thankful that it helped make Python as mainstream as it is now. I know
> Jen is a Ruby expert, and Plone was not her first choice either.
I was talking to Val the other day and she was mentioning that even
though the Web site never materialized, there was value in it being a
learning experience, and I agree.  One lesson learned was that we should
have aimed lower so we could go live sooner. Our requirements for the
site included features that eliminated most other CMSes, especially with
the desire to support multiple languages. We also spent a lot of time
talking about migration. I think we've learned our lessons well and it
sounds like the Drupal effort is well under way. Also, it's great that
content will be added by volunteers instead of trying to convert the old
content over (especially since a lot of the old content could use a
rewrite). Also, it sounds like Drupal's i18n support has matured a lot,
so the old reasons for choosing Plone are probably moot. ;-)

Yeah, I would have loved doing something in Ruby, but it would probably
have been something from scratch (and there were also comments at the
time that it didn't support i18n).  As we move forward, I think it would
be nice to allow other technologies in.  I mean, there's probably a lot
you could do in Drupal and PHP, but I think it'd make for a more diverse
and interesting volunteer experience if we could choose to do some parts
of the site using other things like Python/CherryPy or Ruby/Rails. 
Probably non-essential parts unless we could get a critical mass going.
We could even mark them Beta. ;-)

> Back then, Jen and I discussed tying Postgresql into the Plone back
> end, for form data storage/retrieval, mailing lists, etc. Jen thought
> it was a good idea, and I trust her expertise. So this may still be
> useful with the current prototype.
> I am entirely freelance now, and I can and do work from anywhere. So I
> can and will make the time, if you want to consider using Postgresql
> with Drupal, and you need help with setup, db templates and config, etc.
>
> Jen, if you're reading this, please write when you have a moment, and
> let me know what you're doing right now, and I'll do the same. I want
> to know if you want to do some freelance work with me in the near
> future 8)
>
Sure, I'll ping you!

Jen-Mei

> Gloria
>> On Mon, Mar 12, 2007, Mary Gardiner wrote:
>>  
>>> Essentially there hasn't been any progress for six months or so.
>>> This is
>>> partly my fault and partly a group failing I think.
>>>     
>>
>> Jen-Mei Wu has rightfully asked for a fuller version of events and an
>> apology from me regarding this.
>>
>> Firstly, the apology: I apologise to Jen and Gloria for implying that
>> they failed in any way in their part of developing a Plone replacement
>> for www.linuxchix.org. As shown below, they did a successful Plone
>> install fairly quickly, and the project failed after that point, almost
>> entirely due to a misunderstanding on my part.
>>
>> Here's a fuller version of events:
>>
>> We had decided to installed Plone and I asked for updates on Aug 26 and
>> Sep 4:
>>  1.
>> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/actionchix/2006-August/000474.html
>>
>>  2.
>> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/actionchix/2006-September/000478.html
>>
>>
>> Jen and Gloria replied both times and Jen reported that Plone had been
>> installed by Sep 5:
>>  3.
>> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/actionchix/2006-September/000481.html
>>
>>
>> There was then some genuine confusion on my part about how accessible
>> the site was.  Had I read the above message properly (and I did not, in
>> fact, do so until just now), I would have realised that the Plone
>> install was publicly accessible already. However, there was some
>> discussion about it becoming accessible at http://test.linuxchix.org/:
>>
>>  4.
>> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/actionchix/2006-September/000482.html
>>
>>  5.
>> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/actionchix/2006-September/000484.html
>>
>>
>> In message 5 above, Jen suggested having a 'secret' virtual host listed
>> only in people's /etc/hosts files. This was where I got stuck, as I
>> reported on Oct 7, because I have a transparent proxy between me and the
>> Internet, and changes to my /etc/hosts don't help me connect to remote
>> sites:
>>  6.
>> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/actionchix/2006-October/000485.html
>>
>>
>> This seems to be where things ended. Not remembering that I could access
>> it via the alternative URL in message 3 above, and not getting any
>> replies to message 6, I thought that I couldn't access it at all until
>> such time as Dancer put test.linuxchix.org in the linuxchix.org DNS. I
>> asked Dancer for this off-list but got no reply.
>>
>> I actually recall asking about this more times than I seem to have. I
>> don't know why I found this small impasse insurmountable, but I did. I
>> genuinely believed I couldn't access the site, and did not know what to
>> do from there, especially as the list died down.
>>
>> -Mary
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>> http://linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/actionchix
>>
>>   
>
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