Not too long ago (yesterday) I decided to re-check if Seaside had
progressed in its maturity. It seems to done so. However, I was
somewhat amazed that there was no app that seemed to be a poster-
child for it's use. I shouldn't have been; it seems Smalltalk apps
are there, just more difficult to find that those in other
languages. Anyway.
So I asked on the Seaside list about apps that showcased it; I had
really expected there to be several in the vein of CMS, blog, web
forums, and WIKIs. As I am really wanting to switch from OpenCMS, I
had hoped...
So someone there recommended I look at Pier (as I'm sure most of the
people here also read that list, big surprise). I truly am
impressed. The sample out of the box looks amazingly good for a
WIKI. I tend to subscribe to the clea, non-clutered approach to web
apps. And just looking at the default app makes it seem Pier /
Seaside is just the ticket (as another wish item is to be able to
develop on the web, as I travel every week).
I've started looking at Pier's code, and unfortunately, I'd have to
say it's not the clearest. This may simply be because I've only been
looking at it for several hours over the last day. But the other
issue is the lack of documentation. Of course, this applies equally
- if not more - to Seaside. What I'm looking for is documentation on
at least getting up-and-running with my own instance of the app. The
default install creates the mini-intro WIKI: am I simply supposed to
remove all the content there and replace with my own? That doesn't
seem correct. At least, I'd be concerned about the default classes/
instances being over-written when I upgraded.
Continuing in that vain, documentation covering where / how my data
is stored / saved is critical. If I want a backup of my WIKI at a
point in time, do I just simply file-out, well, what? Documentation
on design and extensibility would be great, although I understand
those would not be of the same importance as to getting them written.
Lastly (for the moment anyway :-} ), I understand that Pier is a
relatively new app, and there is adequate warning that this is
experimental software, use at your own risk, not in production, etc.
Well, I'm looking for some stable. And able to be used in a
production environment. Does that mean I should stop looking at
Pier? Is there a timeline for when a stable, production quality
version will be available?
Please do not infer from anything here that this is a bitch e-mail.
I've not intended it as such. I just find Pier very promising, and
want to use it. I'm just tired of needing to switch products (like
JSPWiki, then OpenCMS, etc.) when I find that I've reached the limit
of what they can do, or in OpenCMS' case, where the source code is so
bad that there is no hope of me contributing to cleaning it up.
Thanks for your time (and hopefully answers).