[LRUG] which blog and which BB?

[Ed Davey]

thanks for all the comments.

anyone used SimpleLog?

ED

On 20 Feb 2008, at 12:43, Pierre Nel wrote:

> Thanks Tom, that was a brilliant answer!
>
> P
>
> On 20/02/2008, Tom Armitage <tom at infovore.org> wrote:
>> On 2/20/2008, "Pierre Nel" <pierre.nel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Isn't it weird that there aren't any glaringly obvious solutions  
>>> - ie
>>> install x if you want a forum, or y if you want a gallery, for  
>>> rails?
>>>
>>> Why is that, other than PHP being around longer?
>>>
>>> Just curious :-)
>>
>> Deployment.
>>
>> Or, to expand: most people who would _choose_ a Rails solution  
>> over a PHP
>> solution are the kind of people who are confident enough at their
>> ability to _write_ a Rails solution. Because, you know, they've got a
>> VPS and know their way around a Mongrel config. Even the more
>> user-friendly install processes in Rails still require a lot of  
>> fiddling.
>>
>> Most PHP forums/blog-software/similar is not used by PHP programmers.
>> It's used by people who want a free solution they can FTP onto a web
>> server and _just work_. The ease of deployment - if you can use a
>> web-admin panel to make a database and an FTP client - opens up  
>> PHP apps
>> to way more people.
>>
>> So: why make apps for people who'll make their own? I'm currently
>> writing a piece of forum software, to be open-sourced, but right now,
>> I'm focusing on making it work for me. One of the big post-launch
>> things to improve is the set-up process - ideally, you want to put  
>> it on
>> a server, configure a mongrel, and run a rake:setup task to seed the
>> database.
>>
>> But that's never going to be as easy as the "drag-and-drop" that PHP
>> promotes. And why would you pick the hassle of a Rails app over a PHP
>> app that does the same thing? Hence why my blog uses Wordpress,  
>> and why
>> I've gone to reasonable lengths to script, template, and hack it to
>> work how I want - because, with a reasonable templating language and
>> plugin architecutre (which Wordpress _almost_ has), I can do what  
>> I want
>> with minimum fuss. And when there's a security update... it's usually
>> just drag-and-drop.
>>
>> "Rails" isn't a reason to choose a forum app; functionality and
>> suitability for use (both by people, and within the environment you
>> already have) are. As a result: it's going to be a _special_ forum  
>> app
>> that forces people into Rails.
>>
>> (My forum app will not be that. It's definitely special, but mainly
>> because it has a very unusual set of functionality, rather than any
>> defined brilliance. If you want the functionality it offers...  
>> there's
>> almost nothing else that does...)
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>>
>
>
> -- 
> Pierre Nel
> Web Developer / Designer
> Phone: +44 (0) 7931804841
> Email: pierre.nel at gmail.com
> Blog: http://www.pierrenel.co.uk
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/pierrenel
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