[LRUG] which blog and which BB?

[Pierre Nel]

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