Completely agreed, Helge. I also have to wonder if the Smalltalk community would really benefit as much as everyone seems to think from having a "successful CMS written in Smalltalk". Does anyone who uses Wordpress care much what language it is written in? I guess there could be some vague peripheral benefit in terms of the appearance of acceptability, but really the only way to have a successful CMS is to write a good CMS, and at that point people are judging the product, not the language it was written in. So, sure, someone could go create a great, free CMS with Smalltalk. But why do we as a community feel a need to champion the idea? Is it just that we want to be able to use our favourite language to write CMS plugins? Julian On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 8:36 AM, Helge Nowak <hknowak@yahoo.de> wrote:
Janko and ariliquin: very well said!
The original poster's intention was to create a Smalltalk based CMS as successful as the leading open source ones. This can only be reached by making the system easily accessible to end users, not developers. Developers are a minority. They don't decide on what will be used as an end user tool in companies, organizations and communities.
If we think Pier and Scribo shall be end user tools they need end user UIs. If we don't think so we have to accept the fact that their target audience is the Smalltalk fraction of the developer community. As Ralph said: marketing is thinking about your market first and then build, advertize and distribute your offfering to your target segment's needs and expectations. And don't forget your return on investment! Without ROI people will soon leave because no-one can afford to just spend.
My 2 € Cents Helge ________________________________ Von: Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si> An: ESUG Mailing list <esug-list@lists.esug.org> Gesendet: Montag, den 21. März 2011, 0:02:48 Uhr Betreff: Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...
Well said, thanks! I also beleive that a right way to the average "CMS user" friendly CMS is to hide Smalltalk as long as possible, until user is encouraged enough to customize his website in depth.
And in this customization is where we actually have an advantage over others. But, we need to build that non-Smalltalk front part first. There is no way to skip that part.
Best regards Janko
On 20. 03. 2011 23:49, ariliquin wrote:
I am a smalltalk newbie and interested in Smalltalk CMS. In answer to your question, from my point of view, I would like to say:
1. The ability to achieve something functional, say a my own custom main page, quickly and easily, is very encouraging (I haven't even begun to be able to do this in Pier etc, I am still wading through the concepts that are being presented, as opposed to the functionality that is made easily accessible).
2. The CMS is built on top of the Smalltalk platform, both an advantage for obvious reasons, yet a big disadvantage for this reason, from my point of view: I have to be familiar with Smalltalk BEFORE I can even approach the CMS. I don't mean familiar with the finer details and vast libraries, I mean familiar with the main screen and how to simple navigate, what the concepts are, the terminologies etc etc etc etc. NO other CMS requires this as obviously as Pier. The Smalltalk interface is NOT intuitive. I am not spoon feed everything. I have to research and digest and understand and grow to be able to do anything here. Yes, there are many simple concepts, however my experience was, upon seeing the Smalltalk environment in its totality, was to be completely lost.
3. Every other CMS like Wordpress, Concrete 5, Joomla are designed to present a user interface, not a programmer interface. Hence they are attractive to users immediately, in general. Yes a programmer can delve in and do things, but a user can get things they want done, point and click. (Although some of the interfaces can be overwhelming with navigations etc, also).
If you want a SmallTalk CMS that is Amazingly Attractive to End users and Programmers, this would be a good start for me:
Provide a USER interface that can be used to quickly produce publishable content (a lot of work, as many have pointed out, yet achieved by many other CMS projects)
Provide an underlying Programmer interface that gives simple and powerful access to the framework to allow extension and manipulation of the system (already there)
Identify the STRENGTHS of smalltalk, LEVERAGE these and present these, in a simple and meaningful way, to End USERS and programmers, to create a CMS with capabilities that others cannot match easily and that is Attractive because of its inherent nature and abilities.
Provide Tutorials, Video How-To's and Documentation from Within the CMS. This is were I am wondering how to do things, this should be were I find the answers also.
-- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
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