from devel list (was Re: [web2py-dev] Here they come...)

[Gour]

On Tue, 24 Sep 2013 07:39:40 -0500
Massimo DiPierro
<massimo....@gmail.com> wrote:

> I posted a comment. It is a good sign that they are worried. They
> should be. ;-)

Not to clutter dev list, I'm replying here on the comment which was
posted recently on Quora...

(http://www.quora.com/Wei-Wei-1/Posts/10-reasons-not-to-use-web2py)

At the moment I am working on the Real Python for the Web course which
covers from the very basic stuff over Flask to full-featured frameworks
like web2py & Django.

Moreover, I agree with all the advantages of web2py over Django
mentioned in the comments, but, imho, if web2py wants to get *much* more
popular then it needs something like Mezzanine/Cartridge which allows
new category of users to build web site(s) quickly with most of the
required features shipping out of the box...yes, I'm the one not wanting
to roll yet another CMS. ;)


Sincerely,
Gour


--
He is a perfect yogī who, by comparison to his own self,
sees the true equality of all beings, in both their
happiness and their distress, O Arjuna!

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

[Massimo Di Pierro]

+1

[António Ramos]

- web2py's user base is so small comparing with Django and Rails, if you stuck with some issue it is really hard to get community  help.

I think this guy never registered with us. 

2013/9/26 Massimo Di Pierro <massimo....@gmail.com>

--
Resources:
- http://web2py.com
- http://web2py.com/book (Documentation)
- http://github.com/web2py/web2py (Source code)
- https://code.google.com/p/web2py/issues/list (Report Issues)
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[Cliff Kachinske]

Gour,

Do you mean something like Drupal?

[Gour]

On Thu, 26 Sep 2013 14:40:54 -0700 (PDT)
Cliff Kachinske <cjk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Cliff,

> Gour,
>
> Do you mean something like Drupal?

No, I mean Mezzanine (http://mezzanine.jupo.org/ &
http://cartridge.jupo.org/) based on Django framework which was created
and developed by a single guy.

THe project is, according to Bitbucket created on 2010-06-08 and it has,
according to github ~3k commits, 139 contributors, a337 stargazers,
impressive set of features and decent list of sites built with it
(http://mezzanine.jupo.org/sites/)

I know about the argument that Django is older and/or more mature than
web2py, but, according to the web2py site, the project had version 1.0
in 2007, and in comparison with Mezzanine, I believe it's old enough to
get some decent CMS enabling people to choose it as preferred platform
(instead of using WP, Joomla, Drupal...) for building *geneneral* web
sites which can be easily customized/tailored according to the client's
needs.

Mezzanine also has fair number of 3rd party add-ons
(https://github.com/stephenmcd/mezzanine) filling the potential gaps of
the core app.

Sometimes within the Django community it was heard that there are no
'general' CMS solutions 'cause it is too easy to build one from the
scratch.

Fortunately, such concept is not prevailing any longer and there are
several apps available: https://www.djangopackages.com/grids/g/cms/

If there is no value in abstracting some common features and make it
'general' CMS, then one can reason that there is no value to abstract
some tasks and make them into full-featured framework.

Shortly, my point is that at the moment web2py is filling specific niche
of being mostly used in intranet and/or smaller apps, but by having
general CMS/ecommerce app ala Mezzanine/Cartridge, the usage of the
framework could exponentially increase considering other 'pros' of the
framework.


Sincerely,
Gour

--
Thus the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by
his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and
which burns like fire.

[Loïc]

>Shortly, my point is that at the moment web2py is filling specific niche 
>of being mostly used in intranet and/or smaller apps, but by having 
>general CMS/ecommerce app ala Mezzanine/Cartridge, the usage of the 
>framework could exponentially increase considering other 'pros' of the 
>framework. 

Personnally when I looked for a CMS build in web2py I didn't find anything generic and simple enough to build my customers websites.

Then I decided to develop my own little CMS. (I think many other Web2py users are in the same case)

I released the sources, here, but it seems that only a few people are interested in. (I received only one PR for a typo in a fixture file)

So I think we have a lot of disorganized CMS apps, each used by a few of people, but (until now) nobody has accumulate enough contributors to compete with something like mezzanine.

[Richard Vézina]

CMS is dead!! Yes there is still need for it, but there is plenty of already mature and working solution out there. With the frameworks you can make much better than any CMS will never be able to do by developping a specific app that address the exact needs of your cusomers. For sure it requires more skills, but you should master what you do anyway if you are serious. For a serious cusomer 5K is a basic check in the Web. For this price a good developper can build something really good for the specific needs of the client using Frameworks. The resulting app will be easy to evolve database centric according to the need of the client. For others that only one page on the web there is CMS (WP, Joomla, etc.). But I think that trying to build a custom site with CMS as many are doing with plugins is a waste of time and money and only lead to a poorly secure web site. I had issue with WordPress and plugins in the pass and there is no way to know if a plugins is safe or not even if it is largely used.

I am not saying that creating a good web2py CMS is not useful, but maybe just use WP or Joomla with a custom app for client specific need in symbiosis is more money wise?? So you have best of both world...

Richard

--

[Gour]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 10:16:12 -0400
Richard Vézina
<ml.richa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> CMS is dead!!

I don't agree.

> Yes there is still need for it, but there is plenty of
> already mature and working solution out there.

But not for web2py.

> With the frameworks
> you can make much better than any CMS will never be able to do by
> developping a specific app that address the exact needs of your
> cusomers. For sure it requires more skills, but you should master
> what you do anyway if you are serious.

I do not believe it's wise to re-invent major part of the common tasks
for every client's app. It means that such apps will have very limited
userbase and therefore not much testing in the filed and therefore prone
to all kinds of problems.

> For a serious cusomer 5K is a basic check in the Web. For this price a
> good developper can build something really good for the specific needs
> of the client using Frameworks. The resulting app will be easy to
> evolve database centric according to the need of the client.

If we put Mezzanine thorugh sloccount, we get the following:

Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 14,849
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 3.40 (40.78)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 0.85 (10.23)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 3.99
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 459,117
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40).


so your estimated 5k budget won't accomplish much. :-)

> For others that only one page on the web there is CMS (WP, Joomla,
> etc.). But I think that trying to build a custom site with CMS as many
> are doing with plugins is a waste of time and money and only lead to a
> poorly secure web site. I had issue with WordPress and plugins in the
> pass and there is no way to know if a plugins is safe or not even if
> it is largely used.

Let's don't mix apples and oranges. Here I'm mostly thinking about
Python-based frameworks, iow. Django vs. web2py. ;)

> I am not saying that creating a good web2py CMS is not useful, but
> maybe just use WP or Joomla with a custom app for client specific
> need in symbiosis is more money wise?? So you have best of both
> world...

Complete-stack frameworks like Django, Pyramid...have CMS projects and
even microframework like Flask has it, but it looks as web2py are
special not having one nor considering it needed, so no wonder it
occupies only specific niche.


Sincerely,
Gour

--
Before giving up this present body, if one is able to tolerate
the urges of the material senses and check the force of desire and
anger, he is well situated and is happy in this world.

[Gour]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:32:28 -0700 (PDT)
Loïc <loic....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Personnally when I looked for a CMS build in web2py I didn't find

> anything generic and *simple *enough to build my customers websites.

Same here and that's why I'll explore Mezzanine for my needs.

> Then I decided to develop my own little CMS. (I think many other
> Web2py users are in the same case)

That's pity and waste of resources, imho, but everyone has its own free
will. :-)

> I released the sources, here, but it seems that only a few people are
> interested in. (I received only one PR for a typo in a fixture file)

I do not recall if I tried it...maybe it was too simple. Which one it
was?

> So I think we have a lot of disorganized CMS apps, each used by a few
> of people, but (until now) nobody has accumulate enough contributors
> to compete with something like mezzanine.

You're right and I believe that *disorganized* is keyword here. :-(


Sincerely,
Gour

--
The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher
than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind;
and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence.

[Loïc ESPERN]

Depends on what you (or your customers) need...

I developped my little CMS to build a presentation website for a local organization of firefighters in my city. They hadn't a lot of money to expend, and they needed something very simple, to edit some webpages content. Wordpress / Joomla were already overcomplicated for them.

My second customer was a town hall in a little village close to home. They had same needs : something as simple as possible to edit a few webpages.

And so on...

Finally, of course, a specific app that addresses exactly each customer needs is ideal for them. But not every customer will accept to pay thousands of dollars for only a few of basic features.

2013/9/27 Richard Vézina <ml.richa...@gmail.com>

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[Loïc]

>I do not recall if I tried it...maybe it was too simple. Which one it
>was?

Yes simple is the word :-)

https://github.com/espern/tiny_website
http://www.tinywebsite.net/

[Gour]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 08:12:37 -0700 (PDT)
Loïc <loic....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes simple is the word :-)

:-)

> https://github.com/espern/tiny_website
> http://www.tinywebsite.net/

Nope, I didn't try it. It was created *after* I already pretty much gave
up idea to find appropriate web2py-based CMS, but your project looks
promising, although Ican't say if it would be possible to enhance it up
to the level of something like Mezzanine.


Sincerely,
Gour

--
Never was there a time when I did not exist,
nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future
shall any of us cease to be.

[Loïc ESPERN]

Neither do I...

However I'm open to ideas/contributions to improve it, step by step

Regards

2013/9/27 Gour <go...@atmarama.net>

[Jim S]

I am no expert on all of these CMS systems but have used WordPress in the past to build some websites for local youth sports clubs.  Right now I have one that is a WordPress site and one that is a web2py app.  Instead of writing a web2py app for these types of things what I would love to see is a WordPress plug-in that would allow me to call a web2py controller, passing authentication information (if logged in) and allowing me to return a view that would be embedded in the WordPress page.

I really like the community around WordPress, the theming capabilities and the ease with which regular people can add content.  My challenge is usually to add data-driven pages to the site and I would love to be able to use web2py to deliver that data.

Building a CMS and community like WordPress has would be an enormous undertaking.  But, building a plugin that let us take advantage of that CMS and community is something that I feel would be attainable.  Alas, I've never developed a WordPress plugin.  

Just my opinion on this. Wish I had the time/skills to take this on.

-Jim

[Richard Vézina]

I don't say re-invent the wheel. If you have a couple of clients, you will re-use app, so it get tested overtime. As mention Loîc, for most client CMS is overkill and only serve the purpose to keeping the developper away form CSS. A basic html page is more then enough for greate number of small business because of lack of vision maybe or just because there core business doesn't required online tool. I setup many CMS for many organisation since 2000 and most of the time the client where calling me to update stuff on the site even if I give them a formation to show how easy it was to update or add more content on their site. That why I say CMS is dead. It will never really reach it objective for small business. Maybe it was not the objective... But turning client into webmaster (in french we distinguish between webmester and édimestre, so here I would say édimestre or webmaster that only update content) is not working. CSM is good for mid to large organisation, but most of the time they will build their own solution with a framework today...

So, I am not against creating a CMS, but what serve to create another pizza shop in town, there is already 3...

I think it is more pragmatic to combine technology that works, even if I where prefere to keep everything simple by doing everthing in web2py...

This is just my opinion and only my opinion...

Richard

--
Resources:
- http://web2py.com
- http://web2py.com/book (Documentation)
- http://github.com/web2py/web2py (Source code)
- https://code.google.com/p/web2py/issues/list (Report Issues)
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[Richard Vézina]

+1 Jim

:)

Or just take a web2py tiny CMS ans build on it and commit your addon to the web2py-cms project, so we all get a good tiny CMS to address some client needs in this area rapidly...

Richard

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[Gour]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 12:17:04 -0400
Richard Vézina

<ml.richa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't say re-invent the wheel. If you have a couple of clients, you
> will re-use app, so it get tested overtime.

Why not contributing such codebase to the web2py community, so that
others can built on that.

> A basic html page is more then enough for greate number of small
> business because of lack of vision maybe or just because there core
> business doesn't required online tool.

That's true and I also plan to use some SSG (static site generator) for
such use cases, but, fortunately, there are plenty of them and they're
free. :-)

> I setup many CMS for many organisation since 2000 and most of the
> time the client where calling me to update stuff on the site even if
> I give them a formation to show how easy it was to update or add more
> content on their site. That why I say CMS is dead. It will never
> really reach it objective for small business.

There are tons of sites out built with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal,
Concre5, CMS Made Simple, SilverStripe, MODx...(not mentioning ones with
Ruby-powered CMS-es) and I simply do not believe that most of them are
updated by developers.

> CSM is good for mid to large organisation, but most of the time they
> will build their own solution with a framework today...

Here I also believe that most of such organization does not care what is
used to run their site as long as ot provides what they want, so it
depends on the agency/developer doing the work.

Here (https://www.django-cms.org/en/case-studies/mercedes-benz/) you can
see how the agency used e.g. Django-CMS to build the site for Mercedes
Benz. So, if it's good-enough for Mercedes Benz to have web site built
upon open-source Django framework and 'general' CMS, why not based on
web2py and appropriate CMS?

> So, I am not against creating a CMS, but what serve to create another
> pizza shop in town, there is already 3...

Maybe there is no pizza shop in the town suitable for vegetarians. ;)

> I think it is more pragmatic to combine technology that works, even
> if I where prefere to keep everything simple by doing everthing in
> web2py...

There is nice quote on web2py site: "Please use www.web2py.com when
using MVC , no PHP/SQL stuff please...its 2011 not 1999!"

It seems to be that, according to your logic, we should leave the users
with no option except using Windows OS and let all the devs use
Slackware/Gentoo or LFS. :-)

Fortunately, someone invented Ubuntu (btw, I use Debian Sid) and it was
not enough so some brave users went further and provided Linux Mint or
even PC-BSD. :-)

I'm encouraged by Massimo's "+1" and strongly believe that in order to
say thank you for his work of providing such a wonderful piece of
software for *free*, that web2py community should come together and
give something back in the form of general web2py-ppowered CMS easy
enough to be used stand-alone by end-users as well as flexible enough to
allow devs/agencies to build upon it custom solutions.

I know that if I'd be capable to do it, I wouldn't not think twice.

However, I'm at the beginning of python-based web development and will
probably have to start my modifying Mezzaning to build some sites, but I
won't forget idea of web2py CMS. ;)

> This is just my opinion and only my opinion...

In my case I'm glad I'm not alone with my opinion. :P


Sincerely,
Gour

--
Not by merely abstaining from work can one achieve freedom
from reaction, nor by renunciation alone can one attain perfection.

[Richard Vézina]

:)

[Gour]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 17:53:57 +0200
Loïc ESPERN <lo...@espern.net> wrote:

> Neither do I...

:-)

> However I'm open to ideas/contributions to improve it, step by step

Pls. give me some today to learn more about web development in general,
as well as about web2py to be able to give some worthy piece of advice.

For now I can only say that having features set similar to
Mezzanine/Cartridge and easy way to create custom content types
(http://mezzanine.jupo.org/docs/content-architecture.html#creating-custom-content-types)
is something I'd like to see.

Moreover, I like this one: "Seamless integration with third-party Django
apps" (mentioned here: http://mezzanine.jupo.org/docs/overview.html),
but I'm not 100% sure what is web2py's equivalent of 'django app'.


Sincerely,
Gour

--
There is no possibility of one's becoming a yogī, O Arjuna,
if one eats too much or eats too little, sleeps too much
or does not sleep enough.

[Gour]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 17:06:02 +0200
Loïc ESPERN <lo...@espern.net> wrote:

> Depends on what you (or your customers) need...

Exactly.

> I developped my little CMS to build a presentation website for a local
> organization of firefighters in my city. They hadn't a lot of money to
> expend, and they needed something very simple, to edit some webpages
> content. Wordpress / Joomla were already overcomplicated for them.

Similarly, I did web site for non-profit here which is running under
Textpattern (PHP) CMS allowing easy adding/editing of the content by
using Textile markup.

> And so on...
>
> Finally, of course, a specific app that addresses exactly each
> customer needs is ideal for them. But not every customer will accept
> to pay thousands of dollars for only a few of basic features.

I'm in a similar boat...

My friend running web agency here in Croatia is complaining to me that
many customers just want modified generic WP template and that's all and
not ready to pay for more than few hours work modifying the WP theme.

Now I wonder what to do in a case when

a) I'd like not to combine PHP technology with web2py

b) there is no web2py-powered CMS providing features similar to e.g.
some PHP solutions

c) not having (yet) skills to roll my own CMS ?

In general, one starts by creating static design using some CSS
framework. Then, depending on the customer's needs, I could leave the
site as it is or convert design into some CMS enabling easy
adding/editing of the content.

The option which I am considering lately for my own purpose is to use
some python-powered static-site-generator.

When the need arises to add some interactive/dynamic features to the
site, static-site-generator and/or plain static site is not good-enough.

So, the question is how to start building web2py-powered web site which
should start e.g. as simple brochure site onto which one can further
functionality by writing small apps in web2py?

Do you all write some kind of CMS allowing to add larger portions of
static text/media which make the major portion of the site or do you
combine smaller web2py apps with something else?

What do you think about e.g. building web site via some static site
generator and then write web2py handling some dynamic aspects?

How is e.g. added/edited content to the web2py.com site itself?
Manually?


Sincerely,
Gour

--
For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of
friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will
remain the greatest enemy.

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

--
A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of
desires — that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is
ever being filled but is always still — can alone achieve
peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.

[Manuele Pesenti]

Il 26/09/13 20:49, Gour ha scritto:

> Not to clutter dev list, I'm replying here on the comment which was
> posted recently on Quora...
>
> (http://www.quora.com/Wei-Wei-1/Posts/10-reasons-not-to-use-web2py)

Perché tanto odio?!?
I mean... why a post again something he do not know instead a post on
Django and Ruby advantages?
It's clear he does not know web2py beacause the first 3 poits are false.

M.

[Gour]

On Tue, 01 Oct 2013 10:59:38 +0200
Manuele Pesenti

<manuele...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I mean... why a post again something he do not know instead a post on
> Django and Ruby advantages?

Well, that is the fun of the web - everybody can publish whatever he/she
desires. :-)


Sincerely,
Gour

--
From wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady
nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under
the control of the self.