OT: Website CMS

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

On 24/08/09 08:45 PM, Rajinder Yadav wrote:
> This is excellent feedback, each response has raised more things to
> consider. I was not looking for comparison on language, but lacking
> any development/usage experience I wanted to know more about secondary
> things available to these framework on a macro level. For instance
> addition modules or tools that would make working with one framework
> more productive. Of course great documentation is also required, any
> module without good docs is useless to me.
> 
> I guess I am looking for a framework that will allow me to stitch
> functionality together easily. I don't want to write my own CMS,


Define "CMS".


> however I also don't want a site to look like it's a patch work of say
> a wiki site, forum, blog, main landing page. If I later decide to
> change the layout, add or remove functionality I would like to do it
> in an efficient and painless manner from what's already out there.


The question isn't "if" all of the aforementioned products will allow
you create "seamless" sites. It's "How?".


> I guess I still want flexibility from a programmer's prescriptive and
> be able to create my own plumbing if needed. I would rather avoid
> having to fight existing code to make it do something else or take
> away things I don't want or need. If the framework makes this
> difficult than I would not consider it.


This is why when we spoke, I suggested to you Drupal and Django were
good fits for what you wanted to do but as you told me about what was
important to you, I suggested Django was probably the better choice. I
find it's more developer-friendly than Drupal. Until you have done some
actual development with both, it is very difficult for you to understand
what I'm talking about when I talk about "flow". Django has a certain
flow to it that is hard to describe. I find the whole code, test, debug
cycle in PHP tedious. I don't want to output stuff to the browser just
to prototype something. I want to be able to prototype in a shell
interactively. With Django, typing "python manage.py shell" while in the
project directory will drop you into the Python shell from where you can
import anything in PYTHONPATH (imports bring into the current
namespace), and start prototyping. You get instant feedback. If you have
an error in your code, you have meaningful stack traces. You can inspect
objects to get their docstring, their attributes, and their functions. I
found that ipython accelerated how quickly I learned Django because the
barriers to prototyping something were so low. I could just whip
something up quickly and see the results without much fuss. If you go
through the Django tutorial, you'll notice that they start you off with
writing code interactively.


> As for my ignorance, I think I've learned from the past that as I
> learn more, I find out how little I really know =) ... so I am trying
> to at my older age to use wisdom and the knowledge and experience of
> others to help me save both time and energy rediscovering things,
> issues, problems, etc, I don't want to be committed so much in my
> project that it becomes 'more' painful to go in another direction when
> I find out something for myself.
> 
> About Python, being a C++ developer I like using my braces { } to
> denote code blocks, or any other visual indicator like 'end'
> 
> I maybe be wrong about this, but read that python (only) uses
> indentation to denote code blocks? I just don't want to be looking at
> code that may have several nested blocks trying to line up code
> blocks. That is what is stopping me from liking Python, that were I
> stopped looking at Python. If I am wrong about this let me know.


I *knew* you were going to say that, which is why I told you I'd bring
tar and feathers. :) That is a very silly reason to dislike a language.
As Lennart (I think) posed once, "What do you have against readability?"
Indentation to denote code blocks enforces a consistency in the code
that makes it easier to read. That doesn't mean someone can't write
obfuscated Python code. It just means that you're unlikely to see "holy
wars" being fought over which is the better curly brace style,

foo {
  bla}

foo
{
  bla
}

foo {bla}

foo {
 bla
 }

foo {
  bla
}

Any decent editor, as William pointed out, and the various Python shells
(I really like ipython), or the IDEs, which I don't use, deal with
indentation for you. Get past this curly brace fixation of yours and I
think you'll be amazed at how quickly you can become productive with Python.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis
1419-3266 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

<http://dinamis.com>
+1 416-410-3326
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