....the code samples made my hair draw up on my head : hardcoded HTML in Java code !!
Blessed arth thou, who haveth hair on their head ;-)
It shows that users of such apps (simple CMSes) do not care what's under the hood.
...Having this kind of application as a Cocoon sample would be a killer to demonstrate its power. Furthermore, it may foster the development of blocks.
Agreed but I would prefer such an app to be focused on / marketed as a "CMS development framework" rather than a "CMS app sample".
PHP-based light CMSes a la PHPNuke have the big advantage of being very easy to install at most provider's sites: copy the .PHP files in the right places, edit one of them for config, that's it. Java-based apps cannot compete with PHP for ease of installation today unless you're running your server.
OTOH a Cocoon-based CMS would be much better in terms of XML-based content and expandability/connectivity through java, Avalon, etc.
So I think such a demo app should be clearly targeted as developers, either to help them understand Cocoon or to serve as a basis for their developments, but not at end-users who usually just want to quickly setup a simple CMS and don't care about what's inside.
My 2 <i18n key="favorite-currency"/>.
-Bertrand
