I agree with you, but this is a common problem with open-source software. I have exactly the same problem with many of the programs in the Linux world - brilliant pieces of software produced by people with quite extraordinary dedication, but very badly presented/'marketed'. As a breed, programmers are much more interested in (and consequently better at) coding than they are in explaining. To be fair, Cocoon's documentation is much better than most, but I agree with you on the learning curve. The way Cocoon is packaged is a bit like someone wanting to learn to ride a bicycle, and being presented with instructions for that mixed in with instructions for driving a car, driving a tank, running an aircraft-carrier, and flying a 747, and then being left to work out which bits belong to which. This is not a good way of teaching people how to do things.
The problem with the lack of tools is not really Cocoon-specific: there is a general lack of good ways of letting non-specialist end-users maintain XML/XSLT files. Few non-programmers use editors, and if they do the chances of them screwing things up are high! On Friday 29 Mar 2002 3:11 am, Rob Jellinghaus wrote: > > I think that Cocoon is designed and built mostly by programmers, and hasn't > been marketed well (or indeed at all!). > > IMHO the main difficulty with Cocoon right now is how hard it is to > learn. I am spending most of this week just coming to grips with the > basics. It is *not* easy to dive right into the system and understand > (say) exactly how the esql sample page gets converted into html (i.e. what > exactly are all the steps of the pipeline, and where are they defined in > the various sitemaps / logicsheets / stylesheets). Nor is it easy to know > where to start when creating a new site, with a new CSS foundation and all > new templates. > > Right now Cocoon is really best suited for programmers with lots of time to > learn a new (albeit powerful) tool. In order to get wider adoption, Cocoon > will need *even more* attention paid to making it easy for newbies to start > working with it -- not only more tutorials along the lines of CTwiG, but > also more (and more functional!) sample applications, and probably even > more web-based management tools (since doing *all* Cocoon administration by > editing XML files is not exactly easy -- try out Zope for an example of a > different, simpler, approach). > > I do still like Cocoon, in theory, but the learning curve is daunting and > it's still not clear I will be able to spend enough time on it to start > getting good results. > > Cheers, > Rob --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check that your question has not already been answered in the FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faqs.html> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
