I am with cocoon for about three months now and i remember
my own frustrations when i started as a newbie. From this
thread and other emails within this list and from my personal
experience with cocoon i conclude:
1.) cocoon gains high (initial) attraction (many newbies questions)
2.) cocoon is not easy to apply by newbies (see this thread ;-)
3.) cocoon is far away from getting mature (focus on dev HEAD)
dont missunderstand me: i mean it's robust but complex,
fast evolving and ever changing ...
But if you look under the hood you also find:
4.) cocoon provides a very exciting technology.
5.) cocoon IS actively developed.
6.) cocoon attracts commercial interests (projects)
I assume everybody getting attracted to cocoon has some
ideas in mind what he/she wants to do with it, but after
opening the box it is (at first) hard to see how you could
gain from cocoon within your projects. And i think that
at least in commercial projects what counts is the amount
of time you need to get it mastered.
The (non developing) users seem to suffer from
* undocumented features (wholes in documentation)
* complexity, even if the parts of interest
are well documented.
* huge amount of loosely coupled docs and documentation
sites.
* lack of "out of the box" applications that can be
used right from the initial installation (maybe
the cocoon portal is an exception, but it's also
really complex for the newbies, isn't it ?)
* functional overkill
* Lack of debugging facilities especially for sitemap
checking.
* very poor error reporting. You have to dig within tons of
stack traces to get a clue ... Sometimes you even get
no error report at all, it simply doesn't work.
But it is also true, that once you have mastered the
cocoon basics and once you start understanding how
things work, you suddenly get so much out of it,
that all your initial efforts get payed back.
Because cocoon is something i really want to support,
i started a Wiki page that adresses some of the most
hearting issues. Hopefully this work can be
used (and improved) also by others:
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=SurvivalTips
Besides this i recommend to have a look at the
"cocoon developer's handbook" (developer's library)
This book is now my "good companion" in the cocoon
adventure.
Since i use cocoon within commercial projects i
had the oportunity to give away a small subproject
to one of the cocoon developers and i was really
positively surprised from the quality of the work
i got back. Hence i would recommend to all other
project managers out in the world:
simply ask for support from the cocoon comunity and
i am shure, you will either get your problems
solved "on the fly" or you will find excellent experts
who will be happy to get involved in your projects as
freelancers...
I hope that cocoon will master it's own future
and eventually become "the tomcat of XML-publishing"
regards, Hussayn
--
Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
SAXESS Software Design GmbH
Neuenhöfer Allee 125
50935 Köln
Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
Fax: +49-221-56011-20
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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