Paul Bolger wrote:
(ross)
This would be a good compliement to the Feeder plugin - but like Thorsten
obsered in earlier, we are getting dangerously close to doing things that a
CMS system should really be doing for us. This is a very grey area - I'm not
sure which side of the fence I sit on yet.
I think it's a discussion well worth having. I suspect that it would
be better, or more likely to succeed at any rate, to concentrate on
developing useful applications for Forrest than getting too bogged
down with semantics. Forrest can be a slippery fish when it comes down
to defining exactly what it does. Maybe we should be running a list of
possible use cases in the docs and trying to gauge what users actually
want most. Personally good html site generation is a priority, but
maybe Forrest's forte is something a bit less mainstream.
I agree it is a discussion worth having.
First, if Forrest decides that a particular feature does not "fit" with
the scope of Forrest, there is nothing to stop an external developer
building and hosting the plugin elsewhere. The question is not whether
it can be developed, rather whether the Forrest project should undertake
to maintain it.
The problem is, that if we accept too many CMS like plugins two things
happen:
1) we end up with loads of unsupported plugins because the original
creators find themselves busy with other things
2) we divert attention away from useful development of other features,
such as integration with more complete tools for the job in hand. For
example, too much focus on CMS-like features will reduce effort on true
CMS integration
Your idea of a list of use cases for us to examine is a good one. In the
past we have discussed the possaiblity of providing different seed sites
for different use cases. Such a document would help us to identify those
seed sites.
As for defining what Forrest does, we spent a long time working on the
short description of Forrest to try and make it clear. Problem is, most
people fail to see the real purpose, they just think of Forrest as a web
site generation tool.
I see it more as a data integration and publishing tool. Where the data
comes from and the form it is published in is not a concern of Forrest.
Forrest, provides a framework for fullfilling all collation and
publishing needs.
Now, to your use case:
You want to automatically create RSS feeds of content. These feeds will
show the date that items were added and short summaries.
It has been argued that this is a CMS problem. However, given that
Forrest integrates data from multiple sources we cannot rely on the CMS
since it may not be aware of some of the sources of data and therefore
cannot include them in the feed.
My conclusion is therefore that a RSS output plugin is in the scope of
Forrest.
WDOT?
Ross
