Folks,
this is not about bashing Radiant. Instead, I'd like to mention a few things
that make it harder to sell Radiant-based solutions to customers who often
answer "Why don't you use Wordpress for the job?"
(1) Radiant is like a toolbox for websites, but not quite.
From a developer perspective, Radiant doesn't stand in the way while I'm
building the next great website for a customer. It's a great tool to build and
develop. From a customer (aka. "end user") perspective, Radiant is a bunch of
input boxes where you have to enter cryptic stuff which looks a lot like code.
Well, in fact it is. Thats why some of my customers wouldn't ever trade in
their wordpress UI for a nifty Radiant site. Which is a shame because they
could do so much better. How can I sell Radiant to users who don't recognize
the simply aesthetics of Textile {or any other markup}?
(2) Core Radiant isn't enough to build a real-world website.
HTML, javascript, css and images, that what you'll typically need. Radiant (at
least edge) handles the first three pretty well, considering (1). For images,
you need the paperclipped extension. Why isn't this core functionality? And
even it it was: URLs like /assets/47/some_image.png contain that database id,
which changes with every installation and make them hard to remember.
(3) Upgrading is a pain.
Even if I dont like it: Upgrading Wordpress is a breeze. Upgrading Radiant
usually involves SSH connections, terminal commands, some gem handling and
server restarting. Not a breeze, not at all. I can do that, but end users
typically can't.
How do you think about this? I'd love to contribute to make stuff easier, but
I'm not sure where to start. Any comment is welcome. Kind regards,
Christian
p.s.: Will be at ArrrrCamp tomorrow. Who else?
