Dear Alec,
Your letter, which I excerpt and respond to below, is a beautiful thing.
It is, in essence, the story of a young man in love.
One never gets over a first love...
Hell, I still think BASIC is the cat's ass, after learning it 40 years ago
as an applied math. I can see you are a young man in love, so enjoy!
That said, on to the cynical comments in the excerpts portion of our show.
On Sun, 25 Oct 2009, alec wrote:
The real question boils down to
what can we do with the modern Python based frameworks that would appeal.
Me? Absolutely nothing, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
That's the cool thing about a mature love, you see the flaws, and you can
appreciate the object of adoration even in this after-light...
I looked into Plone a year ago and what I found had little more worth
than a pile of nonsense. If I knew Python or any of a bunch of other
things that all the docs, tutorials, and online info required as base
knowledge, then that would be a very different story. But I don't have
that base knowledge so everything was about as useful as a Martian
alphabet or a car with its' hood welded shut.
Now, now, this is all open source, as Bruce Parens once observed, "the
hood of the car" opens. The love-drunk monkey opening the hood... that's
another matter.
I've heard you express your concerns about the LAMP architecture plenty
of times
You are mistaken, I have never said an unkind word about LAMP. LAMP
stand for;
Linux
Apache
MySql
Python
Right?
but only as far as the mention of "MYSQL Injection" which every
geek has at least heard of and I'm told PHP CMS's are all protected from.
Your life is enviably short. While I have had a terrible security breach
thanks to WordPress, a PHP based product, I feel that safeguards are
possible. I really just do not like the look of Drupal, or what I have
seen folks do to it (in this case the folks include you, Alec).
I've been looking into Drupal for a year. What I've seen is incredible.
This is good. Learn this hammer, make the world your nail!
What I will be able to do after my immersion learning Drupal next
month
Who is teaching you? That will matter a great deal.
knocks the jockstrap off of anything I could do with any other
system I've looked at, by light years. Light years. Honestly.
Go forward, (with a closely watched firewall and IPS :^), but by all means
go forward!
I do not doubt your knowledge about PHP or Python at all. However,
after comparing my experience with Plone to my experience with Drupal,
hearing you say PHP's not the way to go sounds like lunacy.
Actually, I am currently smitten by component architectures. I am musing
about what happens when you combine the Django framework with other
frameworks and tools, excluding none. I would say more, but love should
be discreet...
Do you see where I'm at?
I absolutely do. You are in love, and that is all there is to say.
Next month I'll be building my own website using Drupal. While I'm at
it I could get the BOSI one underway as well.
We welcome your artistic and conceptual input! Send a URL when that comes
together. I am quite fond of the content of your principal site
(http://catalystnow.org/), despite the large-ish green "ears" my browser
renders it with, and the survey (I hate surveys :^). Forgive my minor
quibbles, you have as much right to share your vision as I do to whine
about it. That said, I am confident that your web design firm, Woodchuck
Web Designs, will have a site with as much content in due time.
Eric Howard showed off some impressive stuff last week in Django. I am
inclined in this direction but only as far as it goes. That said I
feel that a component could be PHP based.
Josh Sled also gave an excellent presentation on Django at the VAGUE
meeting, I just wish I could have gotten Josh and Eric in the same room
for a few minutes.
Ah love!
See you at Adult Swim
(http://humctc.ning.com/events/bosi-adult-swim) today from 4-7 PM!
Kindest Regards,
Paul Flint
(802) 479-2360
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Paul Flint
Barre Open Systems Institute
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http://www.bosivt.org
http://www.flint.com/home
skype: flintinfotech
Work: (202) 537-0480
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