[ZWeb] Re: [Zope] Come kick some tires, at new.zope.org

[Thomas B. Passin]

[Ken Manheimer]

> On Wed, 10 Oct 2001, Thomas B. Passin wrote:
>
> > [Martijn Pieters]
> >
> > > On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 11:06:42PM +0200, Joachim Werner wrote:
>
> > > > I have heard things like "Zope might be cool, but can you also do
> > > > NICE-LOOKING sites with it?" quite often, just because the old (and
as it
> > > > seems) new zope.org look so half-baked in design ...
> > > [...]
> > > The CMF skin system makes it easy enough to develop new skins around a
> > > running site. Our current focus is new.Zope.org running; there are
only so
> > > many hours in a day!
> > [...]
> > As for " Our current focus is new.Zope.org running; there are only so
many
> > hours in a day!", I sympathize but if everyone took that approach to the
> > software, well, that's a proven way to produce bad software.  Don't
think
> > it's any different for site design.
>
> What exactly do you mean by "that approach"?  Do you realize the effort
> we're investing to provide a decent site, balancing function, form, and
> other (paying) business?  Martijn didn't say they're not good ideas, only
> that there are limited hours in the day - we're investing substantial
> portions in our community, including the site.
>

I think you've just made my point - for the software end, you aren't putting
off important work because you are too "busy".  Instead, you are doing a lot
of planning and coordination because you know that's what it takes.

What people (including me) are suggesting is that the site's design is more
important than you seem to be thinking, and deserves some fraction of the
thought and care that's going into the software.

> I think we can take the point that there's strategic benefit in extra
> design attention to certain areas (eg, the front page, the overall design,
> etc), without accepting the implication that we're being sloppy or
> negligent.  We are trying to balance our attentions across limited
> resources.  I can understand suggestions about rough spots in the design,
> but suspect you may obscure your good suggestions with what seems to be
> somewhat damning criticism.
>

Yes, limited resources... the bane of all our projects... it's true.  And
it's true also that people will gripe long and loud if the software isn't
good.  Still, I would listen to Joachim - "can you also do nice-looking
sites with it?" - or in plainer terms "I'm not going to pursue Zope because
their site is crummy - it can't be a good system."

Cheers,

Tom P