New Backspaces site is out there.

[Owen Densmore]

OK, I drank the kool-aid and rebuilt my web site.

Basically, after finding out about xhtml/css (css=cascading style
sheets, xhtml=html following xml formatting rules), then php/mysql, I
decided to automate a bit.  Looked for content management systems (cms)
that would keep my xhtml/css clean.

Wasn't an easy choice.  Looked initially for the systems popular with
the designers who have been so influential in the css revolution.  
WordPress is by far the most popular with the blogging crowd.  But
non-blog, "static" pages didn't appear to be as easy.  Stumbled across
Textpattern, which I decided to use.

Cms's typically use php/mysql (or xml/java/mysql) to automate the
management of your site.  This includes "templating" .. creating the
pages out of fragments .. so your sidebars and navigation menus are
easily managed.

Been an interesting trip.

Has anyone else tried cms/blogging for their site?

        -- Owen

Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net

[Russell Standish]

We use a rather different approach to this issue, for all sorts of
historical reasons. We generate content in LaTeX (primarily because
we/I write scientific articles and books using LaTeX, so its easy to
use a tool that's already familiar). Plus when I started developing
web content in 1994, there was only two choices: raw HTML and LaTeX,
with LaTeX being vastly more user friendly and sophisticated than raw
HTML.

LaTeX is converted to static web pages via LaTeX2HTML, a Perl
script. Being a script, the website's look and feel can be easily
changed but modifying an appropriate Perl subroutine. The entire
website can be rebuilt using the new style simply by remaking it. I
believe there is another product called l2h which does something
similar, but I haven't evaluated it.

Automated extraction of information from databases to populate static
web pages is done via perl scripts. LaTeX2HTML and the perl scripts is
run from make - typing "make" builds a test website, typing "make
install" places it on the destination webserver.

Finally content management (CMS) is provided by our standard source
code management system Aegis. It is thus possible to roll a website
back to a given date if desired. Indeed, our institution's website
policy mandates this functionality. Aegis also allows multiple website
maintainers to work independently on the website, and Aegis ensures
that only valid code is checked into the repository, and the one
regression test will perform a link check (by a suitable call to wget)
to catch any hanging links.

Our use of Aegis functonality is fairly minimal, and one could use
another source code management system such as CVS or Subversion if
that is your preference. Again we use Aegis for other things...

I'm not entirely sure that PHP offers anything over this approach,
other than some dynamic content. Even dynamic content can be delivered
via Perl CGI scripts, so we don't need to leave the Perl/LaTeX
mindset. We find that keeping as much content as possible static
(perhaps via periodic updates) delivers a far more satisfactory user
experience.
                                        Cheers

On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 05:23:14PM -0600, Owen Densmore wrote:

> OK, I drank the kool-aid and rebuilt my web site.
>
> Basically, after finding out about xhtml/css (css=cascading style
> sheets, xhtml=html following xml formatting rules), then php/mysql, I
> decided to automate a bit.  Looked for content management systems (cms)
> that would keep my xhtml/css clean.
>
> Wasn't an easy choice.  Looked initially for the systems popular with
> the designers who have been so influential in the css revolution.  
> WordPress is by far the most popular with the blogging crowd.  But
> non-blog, "static" pages didn't appear to be as easy.  Stumbled across
> Textpattern, which I decided to use.
>
> Cms's typically use php/mysql (or xml/java/mysql) to automate the
> management of your site.  This includes "templating" .. creating the
> pages out of fragments .. so your sidebars and navigation menus are
> easily managed.
>
> Been an interesting trip.
>
> Has anyone else tried cms/blogging for their site?
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
> Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

--
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
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may safely ignore this attachment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish             Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone [phone] (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                     Fax   [phone] (")
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