> What is its direct competition? A variety of other content management > systems, foremost of which is probably Zope (an open-source Python CMS with > a good web UI but no XSL underpinnings). This is an evolving sector. If > you look on Google for "content management system" or "Java XSLT" you will > probably turn up rather more hits.... > > IMHO the main difficulty with Cocoon right now is how hard it is to > learn. I am spending most of this week just coming to grips with the > basics. It is *not* easy to dive right into the system and understand > (say) exactly how the esql sample page gets converted into html (i.e. what > exactly are all the steps of the pipeline, and where are they defined in > the various sitemaps / logicsheets / stylesheets). Nor is it easy to know > where to start when creating a new site, with a new CSS foundation and all > new templates. >
> I would love (and may work on developing) a "starter web application" under > Cocoon, with its own local sitemap and its own templates... sort of a > "hello world webapp" totally contained in one directory. > > Right now Cocoon is really best suited for programmers with lots of time to > learn a new (albeit powerful) tool. In order to get wider adoption, Cocoon > will need *even more* attention paid to making it easy for newbies to start > working with it -- not only more tutorials along the lines of CTwiG, but > also more (and more functional!) sample applications, and probably even > more web-based management tools (since doing *all* Cocoon administration by > editing XML files is not exactly easy -- try out Zope for an example of a > different, simpler, approach). > > I do still like Cocoon, in theory, but the learning curve is daunting and > it's still not clear I will be able to spend enough time on it to start > getting good results. > > Cheers, > Rob Rob, There's another product that I just stumbled upon called 4Suite/Server (www.fourthought.com) that's built with python. A project developer claimed that 4Suite is much easier to come to grips with than Cocoon. I, personally, don't have any experience with it, however, I'm going to give it a whirl later next week. Anthony --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check that your question has not already been answered in the FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faqs.html> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>