John Plocher wrote: >> This whole scheme is way to dangerous as far as I'm concerned. > > Why? Seriously. If the site were ROR based, or perl or python, > there would be no compile step.
I'm sorry, but that statement is wrong. Perl *is* compiled, it just takes place when you start the interpreter. The same goes for python, or ruby. For a site that is based on CGI scripts the distinction is blurred because each page request results in the execution of a new interpreter. However that sort of architecture doesn't scale very well, so high-traffic sites using perl usually use mod_perl, which embeds a persistent perl interpreter inside the web server. In that environment, the compilation step is something you have to explicitly be aware of, and usually you have to restart the server if you make any changes - things such as BEGIN blocks only fire on interpreter startup, and many modules use them to ensure that things are initialised to a known state on startup. > Once a schema is in place, most > of the changes will be either cosmetic (css/html focus) or new > feature additions. Being able to have the website "in" a hg > repository means that anyone can clone it, develop locally, test > locally (within the bounds of whatever auth sandbox you provide) > and, when satisfied (and if authorized!), push back to the ARC- > site-preintegration-gate with an RTI. If that gate were connected > to, say "http://arc.os.o/test";, the submitter could even test > things out. Once the gatekeeper(s?) are happy, they could then > push from the pre-gate into the live-gate, thus updating the real > site. All without having to give everyone in the community root > access to the server. > > Nope, this isn't enterprise datacenter/MIS level protocol, but > in my mind, there is absolutely no need for that level of paranoia. > Yet. Maybe never. > > Make it easy for people to contribute, make it easy to see results, > and maybe that plocher guy won't have to do all the work :-) As I have already said, I wish you the best of luck and I'll be watching with interest. We've already set up the arc.opensolaris.org zone for you, so you have somewhere to build something and see if it works out. However I very much doubt it will be something we will be doing on any of the web properties that we manage, most of which are Java-based. If we want the sort of dynamic content management, we'd most likely do it with a pre-existing package such as a Wiki or CMS. -- Alan Burlison --
