New threads and open source

I’ve spent much of my off time the last two months redeveloping AccMan. The design is more or less there but as with all IT projects, there’s a long list of bugs, niggles and other stuff that need ironing out. Here’s a link to the development site. Some features are rough and ready so please don’t slam on that. Before committing to the ‘new’ I’d like to get some feedback to check if I’m on the right track. If needs be, I’m prepared to go back to the drawing board or even abandon. Why did I do this?

AccMan is no longer a tiny site with a very niched audience. People from around the world come to take a look and there’s now some 2,700+ posts stretching back to September 2005. It has become more difficult to search which is far from ideal. I also felt that despite the great design I got from Brian Gardner and have been using for over 14 months that AccMan was becoming a bit too ‘busy’ or cluttered and needed a clearer, cleaner layout such that people can easily navigate from one place to another. On the other hand, I don’t want to spend hours administering the site. At the same time, I want to add ‘grown up’ features that will, over time, allow the site to morph more towards a community. My current choice of software doesn’t really allow me to do those things without significant compromises.

I’ve learned a great deal about how content management systems of today can work, the innards of CSS and PHP plus just how aweful some development code can be. The most important lessons though centre around open source development.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, open source provides a mechanism for users to acquire software, often at no or low cost. Developers get access to code they can play with, improve and often bring new products to market. At its finest, open source can attract hundreds or thousands of developers to a product. A good example is the Firefox browser. Part of its success can be attributed ot the fact it is open source and so is immensely attractive to developers who, by their nature are inventive, curious problem solvers. It also means Firefox can be extended ad infinitum. While that has obvious attractions, there is a downside.

The vast majority of open srouce products are developed by small teams who are just as likely to wander off to work on the next new shiny thing as they are to maintain the code. There is no commitment to develop as there would be in a commercial situation. Even where code is maintained, you’re at the behest of whomever is sitting behind the product for their input when something goes wrong. In this latest iteration, I’ve bought a LOT of components, wrestled with code and so on. That means the current version is a mish mash of all sorts of ’stuff.’ So, when things do go pear shaped, where do I point the finger?

That’s not always immediately obvious. Also, there is significant variability in the quality of backup services. Some developers have gone out of their way to help while others have been obtuse in responding – if they’ve bothered. All of which can mean open source provides a lumpy experience. It is therefore not surprising that many companies eschew this method of building solutions.

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Tagged as: Content management system, Mozilla Firefox, Open source, PHP