[Evangelism] Re: "Top 15 Questions..." Final Draft

[Chris Barnes]

Calvin Hendryx-Parker wrote:
> What constitutes up and running for you?  The default install will  
> leave you with a site you can place up live behind a proxy.

Fair question.
A decent looking website for the public to see, w/ a separate interface 
for the non-html-versed content managers to update information.  This is 
NOT what one gets after the 'default install'.

Instead, one is left with a page that is available for the maintainers, 
but with nothing pointing to a site for the general public.


Proxy? I'm not sure I am exactly sure what a proxy is, or why I would 
want to use one.


> Why does deploying a Plone site mean you need to learn Python?  There  
> are many people out there creating great looking sites and they don't  
> know a lick of Python to to it.  They are using a combination of third  
> party add-ons (which are easy to install with buildout) and a theme  
> product that you can generate from ZopeSkel.

Maybe it doesn't and I just don't understand then.  Maybe what I need to 
learn is zope? (which, btw, is still beyond my pro-bono time constraints).

Having themes which can be imported in sounds good.  I have not heard of 
ZopeSkel before - is it a part of the default install that runs 
automatically?   If it's a 3rd party add-on, that may be nice - but it 
would seem to be misleading (at the least) to say that the product is 
"ready out of the box".


> What part of our install story is lacking in your mind so we an  
> address it.  I think it would be helpful feedback to get from you.

Having worked in a computer support for 12 years prior to being a system 
admin, I often found it useful - make that *essential* - to stand back 
and WATCH as someone else attempts to install/use a system.

The fact is, I don't know what I don't know.   All I do know is that I 
sat in front of the screen after installing Plone and wondered "what 
now?".   I'm just a frustrated user.  I have neither a vested interest 
in "making plone #1" nor "pushing something else".   I simply want to 
find a product that fits my needs.  If it's Plone - and I was lead to 
believe it was - then great.  If it's not, then my search to find out 
what will fit my needs continues.

-- 

Chris Barnes                              AOL IM: CNBarnes
chris at txbarnes.com (also MSN IM)        Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes