Friday May 02, 2003

Re: The Ultimate Weblogging System

Matthew has taken the time to respond to comments and everyone's comparison of their blogging system against his requirements. Thank you Matthew. But you still haven't explained the Creative Commons requirement. Is all you are looking for is the ability for the user to select a License and have the appropriate logo displayed?
( May 02 2003, 10:41:48 PM ) Roller Permalink Comments [1]
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On a lighter note

Found via Code Intensity.
( May 02 2003, 02:45:04 PM ) Humor? Permalink [Link]
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The Ultimate Weblogging System

Via Sam Ruby, Matthew Thomas's list for the Ultimate Weblogging System. Truth be told, Roller has quite a long way to get there and won't ever reach the first requirement: GPL. That said, I'd like to evaluate Roller against the list anyway.

1. GPL : Nope, not likely to happen either.
2. Works with a Free database : Yep, several in fact.
3. Export to XML : Roller can export to XML, but it doesn't scale well. This needs work.
4. Non-crufty URLs : Almost, but links to specific entries don't meet the requirement. I think Roller could get there if someone really wanted it. Though Roller doesn't generate "archives", I think it would be entirely possible to generate day/month/year views (not sure I'd want the latter).
5. Good metadata : Sorry, though several people have requested hierarchical categories, noone has wanted it bad enough to implement and submit it. There are useability issues with "spontaneous categories" that I can think of, but they aren't insurmountable.
6. Syndication
   1. Roller handles most of this, except pinging Weblogs.com: I don't really see the use of this myself - I've never missed it - but I understand why some people would want it.
   2. Does caching Pages count as "converting Slashdotted entries to static pages"?
   3. I'm not sure what "Integrate support for Creative Commons licenses" means - that a user can select a license for their blog/entries?
7. Management : Roller can do nearly all of this, I think.
   1. How exactly are people (Matt?) blogging from their phones now? Using a third-party tool such as Moblogger or just the Blogger API?
   2. LinuxSTEP requirement : I read the explanation further down, still don't get it. I've never used LinuxSTEP, but if its anything like NextSTEP its cool. Still wouldn't make it a requirement, despite Matthew's religious reasoning.
8. Backward compatibility : Nope, sorry.
   1. Roller can import OPML bookmarks, but I don't think it's gone any further than that. Would be nice though.
   2. Matthew, could you expand on the final point - I'm not sure what you mean by "Keep URIs the same for legacy entries, while still allowing control over their appearance".

Where relevant, should I add links to the Roller JIRA issues where these requirements are documented?
( May 02 2003, 01:54:43 PM ) Roller Permalink Comments [7]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/the_ulimate_weblogging_system

For further reading on today's posts:

working on the future of solidarity : A list of must haves for weblogging systems has been developed. From Lance's review of the criteria it looks as if Roller is doing quite well.

Thursday May 01, 2003

Why you should love open source

While I'm patting myself on the back, I might as well mention that I also contributed a fix to Velocidoc as well. This is what I love about working with "open source" (and others have said, likely better): If I find a problem, I can fix it myself! When I have a problem with Weblogic, all I can do is search the web for a workaround, or pray that BEA has released a patch that fixes it. While it isn't Open Source (notice the capitals), when I run into a problem with Resin I can open up the code and take a stab at fixing it myself. And once I do, I can post the bug/solution with Caucho and feel safe it'll be integrated into the next release.
( May 01 2003, 10:03:04 AM ) Technology Permalink
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Wednesday April 30, 2003

Why can't we all just get along?

Jeremy Rayner reported an unfortunate bug against Roller, but it's not quite Roller's fault: we use LIMIT in our SQL to limit the results of some queries (most noticeably the Home page). But HSQLDB doesn't support "LIMIT #", unlike MySQL and Postgresql - you have to use TOP #. Of course, writing our persistence layer such that it knows what database you are using would be lame.

In the course of my research into this problem I found wide inconsistencies in MySql, Postgresql, and Hsqldb (didn't look at the others). Read the comments in the bug report above and you'll see what I mean. So for the last couple days its been perculating in the back of my mind on how to fix this. Fixing it in Roller's code isn't appropriate, it's really up to the persistence layers (Castor & Hibernate) to address the differences in databases.

In my research I had also come across a couple similar issues entered against Castor, and one proposed solution. That solution wouldn't address our problem, but after a day of simmering the answer came to mind. I'm really rather pleased with myself, which is the whole reason for this post.

Hey, this is "Vanity Foul" after all.
( Apr 30 2003, 08:36:21 PM ) Technology Permalink Comments [1]
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Tuesday April 29, 2003

Roller needs ETag support

Note to self: We added Last-Modified/If-Modified-Since support some time ago, to be complete we should add ETag support. ( Apr 29 2003, 01:05:06 PM ) Roller Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/roller_needs_etag_support

Sunday April 27, 2003

Re: Very Fricken Cool!

I have to echo Matt here, what Dave has done to Roller's Wiki looks very good. Keep up the good work Dave! I try to contribute here and there, but you da man! ( Apr 27 2003, 08:15:35 PM ) Roller Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/re_very_fricken_cool

Friday April 25, 2003

Help, I'm evil!

Just as was Carlos, so am I

( Apr 25 2003, 11:00:39 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
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