Website Platform Discussion

[Jim DeLaHunt]

Derek:

Welcome back. And by the way, thank you for all your work on Gnucash. I 
benefit greatly from the work of everyone who makes this wonderful product.

On 2017-06-22 09:05, Derek Atkins wrote:
> ...At least I suspect it's "git" that's the barrier to entry and not the fact that it's a raw
> PHP-based website vs Drupal/et al....
I have a different opinion. I see the barriers to entry for a new 
contributor to the website being (in decreasing order of importance):

 1. not feeling empowered or capable: "such a big website", "not sure
    where to start", "afraid I'll screw up"
 2. hard to express the change I want to make in raw HTML: "how do I
    format the table just right?" "What's the right URL for this link to
    another part of the site?" "How do I keep my change visually
    consistent with the rest?"
 3. difficult to make changes that affect multiple pages on the site:
    "how do I add another item to the navigation panel?"
 4. how to open the website for editing, save changes, commit to
    production: "how do I use git?"

  A content management system helps #1 somewhat: the system will prevent 
you from making a class of stupid mistakes if merely editing content. 
It's a big help for #2 and #3.   It's somewhat of a help for #4, 
especially for simple changes.

The use of git seems to me to be a barrier primarily for #4, and not all 
that relevant for #1, #2, and #3.

-- 
     --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh at jdlh.com     http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
       multilingual websites consultant

       355-1027 Davie St, Vancouver BC V6E 4L2, Canada
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