Nov 03 2005
Python and Rome
Well it’s a while since I have written anything here. I have been having some down time, relaxing after my PhD submission. I now have a date for my Viva, the 1st Dec. I have also been promoted to webmaster for IVDA, so I’m now in charge of www.universitydancesport.com. It has to change, quite drastically! There are a number of problems with the current site, mostly that it’s falling apart at the seams! Text is overflowing from one column into the next, the forum is a totally different piece of software, and it’s breaking. Probably none of the users have noticed it yet, but the admin side is generating SQL errors left right and centre.
I’m moving in a different direction and am playing with Plone. Plone is a full content management system, written on top of CMF (the Continent Management Framework), which is in turn written on top of Zope, which is an application framework for content management systems. Zope is written in Python, a language I have no prior experience of, but its meant to be nice, and well thought out, with the exception of some strange white space issues. Anyway, the whole project is very well designed, and once you get your head round the strange multi level configuration options, kinda cool. Though it has no good forum products. I have installed Ploneboard, which works, but is missing several features. Firstly it doesn’t let you allow access to some boards to only some groups, but because of the nice security model in Zope, I can set that using Zope (though it’s a bit of a hassle). It doesn’t seem to let you edit posts, not does it tell you how many new posts have been made since you last visited. Looking at the source code for Ploneboard, it’s well structured and clear, so I think I can add the features we need and submit them back to the ploneboard development team for inclusion in future releases.
On a different note, I watched the BBC’s new Rome drama today, and then read the Guardian’s review of it. The reviewer seems to find every fault with it, without much justification, or historical accuracy. Sure, we don’t know that roman women would have showered in bull’s blood for a sacrifice, but given the prevalent religion at the time, it seems more than likely. As for his claim that the political back story is not covered in enough depth, well there is only so much screen time. If you want a good dramatisation of the fall of the republic and the rise of the empire, then Iggulden’s series has to be your first stop. Of course that is 3 books long, and counting…..
Finally I’m writing this in WB Editor 2, which is crap, and I won’t be using it again!
Hi there Laurie!
You’re not the first person to notice some, ahem, gaps in Ploneboard’s functionality. ;-)
I’ve been working with few people, including Alexander Limi and Tim Hicks, the creators of Ploneboard (and all around Plone Heroes), to put together some proposals for filling a few of those gaps. You can read our PLIPs (that’s PLone Improvement Proposals) at http://plone.org/products/ploneboard/roadmap. We’d love to hear your thoughts — or to read your checkins!
best,
jon