Thread: Re: [pgsql-www] Alternate PostgreSQL.org Design
Omar, > We believe that it is clean, professional and simple. And it makes the > release of 8.0 actually... exciting. :) I like the organization of content. I find the graphics a bit HP-ish, but that's work-on-able. It's certainly less crowded than our current design, and you've done a nice job making things a lot more intuitively findable. > It is a *drop-in* replacement for the current pgweb design. No > additional work is required to retrofit the current wwwdevel design. > It's already done! Keen, this makes a discussion about it more useful. Thank you for going the extra mile and dealing with some of the drill-down pages; it really gives us an idea of how you envision the site being organized. > We've gone through a bit of the current content and fixed it up with > proper headings and so forth. But we believe that the content needs to > be restructured to fit within navigational guide lines. No arguments here ... see the collected archives of www. > * The overuse of subdomains is a major pain. Each subdomain uses a > completely different layout and design. X.postgresql.org should be under > the relevant section on the main site. Advocacy should move under > /about/. Developers has it's own section. Tech docs should move under > Documentation, etc. We've had a consolidation plan for over a year. Really, you should engage more of a dialoge in the WWW list and talk to us about what's already planned. Techdocs is one hitch; article generation/editing needs to be handled by some kind of online text editor. Otherwise we limit contributors to the current WWW team and nothing gets written. Of course, it would also be a really good idea to have any part of the site requiring significant maintenance .... such as the list of GUIs, the contributor list, or consulting companies ... to be editable via simple text editor or html form instead of via raw XHTML. This would allow the general pool of documentation volunteers -- which is 5x large than WWW volunteers -- to maintain these areas. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, which could be in the next few weeks? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Berkus wrote: > Omar, > > > We believe that it is clean, professional and simple. And it makes the > > release of 8.0 actually... exciting. :) > > I like the organization of content. I find the graphics a bit HP-ish, but > that's work-on-able. It's certainly less crowded than our current design, > and you've done a nice job making things a lot more intuitively findable. > > > It is a *drop-in* replacement for the current pgweb design. No > > additional work is required to retrofit the current wwwdevel design. > > It's already done! > > Keen, this makes a discussion about it more useful. Thank you for going the > extra mile and dealing with some of the drill-down pages; it really gives us > an idea of how you envision the site being organized. > > > We've gone through a bit of the current content and fixed it up with > > proper headings and so forth. But we believe that the content needs to > > be restructured to fit within navigational guide lines. > > No arguments here ... see the collected archives of www. > > > * The overuse of subdomains is a major pain. Each subdomain uses a > > completely different layout and design. X.postgresql.org should be under > > the relevant section on the main site. Advocacy should move under > > /about/. Developers has it's own section. Tech docs should move under > > Documentation, etc. > > We've had a consolidation plan for over a year. Really, you should engage > more of a dialoge in the WWW list and talk to us about what's already > planned. > > Techdocs is one hitch; article generation/editing needs to be handled by some > kind of online text editor. Otherwise we limit contributors to the current > WWW team and nothing gets written. > > Of course, it would also be a really good idea to have any part of the site > requiring significant maintenance .... such as the list of GUIs, the > contributor list, or consulting companies ... to be editable via simple text > editor or html form instead of via raw XHTML. This would allow the general > pool of documentation volunteers -- which is 5x large than WWW volunteers -- > to maintain these areas. > > -- > Josh Berkus > Aglio Database Solutions > San Francisco > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly > -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
It is not outside the realm of possibility, but I'm not optimistic as there are still a number of TODO items we need to finish up... Of course if folks feel this is something that needs to happen we could possibly toss some things out, but there has been some reservations about launching a new site at the same time as a major release. Robert Treat On Fri, 2004-11-12 at 13:00, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, > which could be in the next few weeks? > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Josh Berkus wrote: > > Omar, > > > > > We believe that it is clean, professional and simple. And it makes the > > > release of 8.0 actually... exciting. :) > > > > I like the organization of content. I find the graphics a bit HP-ish, but > > that's work-on-able. It's certainly less crowded than our current design, > > and you've done a nice job making things a lot more intuitively findable. > > > > > It is a *drop-in* replacement for the current pgweb design. No > > > additional work is required to retrofit the current wwwdevel design. > > > It's already done! > > > > Keen, this makes a discussion about it more useful. Thank you for going the > > extra mile and dealing with some of the drill-down pages; it really gives us > > an idea of how you envision the site being organized. > > > > > We've gone through a bit of the current content and fixed it up with > > > proper headings and so forth. But we believe that the content needs to > > > be restructured to fit within navigational guide lines. > > > > No arguments here ... see the collected archives of www. > > > > > * The overuse of subdomains is a major pain. Each subdomain uses a > > > completely different layout and design. X.postgresql.org should be under > > > the relevant section on the main site. Advocacy should move under > > > /about/. Developers has it's own section. Tech docs should move under > > > Documentation, etc. > > > > We've had a consolidation plan for over a year. Really, you should engage > > more of a dialoge in the WWW list and talk to us about what's already > > planned. > > > > Techdocs is one hitch; article generation/editing needs to be handled by some > > kind of online text editor. Otherwise we limit contributors to the current > > WWW team and nothing gets written. > > > > Of course, it would also be a really good idea to have any part of the site > > requiring significant maintenance .... such as the list of GUIs, the > > contributor list, or consulting companies ... to be editable via simple text > > editor or html form instead of via raw XHTML. This would allow the general > > pool of documentation volunteers -- which is 5x large than WWW volunteers -- > > to maintain these areas. > > > > -- > > Josh Berkus > > Aglio Database Solutions > > San Francisco > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > > TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly > > > > -- > Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us > pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 > + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road > + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend -- Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
Robert, > Of course if folks feel this is something that needs to happen we could > possibly toss some things out, but there has been some reservations > about launching a new site at the same time as a major release. Given the problems with the legacy site, I think a lot of us would rather see a new, even partially implemented, site than to do 8.0 on the old site. --Josh -- __Aglio Database Solutions_______________ Josh Berkus Consultant josh@agliodbs.com www.agliodbs.com Ph: 415-752-2500 Fax: 415-752-2387 2166 Hayes Suite 200 San Francisco, CA
Hi, Bruce Momjian wrote: > Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, > which could be in the next few weeks? No.
Josh Berkus wrote:
> Robert,
>
> > Of course if folks feel this is something that needs to happen we could
> > possibly toss some things out, but there has been some reservations
> > about launching a new site at the same time as a major release. ?
>
> Given the problems with the legacy site, I think a lot of us would rather see
> a new, even partially implemented, site than to do 8.0 on the old site.
Agreed. I have two words to summarize my opinion, "dancing elephant":
http://janetskiles.com/ART/greeting/greet-ani/dancing-elephant.jpg
"I would rather see a dancing elephant up there than us do nothing."
But seriously, we haven't focused in the past on getting the www
completed and if we let 8.0 ship without doing the upgrade it will
languish for many more months.
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
Alexey Borzov wrote: > Hi, > > Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, > > which could be in the next few weeks? > > No. OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't get a group together to update a web site? -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
Bruce, > OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release > evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't > get a group together to update a web site? Because a lot less people are working on the web site, and none of them are paid to do so? --Josh -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
Josh Berkus wrote: > Bruce, > > > OK, fair enough. ?Now can someone explain how we can put out a release > > evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't > > get a group together to update a web site? > > Because a lot less people are working on the web site, and none of them are > paid to do so? Well, even if you take out the paid folks, PostgreSQL would be doing a lot more than the www site is. Remember we had no paid guys for the first few years. I am suggesting that we are not properly harnessing the talent we have. That is a big part of the success in the code portion of the project. -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote: > Alexey Borzov wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Bruce Momjian wrote: >>> Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, >>> which could be in the next few weeks? >> >> No. > > OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release > evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't > get a group together to update a web site? Glamour? :) Its more glamous to say "I added so-n-so feature to the server for this release" then "I helped code HTML for the web site"? :) ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Josh Berkus wrote: > > OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a > > release evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, > > and we can't get a group together to update a web site? > > Because a lot less people are working on the web site, and none of > them are paid to do so? We put out regular releases long before (some) people started getting paid for their work. If now we're only getting work done if someone's getting paid for it, we're in trouble. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > Alexey Borzov wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> Bruce Momjian wrote: > >>> Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, > >>> which could be in the next few weeks? > >> > >> No. > > > > OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release > > evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't > > get a group together to update a web site? > > Glamour? :) Its more glamous to say "I added so-n-so feature to the > server for this release" then "I helped code HTML for the web site"? :) OK, then how can we make the www development more glamorous? It certainly "looks" better than a psql prompt. Maybe my dancing elephant image would help in this area. :-) -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
Honestly? It's either the too many cooks problem, or the poor coordination, or the lack of a clear leader/decision maker. It's hard for people who are not already involved intimately to get involved. It's hard to get other ideas floated without getting them shot down by one or two people, which seems to be the overall process killer in anything -www related. It's hard to feel like people are working in the same direction when for language reasons or otherwise discussions turn derogatory, rude, and down right ugly. I keep trying to stick my nose in to things because, at least people know who I am, and while not everyone agrees with me, I can at least try and do what I think we are all trying to do and that is make the best site for PostgreSQL which will impress people and be the valuable resource the existing site already is. There is a lot of history in the way things are done. People new to the project and people who weren't involved in the decisions made years ago about having sites like advocacy., developers., etc often feel out of the loop when they try and influence change. We have many capable designers, developers, and webmasters here. We need to find a way to work together and realize we're all ultimately working for the same goal. Egos need to be put aside, and work needs to get done. If I felt like there was a way to help get the site done that I could truly contribute to, other than offering opinions on direction and what not, I would be there doing it. Gavin Bruce Momjian wrote: >Alexey Borzov wrote: > > >>Hi, >> >>Bruce Momjian wrote: >> >> >>>Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, >>>which could be in the next few weeks? >>> >>> >>No. >> >> > >OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release >evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't >get a group together to update a web site? > > >
Hi, Bruce Momjian wrote: >>>Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, >>>which could be in the next few weeks? >> >>No. > > OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release > evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't > get a group together to update a web site? Your question implies that there exists some "group". Well, I can easily name people doing the work on the server. Can you name the people doing the work on the website? How much attention does the Core actually pays to the website?
Alexey Borzov wrote: > Hi, > > Bruce Momjian wrote: > >>>Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, > >>>which could be in the next few weeks? > >> > >>No. > > > > OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release > > evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't > > get a group together to update a web site? > > Your question implies that there exists some "group". Well, I can easily name > people doing the work on the server. Can you name the people doing the work on > the website? I can name a few, but not enough, as you suggest. The point is not who we have but how are we making it easy for more people to get involved. > How much attention does the Core actually pays to the website? Well, I assumed there were enough people involved that having core in there wasn't going to help, but maybe I was wrong. -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > Alexey Borzov wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> Bruce Momjian wrote: > >>> Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, > >>> which could be in the next few weeks? > >> > >> No. > > > > OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release > > evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't > > get a group together to update a web site? > > Glamour? :) Its more glamous to say "I added so-n-so feature to the > server for this release" then "I helped code HTML for the web site"? :) I don't buy that, because lots of other projects, which have nothing to do with web/graphics development, have great sites. Gavin
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote: > I am suggesting that we are not properly harnessing the talent we have. > That is a big part of the success in the code portion of the project. I don't think so ... I think the big part of the success in the code portion is that its more "high profile" ... to me, it was a *big* thing when I first started submitting kernel patches for FreeBSD way back when, because I was working on the actually *code* ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > Josh Berkus wrote: >>> OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a >>> release evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, >>> and we can't get a group together to update a web site? >> >> Because a lot less people are working on the web site, and none of >> them are paid to do so? > > We put out regular releases long before (some) people started getting > paid for their work. If now we're only getting work done if someone's > getting paid for it, we're in trouble. I agree ... IMHO, its like docs ... its not something ppl want to do, since they have a perception that its not as "cool' as orking on the code ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Friday 12 November 2004 23:42, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > Josh Berkus wrote:
> >>> OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a
> >>> release evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex,
> >>> and we can't get a group together to update a web site?
> >>
> >> Because a lot less people are working on the web site, and none of
> >> them are paid to do so?
> >
> > We put out regular releases long before (some) people started getting
> > paid for their work. If now we're only getting work done if someone's
> > getting paid for it, we're in trouble.
>
> I agree ... IMHO, its like docs ... its not something ppl want to do,
> since they have a perception that its not as "cool' as orking on the code
> ...
>
I don't think it is just the coolness factor. It is easier to justify needing
to hack database code to your boss/professor/manager than it is to justify
hacking on the website. Same is true for a great many third party apps like
ODBC/JDBC/PhpPgAdmin/etc... All of these things help you solve another
problem. The current website, while not award winning, is functional enough
that enough people can get work done without haveing to chip in.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
Hi, Bruce Momjian wrote: >>>OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release >>>evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't >>>get a group together to update a web site? >> >>Your question implies that there exists some "group". Well, I can easily name >>people doing the work on the server. Can you name the people doing the work on >>the website? > > I can name a few, but not enough, as you suggest. The point is not who > we have but how are we making it easy for more people to get involved. Exactly. So can you say: what makes it easy for people to contribute to PostgreSQL-web-server? What can we do to leverage the same to PostgreSQL-the-website? Please also note that the whole "coding for web is not cool" talk is a red herring: we don't have issues with new website code (which is working) and with its design (we even have 2 competing designs!) right now. We have issues with hosting and with content. Let's face it: content on current postgresql.org is shit. The information is extremely outdated [1], one cannot find useful info in obvious places like the current Download page [2]. People also find it easier to cut a niche in postgresql.org namespace and live in that instead of contributing to the website. See the bittorent "site" [3] as an extreme example: it has no info other than the links to the torrents --- does it deserve a subdomain of its own? With an outdated version of the design as well? Well, even you yourself have a niche where you publish PostgreSQL-related info, and that's not even in .postgresql.org namespace. Our glorious advocacy group does nothing to fix the situation, they even did advocacy.postgresql.org a long time ago and quit supporting it soon after. I don't remember any content contributions for the website from these guys. >>How much attention does the Core actually pays to the website? > > Well, I assumed there were enough people involved that having core in > there wasn't going to help, but maybe I was wrong. There are some political decisions that need to be made. The current "showstopper" problem is the inadequate hosting of postgresql.org project. Do you know that current postgresql.org is on a shared box? That box is incapable of running PHP scripts at all, it runs them slower [4] than my own server [5] which is in fact P2-233 (look at the profiling info at the bottom of the pages). Now, I think only the core has enough authority to address the current hosting situation. I *can* understand why you choose to do nothing about it, though. [1] http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/related.html [2] http://www.postgresql.org/mirrors-ftp.html [3] http://bt.postgresql.org/ [4] http://alexey.beta.postgresql.org/ [5] http://oc.cs.msu.su/portal/
Hi, I think this is very much project management and co-operation issue. First, I think that the web desing should be decided by those people who do the design. And those who don't, well, I don't see much help that we critisize the work of others. They surely know what they are doing. So I think it would be best, that both the design groups would talk together, and come up with a solution they see best. And one thing that influences this very much, is, that one needs to think also about the future, and that all those people can also contribute in the future, and don't quit, because their work was not considered valuable. And there is a plenty of graphical work to do, so that there is the same look and feel in both web and other materials. Secondly, I think we are not looking at the whole picture. We need some kind of a schedule. That schedule should have both the website, the translations, and the code in it. (And maybe some other things too. )We could then for example decide, that we postpone the 8.0 release for 1 month, because that way we have the new website ready. The same thing with translations, templates etc. Schedule is also important for the point, that now there has been complaints about designs, and nobody ever considers, is it better that what we have know? When can we have it ready? We try to have it perfect, and fail to notice, that a good solution now, would be better, than a perfect solution sometime after the release. This applies also to the release schedule. I have seen, that it will be released, when it's ready, but no schedule. To decide that we have a new design by 8.0 we also need to have a date for it. If we then later decide to move that date, then we do, but it gives others an idea, when they should have something ready. And it helps them make decisions. They can decide to leave some part out just to make it ready. Finally, I think we also need a place, where this all is available for those who need access to it. It does not help that there is a schedule, if people don't know it. And telling people, what is happening and when, makes it a lot easier for them to take part in doing it. And then people having the skills, can see where their skills are bringing most value. Rgs, Jussi Bruce Momjian wrote: >Alexey Borzov wrote: > > >>Hi, >> >>Bruce Momjian wrote: >> >> >>>>>Is the new website going to be rolled out in time for the 8.0 release, >>>>>which could be in the next few weeks? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>No. >>>> >>>> >>>OK, fair enough. Now can someone explain how we can put out a release >>>evrery 8-12 months with 200-300 changes, some very complex, and we can't >>>get a group together to update a web site? >>> >>> >>Your question implies that there exists some "group". Well, I can easily name >>people doing the work on the server. Can you name the people doing the work on >>the website? >> >> > >I can name a few, but not enough, as you suggest. The point is not who >we have but how are we making it easy for more people to get involved. > > > >>How much attention does the Core actually pays to the website? >> >> > >Well, I assumed there were enough people involved that having core in >there wasn't going to help, but maybe I was wrong. > > > -- Jussi Mikkola Partner, Project Manager Bonware Oy gsm +358 40 830 7561 Tekniikantie 21 tel +358 9 2517 5570 02150 Espoo fax +358 9 2517 5571 Finland www.bonware.com