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Go.com Content Engine Now Open Source
webword writes: "Did it slip under the radar that Go.com's content engine is now Open Source? The engine powers sites like ESPN.com, NFL.com, ABCNews.com and GO.com. Not too shabby." More to the point, it powers Mr. Showbiz, one of my favorite movie sites. The license is based on the Apache License.
Think of what RedHat, Caldera, or whoever could do with a single package now. RedHat 7.0, webserver addition: includes your end to end large scale site solution, web services by Apache, Content Management by GO.com. With a good ecommerce suite, that could be one hell of a package if it all came preconfigured.
The go.com stuff provides you with the tools to build a website - it'll never be an out of the box solution.
CMP released their perl-based CMS a while back - Mason. It looks very nice, it's used on some high-volume sites, and has a feature site suprisingly similar to Vignette's StoryServer (which is TCL-based, and grew out of C|Net).
None of which will do anything magical out of the box.
Inside.com recently had a decent article about CMS pros and cons, but I can't find it. Anyone got the URL?
...j
Wow, yet another totally incompatible servlet based templating system! What most people don't realize is that this technology is fundamentally 3 years old. Looking in the source code I find this: Author: Reece Wilton. If I then go to developer.com's who's who directory I find: Starwave Corporation Java developer (servlets, applets, beans, threads, etc). That's right, this is the same lame Starwave technology that they were pushing 3 years ago. Only now, instead of it being 100% proprietary, it's 90% proprietary, being somewhat Servlet conformant now. The analysis of the problem with servlets (Jason Hunter) is a very superficial reading into the problem. If it's simply a matter of needing a templating mechanism, then JSPs solve this in a standard way. But the bigger problem is that none of these technologies provide for a clear MVC architecture. For a solution that is years ahead of the GO crap in its thinking, look at the STRUTS project in the Jakarta initiative (Apache org). There are many other App servers that have solved both the templating problem and the MVC/flow control problems in a sensible way (Apple's WebObjects, ATG Dynamo). Did GO pay you guys to put up this link? Why did you bother?
1) Neither Apple WebObjects nor ASP solve the workflow-related problems that Jason describes
:)]
2) Putting up as Open Source the engine that is responsible for serving up millions of pages per day is always news. Saying that Go.Com paid to have this put up is ridiculous.
3) Asserting that this is useless is even more ridiculous. This has obviously filled a huge need for Go/partners, and can fill this need for others. For people for whom this does not, they can adapt the code to their needs. This is what Open Source is about.
Anyone who works with a professional graphic design staff will quickly realize that JSP/ASP/WebObjects have the most convoluted workflows and will either write a tool of their own, or find a tool like this and modify it to meet their needs.
If I were to ever show JSP code to my graphic design team, expecting them to use it, they'd quickly throw me out the window. [literally.
I do agree that there should be some sort of standard template/macro language. Unfortunately, due to the wide variability in workflows amongst web groups, the limited publication of existing ones, and the diversity of platforms that people use, creation of one is very difficult. That is why it hasn't happened yet.
Someone ought to take the best features from the existing systems and make a set of uniform standards at each step in the process. That has not been done yet, as far as I know. Doing this would enable people to quickly adapt their systems to the standards, plug generic standards-based extensions into their systems, and unify the number of standards that exist.
I have to say, however, that I am always amazed that it's _huge news_ when someone posts yet another lame windowmanager because it's written by one of the "good guys" yet when a large corporation posts code, even under an 'official Open Source license,' not only is it ignored, but people actually complain about it and start whipping out conspiracy theories.
Grow up, kiddies. Open Source will never work with that attitude.
Is tea compatible with java? I guess it is if you have the right kettle. :)
NIH syndrome is quite prominent in the web-development field - there isn't one tool that has clearly established dominance, and most shops still roll their own. I suspect this will change - mod_perl and PHP do have a fair following. JSP will likely catch on if Sun can get the performance up.
Search Engine Watch is a monthly newsletter which does in-depth comparison reviews of search engines.
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Check out this article The Problem with JSP for more reasoning behind it.
BTW, cat-ing your code to a file is for girls. Real programmers use copy con program.exe
my blog: good times, man, good times
Hmm... Yeah most of the content management stuff out there is pretty crappy and expensive. Not a good combination.
:)
;-)
Has anyone actually used Tea and/or Kettle? I wish I could say it was a great package, but I just haven't had time to look at it.
But free (as in speech) is good. That means that if it is crappy, someone can make it uncrappy.
This is a super important piece of software for a major website to have available for free. Sure you can serve up a zillion hits with Apache, but how do you manage the pipeline of getting structured content from writers and artists onto that site in a timely and efficient manner?
Microsoft Office 2000?
My journal has hot
http://www.google.com/search?q=the+one+true+geek+s earch+engine&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Luc ky
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Content management is one of the hardest things to design when dealing with non-technical content creators. It is even harder to isolate the content creators 100% from the web designers, or application developers. Many slashdotters who run smaller sites may not appreciate the value of a content management system such as this. I have already started to go through the documentation in order to see if this is something I may be able to use.
Even if I do not implement this, the documentation alone can be a great learning guide in how to properly create a large scale web site. As I am reading through, I am finding I have already implemented many of the ideas in my php applications, but not to the extent they may be talking about. The lessons talked about in the documentation are things many of us may need to tackle down the road. Using many of the ideas GO relies upon, a site is much more scalable than without them. Once you get 10 people from different backgrounds working on a site, which started out as just a single "web developer" deal, the rules change. If you site already conforms to the newfound requirements, all the better.
I saw one comment about how Kettle, the template creation IDE only supports windows, and is therefore useless. Maybe so, but since it is open source, I be an effort could be made to port to a Linux, or cross platform Java version. Most shops big enough to make "real" use of this would have Windows on most PC's anyway (Thats just a fact of life.) A "real" content management system, and I'm not sure Zope really cuts the mustard (but I don't know), is something Linux in general has been lacking.
Think of what RedHat, Caldera, or whoever could do with a single package now. RedHat 7.0, webserver addition: includes your end to end large scale site solution, web services by Apache, Content Management by GO.com. With a good ecommerce suite, that could be one hell of a package if it all came preconfigured.
While this doesn't have the slashdot reader appeal of Mozilla for instance, this is a VERY BIG THING for professional web developers.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Personally I would hesitate to call this a content management system. This is little more than a Java alternative to PHP.
Separating content and presentation through templating is just one aspect of content management. There is also defining workflow for how items of content should progress through the publishing process, applying version control over the content and managing a user community and their access to carry out actions on content.
Few content management systems seem to be actual real applications that do all this. Most just give you the starting tools that you could use to build such a system if you wanted to.
Well, since this Tea thing looks somewhat similar (although far more complex) than a project I've been working on, I figured I'd see if anyone had any opinions on my idea. I have a rather crappy site (with no actual releases yet (unless of course there's lots of interest)) here: http://tarp.fifthace.com.
:-)
The basic idea is simple templates and PHP modules that come together to help make building database-driven websites a little easier. Let me know what you think. I've recently been slacking off on the idea since I'm not sure how original or good it is. When I saw this story here, I figured it was a great time to see if anyone was actually interested in something like this. It seems Tea uses Java (which I've always thought of as big and slow). My creation (TARP) uses raw PHP4.0 as the solution.
Anyway, thanks for looking.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
I for one was very dissapointed when Infoseek switched over to GO, and the search results were topped with payed spots -It seems to me to defeat the purpose of searching the web if paying site (i.e. commercial sites) are getting top ranking. I must say though, I am glad to see them opensource the engine... Now hopefully someone can make less commercially focused search sites, using their same engine.
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Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a professional web developer who uses myriad different languages in a given day, and while I won't hesitate to aplaud GO's move, I am not sure where TEA will fit. On the very lowest end, we have ASP, stepping up into the real world we have PHP and JSP, and for sites that need integrated content management, we have Zope, so my question is this, where does TEA go? Reading some of the docs, I like it's compiled nature, but what makes that different from JSP? Anyone used TEA? Thoughts?- ---------+
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| Sissies...real men program with `cat > file` |
Dojo: defanging browsers so you don't have to
now to construct the ultimate pornography crawler... (hey, modify to your needs right?)
And with an article about fraudulent porn sites only a few spots farther down the main page, I have been inspired to most respectfully suggest that yes - the news of anything being open sourced will indeed lead to a not insignificant number of enthusiasts shuddering orgasmically.
(Peeve - Come being spelled cum, much like love is spelled luv)
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If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
I think the comments posted so far are missing the point, this is not simply a search engine system being open sourced but a content management system.
This is a super important piece of software for a major website to have available for free. Sure you can serve up a zillion hits with Apache, but how do you manage the pipeline of getting structured content from writers and artists onto that site in a timely and efficient manner?
It's a thorny problem and the solutions available now are very expensive and I hear not that great. This coupled with Apache and the free XML tools that are out there now should combine to make a killer, free, web suite a reality.
Hotnutz.com - Funny
The text below is from the TeaTemplateLanguage.pdf file (240k). This information does not seem to be on any of the site's pages (requires a bit more digging), so I think it makes sense to bring up to the surface a bit here...
Why use Tea?
In general, neither developers nor page designers author Tea templates. The goal is that they be written and maintained by technical producers who are liaisons between developers and designers.
Tea resulted from several years of experience with other web page building mechanisms. Most web-based applications start out with HTML tags embedded in code, whether it be C, Perl, or Java. This approach is adequate for small or first-time projects because it doesn't take very long to develop.
[...]
Rather than embedding an existing language into something like an ASP or JSP, Tea is a language specially designed to meet the requirements of a templating system. It is safe, simple, efficient, and powerful.
In one instance, Tea is integrated with a special servlet. This servlet gives Tea templates control over page building, while retaining strong ties to a back-end application written by a Java developer. While this servlet provides functionality similar to that of JSPs, Tea enforces correct model-view separation because of the intentional language limitations. Although this is also the suggested separation model in JSPs, it cannot be enforced.
They also seem to put an emphasis on simplicity. The loops and output statements are really clean. The aforementioned PDF sheds a lot of light on this. Another interesting note:
Tea templates compile into Java class files and execute just the same within a Java Virtual Machine. The Tea compiler does not generate intermediate Java files and hand them off to a Java compiler, but it instead generates the class files directly. Still, the resulting class files are as efficient as any handwritten Java code.
Because no Java compiler is used, Tea can be distributed much more easily. All that's required is a Java2 runtime environment. Sun's JRE can be used, but the SDK isn't necessary.
The bad thing is that the IDE only runs on Windows.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas