Elephants in the room

From LordMattWiki

This is or has been made an Elephant Hunt subsection. The Elephant Hunt deals with the short comings in systems including: Anti-patterns, code smells and support issues.

In the current world of opensource CMS' we are crowded out by pink, blue and occasional stripy eliphants.

Indeed the Emporer needs some clothes and no one wants to talk about it.

[edit] The problem

In CMS design there is a treand towards ever more rigid and bloated systems. The conformism here being the tendency to try and make the product more like what everyone wants regardless of the suitability of that want.

The result is Pizza Mode.

The problem is now that the Stone Soup has been boiling for too long so that now we have Steak, Cabbage, Milk, Elk hoof, dead cat, eliphant ear, Chocolate, curry, chilli and a many other different spicy leftovers all brewing togeather.

The cuase is however remarkably simple and is most clearly embodied in the utter lack of a group or product philosiphy. In commerce a simlar thing is observed when a product lacks a clear specification resulting in massive loss of funds on a system that will not solve the problem it set out to. An example of this is the CSA system developed in the UK that when finally set into motion was unable to carry out even a simple equation that most anyone could compleate with a pencil and a used envelope.

Fine examples of this over developed system (where the biggest eliphant is that no one knows what the group is trying to do) are drupal and [Blog:CMS].

[edit] Common symptoms

• Bloat - code base gets bigger and bigger
• Pizza Mode.
• The skin/theme system becomes ever more complex untill it is a programming excersise in it's own right
• When you make a theme you must make extra parts for the leading plug-ins
• You need a phd to understand the system which has yet to be documented
• You can do anything with the system unless it's quick and simple
• Suggestions for a change of direction are met with abuse
• Code Smell and Anti-patterns are rife.
• when novice users suggest a change they are advised that the project is open source and they should code the changes themselves
• People start charging large sums for technical support of the product
• When you enquire about the aim or the project road map you get a blank look or worse
• Bug reports and support requests are met with the same responses
  • Read the Manual! (RTFM)
  • ...powerfull system with a steep learning curve...
  • ...is not for novices...
  • ...not ment to work "out of the box"... ...framework...
  • ...used by x thousands...
  • If you don't like... you can always use one of the "one size fits all" lesser systems.

[edit] Documentation

See Category:Elephant CMS for a listing of wiki articles detailing OpenBloat.