[MTOS-dev] RSS Support

[Bud Gibson]

I believe I was one of the complainers who motivated the podcast plugin (he
credits me as such), and I appreciate Byrne's effort. My personal perception
is that Byrne's plugin can be replicated by the judicious use of custom
fields and templates.

Let me speak to the issue of why I am not a plugin fan. Simply stated, they
are a maintenance headache. They're out of the core and they break on
upgrade. Byrne even noted this in a leaked email last August. I'm just now
diving into MT4.1 for a site upgrade, installing the recaptcha plug-in, and
thinking OMG, will this work when the MT4.1.5 upgrade surfaces?

My personal ability to maintain perl, at one stage proficient, has gone down
over the years as I have focused on other technologies. My sense is that is
where the world is going. Perl is the COBOL of dynamic languages. Perhaps if
MT is ported to Perl 6 and runs on Parrot, that will alleviate my concerns
as I could code in python.

As regards template sets, I somehow remember Mark Carey's template set
plug-in allowing me to install one template. In fact, I even remember doing
it. So, I was speaking to that functionality and blithely ignoring what you
can do in MT4.1. Apologies for the confusion.

Bud

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Su <hamletcomplex at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Bud Gibson <fpgibson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'd say the thing to be done is to create template sets for the
> different
> > use cases, and I would use Atom for these particular cases UNLESS it did
> not
> > work for a significant application. This group has an affinity for
> plugins
> > that escapes me. Template sets first. Plugins as an absolute last
> resort.
>
> A little more about this? I'm always curious why people don't like
> plugins.
>
> But you're combining concerns a bit, I think, and possibly making an
> erroneous suggestion:
> * Bruce was objecting to the lack of an RSS2 template, period. At
> least as far as can be read into his original message. Plugins only
> came into this re: podcasting, which was brought in later and he
> hasn't really commented on directly. The plugin does provide
> additional functionality that a template alone will not[1] so arguably
> needed/recommended, though not required, since:
> * The plain RSS templates are out there for anyone to paste into the
> application if that's what they want.
> * ...because creating a template set for a single template is pretty
> much a waste of time right now.
>
> Most importantly, what you're suggesting is problematic.
> Applying a template set is currently destructive and replaces ALL the
> existing ones. You can't use one to just /add/ a template(s) to a
> blog. So if that's what you're after, it's currently impossible, but
> do vote "yes" on http://bugs.movabletype.org/default.asp?69627
> The other option is to produce complete template sets for endlessly
> overlapping use cases, like blog, blog + podcast, blog + podcast +
> regular Atom feed, etc. Not impossible, but impractical and confusing.
>
> As a sidenote there's history here. Template sets have only been an
> option as of the last few months, and I seem to be one of maybe three
> people who've sat down long enough with the format to know how to do
> anything with them. Most of the proper devs are still too busy
> catching up with the code/feature changes, so it's not surprising
> they'd reach for the familiar tool.
>
> As a second sidenote, a template set IS a plugin, just of a particular
> sort. So, nyah *grin*
> But seriously, look at the config.yaml file for the Commercial/Pro
> pack. It's interesting to see what's going on in there even if you
> don't quite understand it all.
>
>
> [1] Let's remember that plugin came about not because Byrne was bored
> but as direct response to someone complaining about MT's podcasting
> options.
>



-- 
Bud Gibson
cell: 734-657-4800
web: http://michiganinnovators.org
Now a certified AdWords Professional
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