Migration to Community Server 2.1
I’m in the process (as if you haven’t noticed) of migrating from .TEXT v0.95 circa 2003 to Community Server v2.1. I still have a ways to go, but at least the initial work is finished. The guys at Telligent have been extremely helpful throughout this process so do what you can to support them.
So why the move?
Well, .TEXT was (or rather possibly still is) a great product that continued to get the job done regarding blogging, managing comments and providing feeds. Since Community Server is the continuation of that product plus a whole lot more… with a much larger number of developers working on it (.TEXT, to my knowledge, was the work of a single developer… in his spare time… on his day off.). Because of this and the fact that the Community Server product has matured somewhat over the past two years, it’s time to make the move.
Why not go with some other product that has its root in .TEXT (or what about DotNetNuke)?
Well, I suppose the primary reason is that I know several of the folks working at Telligent would be an easy answer. The real answer is that I like what the Community Server guys are doing and extending the product for my own purposes is relatively straight forward (yes, it requires a bit of development, but pretty straight forward nonetheless) and the overall performance has no comparison. Products like DotNetNuke strive for ease of use for the extreme novice; because of this, sometimes the product just seems to get in my way rather than allow me the freedom I so desire. Since CS is more of a nuts and bolts approach, I can pretty much do what I wish given whatever effort I choose to put into it. And, most importantly, after running .TEXT for many years with no real issues to speak of and running Community Server on XboxFriends.com and JKDKali.com for some time now with, again, no real issues and DotNetNuke in a couple of places with only to have it mysteriously upchuck for no apparent reason at multiple sites you can see why I’ve chosen to go with CS. ;-)
Is Community Server perfect? Far from it, but overall it’s pretty good and I suppose I’ll posts my bets that it will improve over time.
Why not write my own?
Well, this is something I’ve had a few people ask me. The answer is that why spend my time working on something that attempts to compare with what is already available. This would take some time to develop, test, debug and so forth when I could just install something like Community Server and extend accordingly. It’s simply the best use of my resources, which are already extremely thin to begin with. ;-)
So…
Please let me know if you encounter any sorts of problems and I’ll do what I can to get them resolved. Also, please forgive what will appear to be random CSS changes (as I get time to play with the skinning) and be patient as I move forward. You can also look forward to something new coming to the site that I think you’ll find pretty interesting.