If it wasn't known to you before now, this website currently runs Typo, a blogging CMS on the Ruby on Rails (RoR) platform. Lately I've been pretty frustrated with the amount of trouble my site has been giving me. Cached files are problematic, ruby processes are kicking and screaming causing high server load, an Application Error message is shown randomly and without reason, even something as simple as hosting a single file for download is a lot more complicated than it should be. At first I thought the problems were my fault. But, as I began to see similar issues on other websites running Ror, I began to believe it to be the culprit. But now, I've refined that a bit more.
I think the problem may lie in Typo. It wasn't until this morning when I realized that a large portion of a certain feature was completely overlooked that I started to realize that maybe it could be part of the problem. I initially embraced Typo, partly because the RoR site did, and partly because it was the only "polished" RoR weblog application. Now, however, I'm starting to feel like maybe that jump was premature.
Some of Typo's features are only half implemented leaving a confusing model and table structure behind. Others are very poorly implemented. Some aren't implemented at all. These things make modifications difficult because a lot of needed changes are in the core. But modifying the core too much would result in the inability to easily incorporate future enhancements from the Typo upstream. So I'm left with four options:
# Just wait for Typo to make the changes I desire.
# Fork the Typo code and start my own improved branch.
# Embrace another RoR blogging engine.
# Use Wordpress.
I've already modified the Typo source for use on "my Photography Site":http://djamesphoto.com/ because the Flickr library included with Typo was not as useful as I needed. So, I could always use those modifications and enhancements as a starting point to forking the Typo code.
Of course, using Wordpress means using an engine with a lot of working features, a large userbase, and a bunch of developers: all good things. However, that would mean programming in PHP again (and I really love Ruby) as well as dealing with source code that I've already decided that I don't particularly care for.
