Revo or Evo?

In my first post: "Learning Revo through Evo?" I noticed a number of people who are still recommending the use of Evo. That is a bit curious to me, but maybe I am not understanding the current state of things. Therefore I have a number of questions:

1. Is it because Revo is not ready for primetime?
2. Is Revo not able to perform as well? And if so, where would that be a problem?
3. Is it because people are familiar with Evo and moving to Revo is not yet where they are comfortable?
4. Is it because there are missing add-ons that are only available in Evo?
5. Does Evo have a future or is it no longer being supported/extended?

All of this begs the question. Is it better for a newbie to learn and use Revo or Evo?

If this belongs in a new post, let me know and I will gladly start a new one.

Thanks,
Randy

Here is the link to the other post: http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,60672.0.html

1. Is it because Revo is not ready for primetime?
I would not dare saying this... Revolution is amazingly powerful and flexible, and since the 2.0.0 release it has been improved and stabilized loads. It’s not a beta product (but it is getting ready for amazing features to be added in the future).

2. Is Revo not able to perform as well? And if so, where would that be a problem?
Depends on your definition of performing/performance. The backend seems slower then the Evolution one, but some features (like quick create/update) give big boosts which are not available in Evolution. I have honestly no idea how Evo and Revo compare when it comes to delivering front-end resources, but with improved caching I doubt Revo is behind.

3. Is it because people are familiar with Evo and moving to Revo is not yet where they are comfortable?
If you know all the ins and outs of Evolution, of course you would rather stay there then to start learning a different product. Although they are related, the differences can be daunting and require some more time to figure out the first time.

4. Is it because there are missing add-ons that are only available in Evo?
Revo hit PL last year.. The older codebase has been around for, what, five years? More? Of course there are more add-ons for Evolution than there are for Revolution. However I do feel that is only a matter of time, as the powerful api and thought-out workflows really challenge you to make the most of it.

5. Does Evo have a future or is it no longer being supported/extended?
Evo 1.0.5 was released just last month with hundreds of fixes. It may have been quiet in the six months before, but of course most of the core team’s resources are focused on developing and marketing Revolution. Evolution will be supported and developed for as long as there is a need for it. Revolution is no replacement for Evolution, it’s its big brother and they can co-exist.

Evo works. I like working with it, and I’m very familiar with its innards. Revo’s innards bite back. And Evo’s always getting improvements; the new custom TVs feature is a major step in the right direction.

I have to agree with almost everything Mark H says except I don’t think there will be that many third party add-ons for some time yet but I hope I’m wrong. Some that are coming through including Mark H’s VersionX look very promising though.

Having just built my second Revo site I cannot but admire the work the developers have done - the Package Management and quick update of resources, etc are a joy to use.

That said, I still prefer creating sites in Evo not because of familiarity but because I can achieve the results I want quicker or if I get stuck I can find answers quicker. I found Ditto in Evo more powerful than getResources in Revo. But more critically for anyone starting out in MODx, there are far more tutorials for Evo that are user friendly; some of the tutorials for Revo, such as using a custom database table left me needing an asprin.

Am just curious.. what is there you couldn’t do with getResources which was possible with Ditto?

Quote from: Mark at Feb 05, 2011, 07:36 PM

Am just curious.. what is there you couldn’t do with getResources which was possible with Ditto?

There are.

Ditto is ready out of the box.
getResources was make to slim down Ditto’s features, and you need to always create a customized coding to make it work as we expect.
Some of Ditto’s features that are not available (yet) in getResources:

• <!-- splitter --> To cut off the summary
• Filter options
• Extenders and &config. Snippet can wrap getResources, but getResources can not wrap plugin, for an instance.
• &debug
• &language
• Have you tried to randomize the sorting list?

I wasn’t saying there were no things that getResources couldn’t do.. Like I said, was just wondering as I didn’t run into any issues myself yet.

Most of that list does seems like something "missing".. only things I can think of to make your list slightly smaller:

- &where parameter is a nice filter which takes json style filters for resource fields, and &tvFilters does something similar to that for TVs..
- Don’t we have property sets built in which replace the config? That said - I never really used configs, so if they don’t do the same, sorry.
- What language is getResources outputting that needs you to specify a language? It’s all chunk templated, right?


And no, I’ve not tried randomizing the order yet


Regarding always needing to make custom coding.. aint that what’s we’re all getting paid for? If building a site was simply copying everything over without any modifications, I’m sure most people on this forum wouldn’t have a job.

Am just curious.. what is there you couldn’t do with getResources which was possible with Ditto?

Filter options I found a problem when trying to link related resources. In fact I’m still battling away trying to find a fix:

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,60733.0.html

Regarding always needing to make custom coding.. aint that what’s we’re all getting paid for?

But if MODx is to expand its userbase it needs to appeal to web designers and hobbyists who want simple one stop solutions that are user friendly. The people who currently might use Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress. There will always be a need for custom coding even with one stop solutions.

Quote from: Mark at Feb 05, 2011, 08:45 PM

- Don’t we have property sets built in which replace the config? That said - I never really used configs, so if they don’t do the same, sorry.

I’ve not yet researched Revo in-depth, but - can "property sets" include PHP code?
Hopefully there is/will be some "config" (programmable parameter set) built in Revo core...