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Russ, you have really only seen one ice cube that we brought back from the tip of the iceberg with MODx in it’s current state.

Ryan,

Oh, that’s what you say to all the girls

Quote from: rthrash at Feb 23, 2006, 09:47 PM

Russ, you have really only seen one ice cube that we brought back from the tip of the iceberg with MODx in it’s current state.

Agree with Ryan.

Knowing that you’ve all this experiences that me personally haven’t taste it yet, I believe you’re not spending this much time talking and explaining about yourself in this community just for fun, but you came with the thought that MODx might be the right system for you. I’m still young in terms of experience, but I know that I’m not choosing the wrong system. I do realize the current system is still young, and that’s why I’m here; I will grow together with the system and the community to bring this product into its mature state, where you’re not only seeing one ice cube that we brought back from the tip of the iceberg; instead you will see that we brought you the whole ice berg in front of your door (Trying to make a good sentence here, but it sounds awkward to me ).

Anyway, welcome to the community, and I’m looking forward to see you help us with your years of experience, and it might be the starting point for you to start liking PHP language. Check out PHP5, it’s still young, but it does provide quite enough OOP for you to play around with it.

I won’t do a point by point reply to your post, just say it feels quite realistic given the knowledge I have of Bull’s activities at the time. And anyway, pretty good portrayal of french business... sadly for me and many french people (don’t get me started there )

Quote from: RussLipton at Feb 23, 2006, 09:41 PM

We always liked to say (and truly believe) that if the French were as great at software as cuisine, they would rule the world.

lol

actually we’re not that bad at software, as Ryan pointed out... there is some talented programmers in France... what we’re bad at is... business ! We have great ideas, but we’re too idealistic to make it a reality and a profitable one at that... I think the following quote sums it up quite well :

Quote from: RussLipton

One of their top execs once asked my father-in-law: "do you know why we retained you?" (By the way, he made $3K a day. Correct. They only retained him about 200 days that year.)

My father-in-law answered: "No, why?"

He said, "Because we French are the best people in the world at thinking about what we should do between Monday and Friday. But we need you guys to come in the following Monday and tell us to go do it."

lol

It’s so true !

Quote from: RussLipton

I have never forgotten that ... or Paris. My now grown oldest-two of five were then young and have indelibly wonderful memories of city and early schooling with kids from 40 countries. I took them on the metro to the English school in the 16th, hard by a wonderful place (and that is saying something) where I stopped for croissants . Major sigh.

Thanks for sharing

I sure should realize how lucky I am to enjoy Paris as I do !
And my country for that matter...

Would be easier if things were not so bad from a political and economical point of view... but that’s another debate... let’s say young people in France are getting more and more hopeless, which is never good... jobs are scarce, business is burdened by taxes and paperwork... luckily, some of us try to make things move but our country is far too conservative and way too much lobbyed by so-called elites locking down the good jobs... (now here is my major sigh)

As crazy as it might sound, I sometimes find myself wishing I worked in England or the US (but I’d have to wait till I know who the next president is before I make that leap ;p Sorry, couldn’t help it !)

David -

We Americans were shocked initially by the way that French young people were groomed (or not) for top corporate jobs through a teeny set of feeder preparatory schools and universities; no news to you, I’m sure. The top execs at Bull (and now I remember CEO or President, Francis Lorentz) were all part of the club. This is certainly not unknown in U.S. but mobility here is fantastic by comparison.

With respect, France (and Europe) need younger people to fight for a more entrepreneurial culture; to fight for Europe itself IMHO. Take your best shot and don’t be afraid of the wankers. That’s my friendly counter-blast to yours about the President I happily voted for twice . Which isn’t to say I think he’s any good. Some things are the same the world around ...

As for ModX since I am having a fun break at the virtual water-cooler, correct: I’m not here just to blab.

The extreme-sports-modularity feel of the architecture is probably spot-on to cope with Web 2.0’s implementation agnosticism. I worry about both TxP and EE a bit there; EE more so. The danger for me with ModX is finding the sweet spot where it doesn’t become so aggravating to assemble everything ’flexibly’ that one might as well build from scratch (e.g, use something else). At first blush, ModX seems to have avoided that; witness the complaints I have seen elsewhere about it being over-loaded with onboard features.

I found the Manager candy-ugly but like the green theme a lot and promised admin templating even more. This is a big no-no for me with EE. TxP is (always, forever) elegant but not customizable enough (talking admin UI) to suit me. It’s odd where we get picky, isn’t it? At website editing is cool, if slightly kludgy feeling. No biggie and surely no complaint: on balance, I like it a ton.

I love EE’s integrated, clean forum. Phorum might do for ModX. Simple Machines/this one is kind-of funky cool but will never be accused of elegance. I might grow attached to it, especially if it can be skinned.

But this is all big-picture talk. I need to dig into doing a sample blog thing and figure out the TV/binding stuff. From the buzz, this is ModX’s way-cool hype point. Then I’ll be back, if only to whine. See below.

(As for moderated comments, it is tres lame and odd that this isn’t out-of-the-box but hardly a show-stopper.)

.... speaking of ice cubes and icebergs, it only counts when I can put it into the tea on a summer day. Keep chipping away at that berg ....

Guys, sorry for the offtopic stuff... Zi if you feel like splitting the thread go ahead...

Quote from: RussLipton at Feb 23, 2006, 11:17 PM

David - We Americans were shocked initially by the way that French young people were groomed (or not) for top corporate jobs through a teeny set of feeder preparatory schools and universities; no news to you, I’m sure.

Not at all, no... Needless to say I am not one of the groomed ones... not that I couldn’t have given my grades and background. No regrets there, I wouldn’t have fit into this meat grinder, I think way too strangely for this kind of disk formating. Plus I started early giving headaches to my teachers with my unwillingness to accept for granted what they said and arguing with them (to my fellow student’s dismay, might I add...).

Anyway, while it certainly has its downside in terms of income, University (which in France is public) did the deed for me (though I end up doing something way different than my business/TQM degrees ).

The most frustrating of all is having such a hard time fiting in the system here : there is no room for innovative or provocative thinking. Hard work is hardly rewarded as it should, while those prep school students end up grabing all the good jobs and get fat paycheck... I couldn’t settle for that and that’s why I decided to do what I love and believe in, an started my own business. It doesn’t solve everything, since business is pretty much locked down by the same networks that lock the corporate ladder... but you have more degrees of freedom and with luck, I’ll make a decent living out of it.

Quote from: RussLipton

The top execs at Bull (and now I remember CEO or President, Francis Lorentz) were all part of the club. This is certainly not unknown in U.S. but mobility here is fantastic by comparison.

Thus my wanting to leave at some point, if things don’t change in this country.

Can you believe things are so bad that I would want to leave the great food, great wine and landscape here ?
Pretty crazy... but the "brain drain" stats are here to confirm it : talented people that don’t fit the rigid elite structure go abroad more and more... and there we are (duh, I sound like a pessimistic here... which in fact I am not. I am just frustrated with my country is all...).

Quote from: RussLipton

With respect, France (and Europe) need younger people to fight for a more entrepreneurial culture; to fight for Europe itself IMHO. Take your best shot and don’t be afraid of the wankers.

Yes we do need that, exactly !

I hope the 2007 election for president will get a new impulse but I seriously doubt it... yet many economical and social flags are red and May 68 might just happen again one day, who knows...

Quote from: RussLipton

That’s my friendly counter-blast to yours about the President I happily voted for twice . Which isn’t to say I think he’s any good. Some things are the same the world around ...

Sorry about the blast... I won’t go into US politics, since it would probably be a real blast here
Yet, don’t mistake me for the classic anti-american french guy, because I am not


Quote from: RussLipton

The extreme-sports-modularity feel of the architecture is probably spot-on to cope with Web 2.0’s implementation agnosticism. I worry about both TxP and EE a bit there; EE more so.

That’s a catchy way to speak about MODx : we might just quote you in our testimony or use it as tagline if you give us permission (with due credits, of course ).

About EE and TxP : you know I am more worried about Txp than I am about EE... probably for different reasons !


Quote from: RussLipton

.... speaking of ice cubes and icebergs, it only counts when I can put it into the tea on a summer day. Keep chipping away at that berg ....

lol

that was funny

You’ll get your tea-cooling cubes and a right-proper and impressive ice sculpture to go with it!

Russ, you talk too much he he that can be a great thing or it can be a not so great thing

I agree MODX seems weird but only on the surface it appears that way to us who have gotten out of the habit of actually being involved in the site building process instead of relying on point and click.

There are some items missing that i’d love to see and they will be there in time i’m sure of that, in the mean time I get my hands slippery on the MODX iceberg maybe get a few chunks of ice to teeth on while i’m learning

by the way i’m a non-demonical christianathiest who believes the only true god is the $$-in gov we trust and that jesus was an tax auditor sent to audit the poor