On not upgrading if a system is stable [spun from Blog Tutorial]

@PaulGregory

@gsx750r: MODx 0.9.1? Are you saying that you’ve not upgraded to MODx 0.9.2.1 because the keywords system changed?

Its not the case that the keywords and description have been changed, as you have written there are other methods.

My argument is that when a system is stable and runs well, why should I rock the boat and start taking on a new system. This may be the wrong attitude but a system that has proved itself and works well is a system that will hold itself in the future.

Obviously when major changes are made and in the future this will be the case, I will take another look and then consider whether or not to upgrade.

I have made bespoke changes in the system that I use, it no longer installs the basic package that was provided it now installs the snippets and modules that I want. Minor changes such as the "Menu Title" character length from 30 to 100 have been made, these are changes that make my life a lot easier and I don’t have to go into the system and start deleting things that I wont be using, as they are not there in the first place.

A lot of time and effort has gone into the system, to create what I need. If I were to use the newer version I would have to start again from scratch. Wrong thinking maybe, but everyone to their own.

I look forward to seeing the 0.9.5 but if it changes the way I think at the moment, I don’t know. Maybe it will surprise me and ill throw away the version I have at the moment. Ill wait up and see.

Splitting this out into its own thread.

Quote from: gsx750r at Sep 05, 2006, 12:09 PM

A lot of time and effort has gone into the system, to create what I need. If I were to use the newer version I would have to start again from scratch. Wrong thinking maybe, but everyone to their own.

I look forward to seeing the 0.9.5 but if it changes the way I think at the moment, I don’t know. Maybe it will surprise me and ill throw away the version I have at the moment. Ill wait up and see.

There’s nothing wrong with your own personal fork. You should keep an eye on security-related changes, however.
0.9.5 isn’t the radical change; 1.0 is. So you could probably backport most of the things you like about 0.9.5 into your fork fairly easily. I have personal forks of osCommerce and phpBB. Both of those systems also publish updates in the form of a diff report, so it is straightforward to run through my code and find the parts to change. It is possible to generate such things by downloading the old version and the new version of MODx and running a comparison, and I would recommend that.

Please note: I believe there are parts of Ditto that require 0.9.2.1 - so watch out.

Most of the newer snippets, Wayfinder and Ditto inlcuded, will require 0.9.2.1 (or higher) API functions.

Thanks Paul,

I think this is a subject that needs to be spoken about.

MODx is a great tool for content management and various other work.
A system like this is not found everyday and as the web develops other systems will also improve, but I think that this system at the moment has a large advantage against the majority of open source CMS systems.

The use of XHTML and CSS combined with the ability to create AAA accessible sites is not a thing to be ignored.

Updating to a newer system may or may not be the right thing to do, but at the end of the day I think that everyone who uses this CMS have to decide for themselves.

Everyone who uses this CMS, be it for a Blog or a full blown commercial website that uses all of the functions provided, need to make their own decision whether or not its worth upgrading or keeping their fully functioning CMS as is.

A decision has to be made at some stage and at the moment I will stick to the 0.9.1 version.

Ryan states that most of the newer snippets require the newer version of MODx, what is with the older snippets? Will they work in the newer versions, or will they need to be altered?

PS. Bit trivial I know but the spellchecker doesn’t have MODx, Blog or CMS in it

Most if not all of the older snippets will work with future versions. Snippets are mostly just updated to be better rather than to work with newer MODx versions; Ditto needs 0.9.2.1 because that enables it to be more efficient.

Incidentally: if you have to use older snippets, then the existing blog tutorial should work fine, surely?

A lot of the original core snippets were created sub-optimally, and can be difficult to achieve certain things at times. The newer snippets address these issues and typically offer better performance and memory footprints. The older snippets likely won’t be maintained by the core team.

But if it’s working for you now, don’t mess with it!

Cheers Paul

My version of Ditto: snippet.ditto.1.0.1.tpl

As I have not yet used Ditto and its many functions I was looking for a full blown tutorial.

Alas, the full blown tutorials will be based on 1.1; although many of the principles are the same.

I know that Ditto 1.0.1 hasn’t been deprecated precisely because people like you need to use it in favour of 1.0.2, but I suspect that 1.0.1 tutorials are going to be secondary to 1.1 tutorials. That’s not to say they won’t happen.

At the end of the day, I think you have to decide whether "installing snippets" constitutes "messing with your working site". Adding new features to an old CMS install is always going to be tricky.