I've been looking for an outlet to post my history with and opinions on both Evo and Revo for a long time, and this seems as good a place as any. Take from it what you'd like, but it's good therapy for me ;-)
My first "real" web job was as a strictly front-end developer (HTML/CSS) and content editor about eight years ago. At that time, I knew nothing of PHP or content management, but it became obvious a year or two in that I needed to learn those skillsets in order to keep up with my clients' and employer's needs. After trying out a variety of platforms (Typo3, Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress), I ended up devoting most of my time to mastering MODx Evolution (although it wasn't called Evo at the time).
Why did I like it? For the same reasons most people have posted here: it was fast on the back and front end, it was easy to install, there's not a project demand in the world it can't handle with ease, and it made sense conceptually to me as a front-end guy (dead-simple templating with a logical building-block approach to adding functionality).
It's no secret that Evo (and to some degree, Revo) have never had a catalog of add-ons like its competitors. As a PHP fledgling, that should've sent me running, but it didn't, for two reasons:
- Since it's both a CMS and a framework, I had access to a set of system-level tools that helped me create the custom functionality I needed, without having to understand literally everything about the underlying programming and database languages (I sometimes refer to MODx as "PHP with training wheels"). Looking at my earliest attempts at this, I could've done it so much better, and I'm sure I'll say the same thing in five years about the code I'm writing today. But you know what? It worked, and it bought me enough time to learn the platform and the language as I went.
- More importantly, the community, though small, was (and still is) AMAZING. I can't say that enough. I have posted hundreds of questions on either the forums, Twitter or one-on-one over the years, and I can probably count on one hand the ones that weren't solved or at least respectfully addressed. You have no idea how supportive and positive this community is until you spend time working with another platform. It is, simply put, the best community in all of open-source, and I'll go toe-to-toe with any Drupal or WordPress fan who disagrees. That's why it pains me a little to see the jabs between the community and core team in this thread and elsewhere, because people on both sides of this debate are pretty much the reason I can still pay my mortgage.
Now, let's talk Revo. I feel like I can speak intelligibly on this topic because I held out for a LONG time before I started learning it or building in it, mostly because when it was first announced, I was MORTIFIED.
Part of that was about the CMS itself: I was terrified of learning the new object-oriented API, working with ACLs, etc. It is not a perfect product. I don't even mind ExtJS that much, but front-end and back-end performance, and ACL setup, top my list of pet peeves. But I will say that after immersing myself in it for about a year -- especially with the improved documentation and huge list of quality add-ons that have surfaced -- I don't plan to ever go back to Evo.
But the CMS itself was only part of why I say I was mortified by Revo's release. What truly terrified me was what such a radically different product could do to the community. At the time, it seemed a little too similar to the Etomite/MODx split: a core team taking a product in a direction that parts of the community didn't care for.
Now, though, I see things much differently. This isn't like Etomite/MODx; this is more like the transition Apple went through between Mac OS 9 and OS X. If anyone was using a Mac back then, you know that the users were livid. Different codebase, no simple migration path, modern-but-bulky UI. Sound familiar?
My point is, just like OS X, Revo is (in my eyes) a positive change, but it's also a drastic change, and people are naturally change-averse. But I do feel like -- big picture -- Revo is heading in the right direction. That doesn't mean you have to unquestionably embrace Revo; I don't, and frankly, the core team does need to be better about understanding people's needs for MODx to be a bit more Evo-like in its simplicity and speed. But Revo still has all of the original stuff I loved about Evo, and it adds in new functionality I couldn't live without. It just also happens to be a little bulky right now. But those things can be fixed if we work together on them as a team.
To add to what Jason has said, I see a divided community as the worst possible outcome from all of this. Community is what separates good open source from bad, and it's the one thing we can't afford to lose. I agree with what a lot of the Evo supporters are wanting, but a united front just makes so much more sense to me. Instead of forming teams and creating two so-so products, I think we should work together to create one freakin' awesome flagship product. That's what it will take for MODx to truly start competing with the big boys.
[ed. note: aladage last edited this post 14 years, 5 months ago.]
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