It's always nice to learn a new word and Nikolay Kolev has taught me 'cyclothymic', a personality disorder characterised by bouts of intense activity followed by periods of the complete opposite. Nikolay associates this disorder with OSS Rails development and it's easy to see his point. Many Rails developments have set off in a burst of enthusiasm and code marathons followed by a rapid descent into inactivity. I was involved in one myself - I still don't know where half the development team disappeared to.
Mephisto is one such sufferer. Rick Olsen has confessed that it's been comatose since the end of last year and the prognosis isn't good. The 'community' around Mephisto hasn't produced any meaningful documentation yet - and yes, I am one of that community so I am part of the problem - so the product isn't getting the following it deserves. To pick up on a point made by Justin Palmer, it is still seen as a great Rails publishing tool, not a great publishing tool.
This blog uses Typepad and I have other sites that use Wordpress. Neither tool is leading edge or even particularly impressive but they both do exactly what they need to do and they do it effectively. I have no need for more than what they do. So no, I don't use Mephisto and I doubt that I will for a good while yet. I hope it pulls through as it's a great piece of software ... but there's more to a successful software project than good software.
It is clear that two distinct and damaging problems are afflicting the Rails world. Firstly, there is a desire to rework existing applications as Rails applications even if no specific advantage is offered to the end user - for example blogging tools, forum tools, to-do lists and so on. Secondly, the documentation is then neglected so only fellow Rails enthusiasts can be confident of using the software successfully. I remember the RTFM responses I got from early Unix vendors but at least there was a manual to read. RTFSVN is no answer at all. If these issues aren't addressed by the core team, I'm worried that much of the buzz that surrounded Rails in 2005 will be wasted.
Comments