[Typo3] Re: re [typo3] typo3 vs plone. what are strenghts and weaknesses

[Erik Svendsen]

Hello robert,

Thought I should give you some of mine experiences. At first, I don't know 
Plone, but I have tried PostNuke, EZpublish and Mambo. I not an Web developer, 
my knowlegde of PHP and so on are on a low level (beginners). My core business 
is as a business advisor with business strategy, economic analyses and IT-implementation 
as main services.

But i had to put up my own business website, and doing my private websites 
for 10 years the hardcoding way i thought it was time for an CMS solution. 
Tried PostNuke, EZpublish and Mambo first. No problem getting them up and 
running, and putting content into, but when I wanted to make a more personal 
look i got stuck (maybe I'm impatient). And I'm pretty good in (X)HTML, CSS 
and design.

And then I tried Typo3 about 9 months ago, and since then I have made my 
own business site, and made three other sites.
The pros of Typo3.
- Good starting documentation. Got my first site up and running in three 
days.
- Flexible in how you design the site. I'm making the design as an static 
page in valid XHTML with CSS (All design in CSS). No use of tables.
- Very fast implementation of the design with TemplaVoila. Today I'm using 
about 2 - 3 hours to implement the design on an site with different layout 
on different sections. As I'm using XHTML and CSS it's only one HTML page, 
but from 7 - 15 different stylesheets. Included styling some of the ext. 
The making of the XHTML-template and CSS take a lot more time.
- Most of the important extensions work nearly 90% out of box (the extensions 
I have tried)
- Documentation and userlists who has solved nearly all my problems. Nice 
community and now also an assosiation.
- Stable - no problem in 9 months
- Easy to upgrade and maintance. Have upgraded my testing server from 3.6.0 
--> 3.6.2 --> 3.7.0RC1 --> 3.7.0 --> 3.8.0dev. Only one problem, who took 
about 1 hour to solve. Upgrading hasn't made any problems for my extensions.
- The editors of the three sites are very satisfied with the system. Their 
backend are configured regarding to their needs. As simple as possible. They 
feel it's easy to use - and have similarities to the fileexplorer in Windows.
- Implementation of a site with core functionality is fast. With core functionality 
I mean news, login, search, forum, event handling, gallery and configuration 
of some backend-user (editors). I'm using about 6 - 9 days included design.

The cons of Typo3.
- Complex and a lot of different ways in doing thing (as Peter wrote). Both 
in the way the editors work, but also in the way you configure the site. 
Three different ways in templating, different ways in making the Typoscript 
and so on. I think you have to choose a way, and follow it.
- The quality of the extension are from splendid to useless. And you often 
have to try them before you know.
- The system are using resources.

Maybe it's more. But I think the best way is to use some days with the Quickstart 
installastion and Quickstart manual. And then make your own opinion. Maybe 
also the Modern Template Building/Futuristic Template Building. 

But I have to say that my professional experience with IT-implementation 
(10 different projects ranging from 0.2 - 1.2 mill EURO. None of them Open 
Source. And all from accounting system, Business Intelligence, Documentation 
system, Portals and so on) is:  
- You never have a system right out of the box. It's always a lot of configuration.
- It's always more than one system who satisfying the specs.
- The best consultants and number three system gives an better solution than 
number one system and poor consultants. I have made this error together with 
a client and they got a portalsystem who aren't doing half of what it should. 
Pricetag 0.3 mill EURO. They have claim damages for about 0.8 mill EURO to 
the supplier (consultant).
- How the clients find the usability of the part they are using is one of 
the most important thing to get satisfied customers.

And Typo3 is a better system than a portal system who total implemetation 
cost was 0.3 mill EURO.

So when I'm giving advice I always stress the quality of the consultant. 
And if the best one available have their competency in EZpublish, I advise 
my client to use EZpublish. If the price of the consultants is correct.

So even if I using Typo3 and find it an excellent system, I don't necessary 
advice my client to use it. Even when I know it will satisfy all their need. 
Because I know that mister X will do a lot better job than I can. He can't 
Typo3, but EZpublish.

So my advice - maybe don't use a lot of resources comparing the systems. 
I suppose the systems aren't very different when it comes to functionality, 
implementation and all that. Even if they are using different programming 
platforms. And today I think you will give customers a better system using 
Plone than Typo3.

"I suppose I'm going to be excluded from the Typo3 community after this."


WBR,
Erik Svendsen
www.linnearad.no