[Nipy-devel] website modifications

[Fernando Perez]

On 5/14/06, Brian Hawthorne <brian.lee.hawthorne at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2 cents:
> not to throw a wrench in the works just as consensus has been reached...
> but i think a desirable longer term scenario might be for trac to support
> easily
> turning off the developer links on some pages and to transparently support
> users without svn accounts.  then end-users can get the kind of distinct
> wiki experience that we'd like to give them, on the trac site, without being
> confused
> by a bunch of technical info they don't need.

No worries: this is a discussion best had now.  The authentication
issue is solved via a plugin, so while not 'transparent', once the
plugin is installed, it's just as good.  The numpy/scipy Tracs already
have it in place (the spam was out of control).

Part of the problem, I think, is that Trac is meant directly to be a
software-development support tool, and it excels at that.  It offers a
lot of concepts which mainly make sense to the people interested in
the /development/ of a code: milestones, a roadmap, changesets,
excellent history of SVN evolution, etc.  Most 'normal' users don't
really care about this stuff.

In return, Trac gives up some configurability, themability, etc: its
interface is rather spartan, optimized for raw functionality rather
than good looks.  And I think that's a good thing.

>  on the other hand, one of the great things about trac is its simplicity, so
> maybe not.

I agree with the 'maybe not' position: I want Trac to be excellent at
/development/ support, and adding lots of configurability to make it a
wiki as fancy as Moin, with options to disable all development links,
etc, will only make the code more complex than necessary.  I'd rather
follow the 'do one thing and do it well' philosophy here.

Just my .02


Cheers,

f