[CLUE-Tech] Slashcode

[Todd A. Gibson]

> > I've wondered, occasionally, how well a weblog would work for CLUE
> > discussions. SlashCLUE anyone? Err, TwiKLUE?
> 

On the tangent of Slash code, I thought I'd pass on impressions for
those considering using it.  I recently set it up for UCD's School of
Education so their doctoral students could use it to produce an online
journal (http://novations.opencentric.com, click on "Explore the
Journal")

Impressions:
1) Despite efforts to document the thing, it is still poorly documented.
Expect to spend at least a day getting comfortable with it once it's
installed.

2) There are a few quirks (read "bugs") with the stock installation but
they aren't catastrophic (such as the submissions system being a little
sloppy on the admin side).

3) It performs well for the "stock" settings, but more bugs are
uncovered when you try to customize it.  Being fluent in Perl definitely
helps if you want to customize it.

4) It is a resource hog.  My current server is an old 266MHz 128Meg
system.  It was humming along nicely until the Slash code came along.
Now it bogs heavily if >5 people access the slashsite at the same time.
Sigh.  I'm expecting my 1U Raid-1 yummy nummy server to arrive in the
mail next week to replace it.

5) Despite any comments that are disparaging to slash code, I am
using it and it has definitely been worth the effort.
-TAG