Tuesday, 30 August 2011 19:48
The PLT announced that Joomla will change its version numbering scheme to something that I doubt many will understand. I for one don't understand it, neither the logic nor the numbering system itself. I see where this is coming from, seeing Google and Mozilla burning through major version numbers like other people smoking cigarettes. I also see the analogies and all and still something was bothering me. Why didn't I really care about version numbers of the browsers but so much about the Joomla version numbers?
It's stupid to say that it struck me, but that was exactly what was happening just a few minutes ago. Browsers differ extremely from a CMS, so much, that it seems even dangerous to imitate their version number scheme and not stick to a traditional model. Quite simply put: Browsers are consumer software. They are based on "standards" and as a browser developer you can do the following things:
Even with the danger of being proven wrong in a few years: The important or main features of a browser have all been invented and implemented before 2000. Since then, browsers only did one of the 4 things above. Updating a browser only improves the user experience and the worst that can happen is a non-working extension. If you have issues with a browser, simply switch and be done with it. Its a matter of 5 minutes. (Yes, this is simplified)
A CMS is a completely different beast and depending on your point of view, its a piece of enterprise software. A CMS is not based on a standard, each and everybody has his own definition what such a CMS is. You also can't simply switch from one CMS to another, its data structures are normally drastically different. But especially one thing is important for a CMS: People using a CMS invest a lot of time and often enough money into that program. They plan systems and aquire specialized knowledge in that system. They might even base their existence on that software, for example in case of a webshop. Updating such a system often enough requires a lot of testing, checking and adjustments both in the system itself as well as with extensions.
That all said: People choosing a CMS will judge the system not only by its features or its current support, but also simply by the feeling that they get from the team behind it. And if that team for example implements a numbering scheme that no outsider really understands, its a demerit against that system.
I recently spoke with my biggest client. Their main asset is a flash application which is wrapped by Joomla. We discussed the future update strategy for our site, since they are still on 1.5 and the end result was, that its not set that we will stick with Joomla, mostly because of the above mentioned things.