Fresh from Disney World, it seemed a good time to start down that road to Community Server 2.0. A copy of my site is running on CS 2.0 here on my office network, but it will probably be a few weeks of latenight geek sessions before I'll put it online.
Migrating my heavily customized CS sites to new releases is no small task, so this being my 3rd CS upgrade (from dotText to CS 1.0, then to CS 1.1, and now CS 2.0) I thought I'd begin by answering the question, "Why upgrade? Again?" So here goes.
- I've spent several hours with CS 2.0 today, and other than some configuration issues that sucked, I like what I'm seeing: The Control Panel is nice, overall CS 2.0 is slicker with more unified look, it seems zippier than CS 1.1, I like the Files Module, attachments are finally supported, its nice having MetaBlogAPI support out of the box (which works great, btw), etc.
- ScottW. Same reason I upgraded to CS 1.0 and CS 1.1. I'm upgrading to CS 2.0 because of what's under the hood: the improved architecture, the refinement of what has gone before. I've said it before, I think ScottW is one of the very best .NET developers going. As a .NET developer myself, staying current with what that guy is doing and having the opportunity to work with his code is alone worth upgrading.
- CSModules. There's been a lot of info on how adding custom modules to CS is becoming easier through CS's eventing system. I decided that with CS 2.0 I would seriously investigate this approach to adding my CS mods. This should facilitate the process of adding mods in future CS versions, and make them easier to share with other CS developers as well.
- .NET 2.0. This is a biggie. Time to move my blogging application to .NET 2.0, and CS 2.0 gives me that opportunity.
- Using CS for other projects. This is a purely selfish quest. You see, I support several DotNetNuke sites, and at the time (almost two years ago now) it seemed like a good idea. (Actually, it worked out great.) But now I'm seeing that if I can extract myself from supporting DNN and providing similar functionality in CS, I'll be a much happier nerd, and I think my clients will be happier, too.
- Change is good. Period. Community Server is a product that Telligent is committed to, who is investigating heavily in its continued evolution, and with an Open Source business model that works. Yeah, I'll keep riding that horse.
- Related to "Change is good," I'm tired of my blog's current look. It's time for a new one.
Okay, so much for the "Why." It's time to move onto the experiential "How."
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