Thread

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/29/10-weblog-engines-reviewed/#comment-267801

It is just me or does it seem like whoever wrote the review has little to no experience with ExpressionEngine? I don’t know why these reviews ALWAYS point out that ExpressionEngine isn’t free and almost try to label that is a disadvantage for EE? For one, EE does have a free version and two, the license isn’t that much and the extras you get for the price is well worth it if you ask me.

I completely agree on this one. They said EE is basically only good when you want to manage multiple site blogs. How ignorant! I think i left a decent comment…

was just over there myself. I dunno… it is not a glowing review but I don’t know if it qualifies as a slam. They certainly do not appear to know a whole bunch about EE or some of the other CMS applications they are reviewing. Joomla and Drupal are not really blogging platforms and anyone that has ever tried to use Joomla for ecommerce will tell you that is NOT what it is good at…

M.

was just over there myself. I dunno… it is not a glowing review but I don’t know if it qualifies as a slam. They certainly do not appear to know a whole bunch about EE or some of the other CMS applications they are reviewing. Joomla and Drupal are not really blogging platforms and anyone that has ever tried to use Joomla for ecommerce will tell you that is NOT what it is good at…

M.

Yeah I don’t think it was a slam either, but rather just unprepared maybe is the word. I don’t much about the other systems in the article so they may be wrote the same way? I wouldn’t know the difference if so.

Although I don’t think it was meant as a slam on EE, I definitely don’t think it will help those on the fence about trying EE. Unless they look at the comments that is… most of the comments from the EE fans are correcting the things the article missed. 😉

I dunno… it is not a glowing review but I don’t know if it qualifies as a slam.

I agree—it might not be a full slam, but it’s definitely ignorant and falls short of describing EE’s potential. Sure it’s good at creating a blog. But that’s like saying a F-18 is good at traveling places. Sure, it’s a plane, but damned if all it did was get you from point A to point B.

lol… we are all EE Fanboys so any little thing will get us all miffed… The other day I found myself describing EEs potential to someone and the look on their face was like someone had just gone off the deep end and I was that someone…

GO EE GO!!!

I dunno… it is not a glowing review but I don’t know if it qualifies as a slam.

I agree—it might not be a full slam, but it’s definitely ignorant and falls short of describing EE’s potential. Sure it’s good at creating a blog. But that’s like saying a F-18 is good at traveling places. Sure, it’s a plane, but damned if all it did was get you from point A to point B.

Exactly.

I’m still trying to figure out where they got the idea that:

“ExpressionEngine is really geared for people who are trying to start a multi-blog site…”

I mean, ExpressionEngine makes a multi-blog site extremely easy, but I’ve never read anything that indicates that it’s really geared for that? It’s just so flexible that you can do so much with it that it’s hard to really say what EE is best geared for.

lol… we are all EE Fanboys so any little thing will get us all miffed…

SO TRUE.

“review” is too good of a word for 2 paragraphs. i love smashing magazine but this article is very superficial, you couldnt really chose any of those products based on whats written in this article.

I certainly don’t perceive this as a slam but rather, an endorsement of EE as worthy through virtue of inclusion. This summary outlines the 10 best CMS solutions available right now. All in all, I think it is a pretty good list. I always attribute the limitations of the stereotypical EE review more to the rather significant comparative learning curve more than “ignorance” or ineptitude. Most people who are writing for a decent blog will already have a solution. Consider that someone like Smashing Magazine reviews almost every aspect of web development, including tools, technology, trends, theory, methodology and more. Where in the hell are they going to get time to learn Expression Engine? While I would certainly argue that they are missing out on not using EE, perhaps they have something that is working for them and they are content with that.

As we all know, anyone (irrespective of experience level) can set up serviceable Word Press, Mephisto, Movable Type blog in 10 minutes. This means interested parties can get into the meat of the system and play around with features rather quickly. This is not necessarily the case with EE, so there is going to be a disadvantage in the quick, general review type of scenario. Yes, there is the free EE Core (and it is always mentioned) but I guess one or two factors exclude it from mention, such as the lack of a viable photo/file management utility?

Furthermore, I don’t really see the discussion of cost as avoidable. Reviewers have to point out that it is not free because, like most others in its class, it is not free…which may or may not be an issue to interested parties. For this reason, it makes cost (albeit and however small) a defining characteristic. To your typical person looking for blogging/CMS solution, this is likely to be a factor unfortunately. When 10 solutions are reviewed (or 3 or 5) and only one of them costs anything(whether it be $5, $25, or $99), you can be sure that this will be noted as something to consider. In this class, the cost (token as it may be) is an outlying trait.

Finally, I don’t think they were implying that the only thing it is good as is managing multiple blogs, as was implied earlier. To me, the review clearly states that this is a distinguishing (and commendable) capability. Eighteen months ago (or whenever it was), when the MSM was released, many here would have said the same thing. For what its worth, the mention of cost in this type of review did not discourage me from trying EE 2.5 years ago when I read a similar summary of solutions. I was already using Textpattern full time when I ran across a review of EE, comparing it to other systems. I tried it and can say that I use EE 75% of the time now. I still use TxP @25% of the time because of my familiarity and nostalgic and pleasant history with it.

From what I have seen, the 2.0 release of EE will present a little more eye candy and make the popular features surface a little better. Then, I think, we will begin to see more comprehensive reviews of Expression Engine’s superior, but now less obvious capabilities.

Cheers-John

Mentioned in the comments of that article is that Barack Obama’s campaign website is built on EE. Is that so?

Some parts of the site are build upon EE.

Code Igniter Post About it

The Developer of Many Political Sites

Edit:Specific Info About Obama Project

going offtopic ... but damn, that’s cool!

I wonder if there’s anything to the fact that Obama’s site uses PHP, while McCain has ASP.NET.

that pretty much sums it up 😊