Inside Documentum

Lagging behind

I’ve been spending some time with both Grails and Drupal (for different projects I would add). One of the things that really stands out and connects both of these (open-source!) technologies is their extensive use of plugins (or modules as Drupal calls them).

For both Grails and Drupal there is a highly functional core but there is always extra functionality you would like and often some-one has already written them.

The standouts of both systems is how easy it is to install the extra functionality. In Grails you would type the command:

grails install-plugin

The system downloads the plugin and installs it into your project. Given Grails’ dependency injection support it’s usually a simple task to get the basic plugin functionality working.

In drupal you have to download the module yourself , however there is an excellent catalogue on the drupal.org site that contains the download links, version information and documentation. Installation usually means unzipping the folder into the drupal modules folder. At this point the module is available in the administration console for configuration. The whole process is very neat and feels pretty seamless.

Documentum is a very powerful technology however I sense it will feel pretty clunky when I get back to it.