I am not a developer but a very hands-on subject matter expert.
Having been badly burnt by poor performance in the past, I am trying to pre-empt performance issues. Please suggest what is the ideal way to build the site: through taxonomy, content types (CCK) or what?
Expected load:
50-500 users logged in. Approximately 10 times as many anonymous. This may increase further.
Taxonomy:
1500 terms with ten or so cross references:
For example:
Vocabulary 1: all animals
Vocabulary 2: all countries
Vocabulary 3: mammals (so when we query mammals and all animals in the taxonomy, we get a list of mammals)
Vocabulary 4: Profession of user
Vocabulary 5: Type of User
when we query vocabulary 1, 2 and 3, we get all mammals in a particular country, etc.
We will have almost no graphics. We are a text-based information site.
How would we like to present the information?
1. Based upon:
1. the level of the users knowledge - beginner, intermediate, advanced
2. The profession of the user - Physician, College Professor, Scientist, Student, hobbyist
3. The type of audience - member of Press, Employer, HR Professional
2. Reverse pyramid format - start with the least information needed and then expand based upon the users need. Do not overwhelm the user with info. Look at the principle of google.com. The centerpiece is a big search box. Info then expand from there. We should have something like that - a simple interface that expands and gets more complicated as per the needs of the users.
3. Topical - like "All about Lions"
What would be best for performance: creating vocabularies, building content types through CCK, what do you all recommend?
Comments
what problems do you foresee?
I guess the reason no one is inclined to reply is because it's not so obvious what you're worrying about. Since you're not coding a system from scratch you'll be using something that isn't geared to your specific situation anyway - wouldn't it be best to get your information architecture just the way you want it and to worry about performance later?
Although you could use CCK fields to specify a taxonomy, I'd suggest just using things like they're meant to be used: taxonomy to structure your content, CCK for the content itself. I don't see how that would get you into performance troubles :-)
Thanks
I was concerned about how best to plan the site from the ground up. Where to use CCK and where to use Taxonomy.
I have had a bad experience with EZPublish customization, so I wanted to make sure we did it right this time around. Last time, we put the structure in place and then discovered the performance could not be improved.
So, this time, I was hoping more experienced people could suggest the best way to do things.
But since posting, I have decided not to use CCK and build content types within the core module. I dont need any new fields, just different broader categories.