Alfresco Enterprise Content Management Implementation
by
Munwar Shariff
Packt Publishing
1 edition
December 2006
356 pages
Reviewed by David O'Meara, March 2007
(2 of 10)
Reading "Alfresco Enterprise Content Management Implementation" was a strange and not very enjoyable experience. My feel is that it fell into the common "Open Source Project manual" problem of selling and demonstrating the product without providing too much that can be used. In the end it felt like an extended executive overview.
My initial concerns were raised when 'gotchas' were mentioned in passing rather than highlighted to the user. It felt like a sales trick rather than a manual. I was also confused with some of the descriptions of the application until I spent some time the web site and realised it was referring to both the community (free) and enterprise (not free) editions but wasn't always clear on which one was the current focus.
The book does highlight the main sections of Alfresco and provide walk throughs of the functionality, but it more of a glossy leaflet than a user guide. The large headings and poor quality images made the sections difficult to follow and the occasional inclusion of multiple images or several pages of XML configuration felt like padding. I'm not use what to say about the brief index, but apparently seven letters including 'T' didn't make the cut.
It all sounds a bit harsh, and maybe it's driven by my disappointment because I was really looking for something and will probably favour the web site if I need help. This books feels like it was written by someone who loves the product and wants to share this love with others, but it wasn't what I was looking for.
(2 of 10)
