By chromatic , Brian Aker, David Krieger
First Edition
January 2002
Pages: 282
ISBN 10: 0-596-00100-2 |
ISBN 13: 9780596001001
Slash is the open-source software system that drives the hugely popular Slashdot web site and many others. Slash implements the kind of web site that has come to be called a "weblog": a moderated list, in reverse-chronological order, of timely items, with links to further discussion on-site, or to further information off-site. Anyone who wants to get a weblog site up and running will want to read Running Weblogs with Slash.
Full Description
Slash has spawned several imitators. The existence of so many different systems for operating a weblog site demonstrates that there are many people and groups on the net who want to run their own online community newspapers. Slash is based on open source technologies (Perl, Apache, and MySQL), and it makes use of open protocols (XML and RDF) for exchanging headlines with other sites.
Anyone who wants to get a weblog site up and running will want to read this book, particularly system administrators who may not have the time or the background to learn all about Slash by reading the source code. Content managers of Slash sites who want to be able to use the system more effectively will also benefit from this book, which organizes the knowledge currently distributed throughout the Slash source code, Slashcode web site, and mailing lists, and provides it in an organized package.
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
Be the first person to review this book!
Media reviews
"When I first saw this book, I thought it would be dull. Who wants to read documentation for a bunch of Perl scripts? As it turns out, the book is mostly case study and installation/configuration guide. Although obviously aimed at people considering using the open-source "slash" engine for their own sites, reading about how the Slashdot administrators evolved their software to cope with such astonishingly high traffic is quite inspirational. There is a lot of solid wisdom for anyone involved in maintaining web applications on the Internet. If you are designing or improving a public collaborative web application and want to be able to scale to massive traffic, this book is an important addition to your bookshelf."
--Frank Carver, JavaRanch, August 2003
http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/Marginalia.jsp
"Perfect for Web geeks who just have to do the programming themselves."
--Jennifer L. Leo, East Bay Express, Nov 27, 2002
"If you haven't heard of Slashdot, you've probably been living under a 286 for the past four years. The Slashdot Web site is probably one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the Web, and it operates quite gracefully with very few outages. Say what you will about the quality of 'news' and discussion on the site--along with spelling and grammar that would make an elementary teacher cry--but the code that serves up Slashdot is some pretty nifty work. The Slash codebase is freely available to anyone who would like to run a Slash-like Web site, but the documentation isn't plentiful. Happily, the kindly folks at O'Reilly have delivered Running Weblogs with Slash for aspiring Slash Webmasters?if you're new to Slash and *nix, you'll get your money's worth out of this book. The authors go the extra mile for Slash newbies...For such a short book, Slash does a fine job of covering the software and giving the reader all the necessary information to get a site up and running. I would have liked a full chapter on plug-ins, but that's a minor quibble. The book reads well and, unlike many books with multiple authors, it's pretty seamless. I'm really happy with this book, and I give it a hearty thumbs-up to anyone who's considering running a Slash site."
--Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier, UnixReview, July 2002
