Though I’m generally very happy with the new job, the sheer volume of information I’m having to cram into my rapidly overheating brain is becoming a bit daunting. My first two weeks were spent in what was, effectively, Vignette boot camp. We learned about their Content Management System, writing delivery applications that work against the CMS data store, writing PortalBean and JSR-168 portlets, and customizing the UI for all of these pieces. After a month or two, we’ve got a reasonably good grasp on these things. So what happens? We get a whole new pile of things to learn.

With the latest release, Vignette added Dynamic Site and Dynamic Portlet, which replaces much of what we learned about writing content management applications. It’s admittedly a far better way to do things, but is a whole new pile of poorly-documented stuff to learn. (Cynical aside: having your documentation riddled with errors is a great way to sell training courses.) I’m also working through the Vignette Business Integration Studio training materials and getting up to speed on the Open Source Portfolio Initiative, which it looks like we’ll be customizing and implementing here.