Andrew Gruhn:
The controls interface of Liferay assumes that Content Admins of a LifeRay environment are Java Developers, and as Liferay grows this will absolutely not be the case.
From what I've seen during the last few versions, Liferay Portal is steadily moving in this direction. However, as adoption grows, the previously implemented usecases for the portal and portlets most likely aren't broad enough. You can easily see that some portlets have been implemented with different assumptions than others - I believe the asset publisher is such a beast, that has once been created to serve a specialized purpose and is now constantly being generalized to meet broader needs.
The good message, even with the current state of requiring to patch some jsps or Java code is, that it is always possible to do so - everything is available. Patching on this level is thankfully not a day-to-day job, but concentrates around the time of introducing a new feature or setting up the initial site. Once the patch has been done and deployed, operation can take place without the need to access this level. I'd phrase it so that Content Admins with detailed plans about what to realize can make good use of
initial support from java-developers.
I believe that the need for detailed java knowledge will decrease with the next versions, but especially during the early implementation some more technical knowledge than that of the day-to-day Content Admin will continue to help tremendously.
