[Asterisk-Users] Plan to free myself from AAH

[Damon Estep]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-
> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Strom Carlson
> Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 11:16 AM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Plan to free myself from AAH
> 
> On 5/17/06, David K Parker <davparker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I wouldn't knock the third party "friendly" interfaces to Asterisk
too
> hard.
> > They will evolve and improve over time. The adoption of Asterisk as
a
> > mainstream PBX is dependent upon a user friendly interface.
> 
> Well, as soon as a GUI shows up that doesn't make configuring Asterisk
> like trying to sew with boxing gloves on, I'll give it a good, hard,
> unbiased look.  For now, though, the available interfaces are really
> just not there yet - they don't allow enough flexibility and they are
> very easy to outgrow.
> 
> --
> Strom Carlson
> http://www.stromcarlson.com/

Strom,

Asterisk is far too flexible to ever have a GUI that can do everything
that everybody does with asterisk, thank goodness.

There will be (and are) some GUIs that are good at managing asterisk in
specific roles.

Look at the CLASS 5 hard switches (lucent 5E, Nortel DMS), no useful GUI
interface there either.

I have to say that I agree with the strong focus on core functionality
and the lack of focus on the GUI stuff, performance is far more
important to many of us than looks.

The open nature of the asterisk code makes building a good specialized
interface for you particular application childsplay for a good
web/database programmer, assuming they have access to an asterisk
dialplan syntax expert, and there are a larger number of them out there,
most of whom charge less for their time than a certified Lucent or
Nortel tech.

I do not disagree with fact that there are no good comprehensive GUIs, I
just disagree with the assumption that there ever will be. Asterisk core
will always be ahead of the GUI add-ons.

After a year and a half experience with asterisk in production
environments I am still amazed more every day by what can be done with
it, and I will never recommend or buy another Lucent or Nortel or any
other "hard" pbx.

You would be doing yourself a favor learning the dialplan and
application commands. It is worth the effort.

Mark and everyone else at Digium and all of the other contributors
should be cast in bronze and placed at the top of the hill at the end of
their "terms" for changing the face of IP telephony forever.

Damon