Re: [chiPHPug-discuss] PHP / Magento Job

[Arlo L. <ar...@ar...>]

Hello,

> Only if the custom system you're working with is crap, or you don't know how
> to leverage it properly.  Any system worth its salt will make add-ons easier
> to develop, because you can leverage good existing libraries to do much of the
> hard work for you or because there are add-on libraries available that already
> do most of what you want, than a completely custom system.  That's assuming
> you know how to leverage that particular system properly, of course, which is
> where "experience with platform X" comes in.

Most of my customizations have been with systems like OSCommerce or
Wordpress. Sometimes plug-ins are available; most of the time they are
abandoned and no longer compatible. I spend the majority of my time in these
systems simply finding the code that I need to modify to get the desired
functionality. They tend to have layers and layers of files that aren't
organized in any obvious way, so I'm constantly doing multi-file searches to
try and locate the needed code. In some cases they have redundant code, so I
make a change in one part of the system, then later I have to go back and
change it again somewhere else. I guess in my own mind I was thinking those
systems were "crap" when I was working with them, but they're both too
popular to avoid.

I did a project with a social networking system called Handshakes that had
all the right features to get started, but its code was scattered all over
the place. It used classes for the major sections of the system, but most of
the functionality wasn't in the classes. And some of the code -- this took
me a long time to figure out -- is stored in the database, so it wasn't even
coming up in my searches. After two years of updating the project, I have a
pretty good idea where to look for things, but I still have to do multi-file
searches and go on scavenger hunts to find things.

The custom systems I've seen, in contrast, don't get so big that they need
more than two levels of directory structure, because they're not trying to
provide every function that a mass-market audience requires. I'm not trying
to say one approach is always better than the other, but the overall effort
required can be pretty similar.

Anyway, a couple years ago I did a project with Wordpress and a project with
vBulletin at the same time, using the "hooks" in both systems, and the
difference was striking. I was able to do everything I needed in vBulletin
without touching its code, but I had to make about two dozen Wordpress hacks
in places where hooks weren't available. So there's obviously a wide range
of malleability with these systems, and it's hard to tell what you're
getting until you dig in.

Cheers,
-Arlo 

_______________________________

Arlo Leach
773.769.6106
http://arlomedia.com