Coding Pligg with a PHP Framework

[dpeterson7]

First of all I would like to say great job with pligg. I'm no expert but I've been programming in php a while and was curious if there has been any discussion on developing pligg with a php framework like symfony? I'm not suggestion to start from scratch but it has all the functionality you would need in pligg like

• simple templating and helpers

• cache management

• smart URLs

• scaffolding

• multilingualism and I18N support

• object model and MVC separation

• Ajax support

• Database Abstraction Layer

I'm not going to rant and rave on the pros and cons of using something like symfony but I think it would be smart to discuss this now while the app is in beta and easier to convert than another year from now when the code base is larger and more scattered. Having a solid framework will also help your app perform and scale better in enterprise level situations. Just my two cents worth

Oh, almost forgot to mention that they created a site called askeet.com for demo purposes thats just like pligg/digg. Of course it doesn't have as many features but it gives you an idea of the things you can do with the framework.

-- Dave

[kbeeveer46]

Cool. Thanks for the information. There has been some talk of redoing Pligg for a lot of reasons and we're up for any suggestions.

[newuser]

Wow, that site looks fantastic. I also think a framework like the new Cake or Symfony is a great idea. Just makes things easy for other devs or coders.

[savant]

how would symfony compare to cake?

any thoughts

[savant]

something i noticed in the documentation for symfony is that you need to use a build script to create files. I'm sure this was made to make it easier but if someone is in a shared environment running the build scripts could be hard

Symfony has a lot of documentation, but i've only use cake before.

news: yahoo bookmarks using symfony.

[dpeterson7]

Originally Posted by savant

how would symfony compare to cake?

any thoughts

I've never used cakePHP before so I can't list anything factual but doing a google search on the matter brings up some web sites that have their own opinions. I prefer symfony b/c it is well documented, very active code base, and very easy to get up and running with some advanced php coding. One thing that get's missed or not mentioned often is it's very in depth debugger and statistical component that you can see inline as your viewing your app. It's the best I've seen in any framework and a life save when your trying to figure out why a complex set of functions aren't working.

[dpeterson7]

Originally Posted by savant

something i noticed in the documentation for symfony is that you need to use a build script to create files. I'm sure this was made to make it easier but if someone is in a shared environment running the build scripts could be hard

Symfony has a lot of documentation, but i've only use cake before.

news: yahoo bookmarks using symfony.

You actually don't need to use a build script to create files but by default allow you to use CLI for convenience sake. They also provide a web control panel that allow you to perform these tasks in a shared environment, See Example. Or you can just copy the files manually.

[dpeterson7]

Originally Posted by savant

news: yahoo bookmarks using symfony.

Here's Yahoo's response as to why they choose symfony to create their bookmarks service:

The release of the new Yahoo! Bookmarks Beta has been on all news portals lately. Check the screencast accompanying the news if you didn't hear about this great release. Yahoo! Bookmarks has 20 million users, and is available in 12 languages (and counting).

But the real news about the new Yahoo! Bookmarks is that it was built with symfony. Why did Yahoo! choose our framework? According to Michael Salisbury, Technical Yahoo!, who was kind enough to give us his feedback, the major strengths of symfony over its competitors are:

Great documentation
Explicit and extensive configurability
Active development
Use of best-of-breed components rather than building everything again
The documentation was the first reason to choose symfony. It reaches a unique quality and coverage in the open-source world.

Michael emphasized that the configurability of symfony made it possible not only to translate the interface, but also to propose different features to every country and localize the application completely.

The Beta Bookmarks frontend development time took about 12 man-months; they started it in mid-June and released it a few days ago. Of course, they extended and modified symfony to fit their needs, but what's great is that they could actually do it, and that they will contribute their modifications to the community.

We are very happy to announce that such a major player in the web world chose symfony. That's the best birthday present we could ever dream of. And we hope that it will convince more and more IT managers to discover and adopt symfony, which is definitely a professional framework adapted to high demand web applications.

[chuckroast]

Just a little funny thing about Yahoo's bookmarking Digg-Style site..

My site scooptube was featured on their main page today...

I only received 3 hits from it..

Here is both screenshots of the main page post and a view of those stats http://scooptube.com/kick.gif

[newuser]

Originally Posted by dpeterson7

Here's Yahoo's response as to why they choose symfony to create their bookmarks service:

The release of the new Yahoo! Bookmarks Beta has been on all news portals lately. Check the screencast accompanying the news if you didn't hear about this great release. Yahoo! Bookmarks has 20 million users, and is available in 12 languages (and counting).

But the real news about the new Yahoo! Bookmarks is that it was built with symfony. Why did Yahoo! choose our framework? According to Michael Salisbury, Technical Yahoo!, who was kind enough to give us his feedback, the major strengths of symfony over its competitors are:

Great documentation
Explicit and extensive configurability
Active development
Use of best-of-breed components rather than building everything again
The documentation was the first reason to choose symfony. It reaches a unique quality and coverage in the open-source world.

Michael emphasized that the configurability of symfony made it possible not only to translate the interface, but also to propose different features to every country and localize the application completely.

The Beta Bookmarks frontend development time took about 12 man-months; they started it in mid-June and released it a few days ago. Of course, they extended and modified symfony to fit their needs, but what's great is that they could actually do it, and that they will contribute their modifications to the community.

We are very happy to announce that such a major player in the web world chose symfony. That's the best birthday present we could ever dream of. And we hope that it will convince more and more IT managers to discover and adopt symfony, which is definitely a professional framework adapted to high demand web applications.

Really would should happen is a downloadable and easy to install version of Askeet should be released. Then you would just need to configure it to your needs under syfony. Why start over?