CMS Frameworks

While the argument of what makes or breaks a Framework is beyond my expertise, I have done enough reading that I know that MVC != Framework or vice versa. MVC from what my limited knowledge of programming is is a design pattern.

Now that being said. I can talk to the fact that MODx from 0.9.7 on will be a built on Openexpedio (xPDO) and will not any longer be tied to any one strict view. My understanding (remember I am no proggie) is that one can build their own applications using xPDO and Smarty just as simply as they can in using MODx build on xPDO.

The thing that I do know is that MODx is a Content Management Framework (not necessarily an application development framework as is CodeIgnitor or CakePHP or (the one that looks kinda cool) Qcoda.

Another thing about MODx 097 and later is that the manager is basically (correct my terms if I am wrong) an extension of xPDO and is merely an interface--one person or group’s view of that interface. I have started discussion already about building another extension of the interface because the currently 097 one is built in EXTJs which is not entirely accessible--while cool for us four-eyed, plain browser view tech folks is not perfect for users with special needs like screenreaders, touchscreens, dexterity issues and etc.

Nonetheless, this is an interesting and insightful thread, and, ltsmash if you are a good coder and want to get involved in shaping the outcome with the MODx team you can submit feature requests, patches and snippets this is an open source project and help is appreciated.

The screencast they’ve done shows a lot of great thought went into their new manager. Kudos to the EE team.

Indeed, it’s going to be a worthy contender with this new version (didn’t see an ETA for 2.0 though)... especially since EE also has flexible templating and custom fields (though not as powerful as TVs IMHO, at least back when I used 1.4 and tested 1.6) we could find ourselves on the same planefield even if EE is a commercial product it’s not that expensive

it does look interesting. There’s a forum feature which is nice to see. Is there any idea when it will roughly be ready for release or how the construction of 9.7 is going?

I considered EE as the most similar to MODx, these were my short list before diving into MODx full time. The diff was that EE was more geared to only manage content where MODx is much more. That is why they put such emphasis on the interface as it relates to content. I only toyed with it so my opinion is superficial.

I have been interested in CodeIgniter for a while and would like to give it a go once I have some free time. But now I would rather get my feet wet with xPDO first.

I have used EE extensively for over a year, for 2 websites... very similar to Textpattern but more powerful thanks to custom content field. As you say, it’s more geared toward blog/news type of website and client’s site are corporate website which fit well with MODx "document tree paradigm". Of course, in my eyes opensource apps have the "community edge" over commercial products... EE’s forums are active and nice from what I recall, but that’s nowhere near the spirit here

Anyway, the fact that they switch EE to CodeIgniter will probably bring it a step further, for starters it’ll be built on the MVC design pattern which means that you’ll probably will be able to push the admin beyond the blog/news paradigm... not to mention CodeIgniter is opensource and there is an active community behind it which might benefit EE once 2.0 is out...

xPDO = O/RM framework (compare with Propel, PHPDoctrine, etc.)
MODx = MVC-based content management framework (nothing really equivalent here; it’s somewhere between Agavi and EE on CodeIgnitor)

What this means is that MODx is roughly equivalent to EE deployed on CodeIgnitor, though CodeIgnitor has a more complete set of framework libraries than MODx will. This is because the intention is to allow other framework pieces to be used where appropriate. For instance, I’ve used parts of various PEAR and Zend Framework libraries in MODx, both in older versions, and in the new architecture.

xPDO is just O/RM. It is not a complete PHP framework, just a framework for CRUD and building domain models. CodeIgnitor has it’s own ActiveRecord features, as does Cake, but both are much larger in scope than xPDO. To be honest, if I wouldn’t have needed to support PHP 4 with 0.9.7, I would have chosen Agavi + PHPDoctrine to build the new MODx on, but both are entirely dependent on PHP 5. xPDO + MODx is not.

As for auto-generation of Ajax/Javascript code, I have to say that is one of the worst possible ideas I can imagine at this point for MODx. The Ajax world is still in the early phases of it’s adoption curve, and future innovation in this respect is more important to support in my opinion than providing code generation using any of the existing Ajax frameworks out there today.

More on this from me once I get an alpha release of 0.9.7 available.

Quote from: rthrash at Mar 17, 2008, 01:41 PM

Just the only free one.

Sometimes my clients insist on a .NET solution. Umbraco looks a bit like the MODx of the .NET world, and it’s free. Haven’t had time to look at it yet however. Looks like a nice alternative if you’re forced to go with a MS solution.

Quote from: OpenGeek at Mar 18, 2008, 03:47 PM

...the intention is to allow other framework pieces to be used where appropriate. For instance, I’ve used parts of various PEAR and Zend Framework libraries...

That’s a wise choice. CodeIgniter has many libraries, but that is not its strength. It’s strength is the ability to easily integrate third party libraries. It’s too much to ask of CodeIgniter to have the perfect library for any and all tasks. Frankly, far too much CI development time is invested in maintaining substandard libraries.
Quote from: OpenGeek at Mar 18, 2008, 03:47 PM

CodeIgnitor has it’s own ActiveRecord features, as does Cake, but both are much larger in scope than xPDO.

CodeIgniter doesn’t have a conventional ActiveRecord feature. What CodeIgniter calls Active Record is actually a collection of helper methods that function as an sql string builder. It just generates regular sql queries targeted to the type of database specified in a config file.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, more often than not, writing regular parameterized queries is more flexible and faster to develop than query builders or ORM. I try to write generic queries, but the chances of having to move to another type of database is about the same as having to rewrite in another scripting language.

Quote from: rickj at Mar 18, 2008, 09:25 PM

CodeIgniter doesn’t have a conventional ActiveRecord feature. What CodeIgniter calls Active Record is actually a collection of helper methods that function as an sql string builder. It just generates regular sql queries targeted to the type of database specified in a config file.

Oh I see; xPDO provides that feature in the form of xPDOQuery, where you can programmatically build queries to "hydrate" object properties, but it’s just a subset of the functionality.

Quote from: rickj at Mar 18, 2008, 09:25 PM

I’ve come to the conclusion that, more often than not, writing regular parameterized queries is more flexible and faster to develop than query builders or ORM. I try to write generic queries, but the chances of having to move to another type of database is about the same as having to rewrite in another scripting language.

Understood, and the whole intention of xPDO is to allow you to develop robust domain models quickly, and allow you to easily port to various db engines by simply overriding an object method here or there. I think that’s what will make xPDO unique in the PHP object-relational world: it’s focus on managing the relational mapping and CRUD scaffolding aspects and avoiding all of the SQL abstraction that IMHO typically is out of control in an O/RM.