QCodo ?

[fredt]

I found this (one more ?) QCodo php development framework and was impressed - if I saw well, it's mainly starting from the DB tables, and generates quite intelligent classes (CRUD and more, and handles Foreign keys and Joins) as well as basic forms to CRUD the objects.

I'd like to use such a tool to create "legacy" small business apps.

Did anybody a) tried it, b) integrated / used with CMSMS     or c) plans to ?

Thanks !

[calguy1000]

it's for php-5 only, unfortunately.

[Russ]

fredt, calguy1000, there are other frameworks, amongs others, CakePHP and CodeIgnitor both run on PHP4/5. CakePHP seems quite similiar in idea to Ruby on Rails whilst Code Ignitor follows the MVC route but with slightly more crud.

To be honest I can't make my mind up for which I like best. CakePHP seems more powerfull, perhaps more mature, but there is a steeper learning curve (perhaps because it hasn't clicked for me yet!). CodeIgnitor is less mature, but with a rapid update cycle and perhaps slightly less powerfull at present (but getting there) and doesn't seem to get rid of as much 'CRUD'. However, to my eyes at the moment it does seem clearer and easier to follow - but then again perhaps it is just me.

In any event, CMS very nearly follows the MVC route and has some very good facilities for plugins and modules which allow you to customise it to your hearts content. PHP is PHP after all!

You might also want to look at this thread....
http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... icseen#new

Hope this helps
Russ

[fredt]

Well, Russ, I saw this other thread but I'm not a real high-skilled developper so I didn't want to interfere...

I've been using & developing on Lotus Notes for 12 years+ and it's just simple. So I'm looking for something simple under php too... For me, "simple" means you don't have to define Data at three levels - storage (DB), objects (classes), code (variables). Changing anything leads to a big mess, and you at least have to maintain coherence between layers manually - but I need apps able to change often. Dabble demos well illustrate "Simple" concept!

The MVC thing sounds to me like a Web thing - I mean, you have to keep track of previous page content, and what was clicked on it.

So... I'd like to have running prototypes fast, not to hand-design all layers !  I'm interested in QCodo because you just have to define one layer - here, the DB; and it'll generate a prototype of the others layers. Some others generators start the other way round: design your form, and they'll generate the db behind.

Are there other paths for me lazy guy ? 

(Edit) Russ - I hope I was not too rude - I think it's just the pressure... I have to write a web app for my business, but I don't want to spend tooooo much time on it - and I for sure don't want to start writing it with a wrong system. I'm so happy I found CMSMS - it just works, and I didn't have to write one line of php or html (except some bugs... so I just had to read php / html). So I have to write this app, and with The Right Tool at first try.
So, please Russ, tell us more about your Code Igniter experiment !!! Do you blog your experiences (cake, igniter...) ?

Calguy : I know QCodo is php5 only - but this is just a matter of version. It's not really a problem.
(/Edit)

[Ted]

Actually, the beauty of something like Cake is that to start off, you only really need to design the db schema, and make a controller consisting of a few lines.  The scaffolding will handle all of the views and give you enough ability to crud db objects.  At that point, you then can override the views one by one as much as you need to have a working app.

This is what I did with my rails project last year, and it worked really well for me.  I was in a situation where I was designing the database as I went, so having the scaffolding to give me an idea if everything was working together was a great help.  Obviously, I overrode all of the views eventually, but it was a great stepping off point.

Cake is the only one I've looked at so far, so I can't really comment about the other two.

[fredt]

Thanks, Great Guru !

So that's a big +1 for Cake.

I'm going to try to find nice Cake/QCodo comparisons or even benchmarks on real projects... I'll try to post them here.

... unless someone already has other opinions ?

[Russ]

I think either would be fine if you don't want to write too much code Best idea would be set yourself a simple joined table example and try doing it in both.

Russ

[fredt]

Russ,

I've seen in 0.13B4 thread you've started "playing" with QCodo... I hadn't time yet to go too far with it... Please post if it makes sense / "works" with CMSMS !

[Russ]

Hi fredt, I'm actually playing with Qcodo as part of another project I'm working on, so it is not really part of any CMS work. Indeed if you read the documentation, CMS itself is quite MVC like in operation. So much so, I'm not sure you would use Qcodo within CMS. Unless of course you had a requirement to do something very special. Mostly I see CMS being extended through Modules, which is quite a good architecture.

Qcodo works only with PHP 5.0+ and seems happiest with MySQL, (I've not really used other databases with it). CMS also works with the more widespread PHP 4 and MySQL 4 and others. In my view Qcodo is perhaps more a tool you might write something like a CMS in, rather than using to write add-in's.

As for Qcodo itself, it seems quite good, very different to Ruby on Rails or Cake, it generates code, but does so well and seems very flexible. I'm near the bottom of the learning curve, but I'm still with it after a few weeks, which can't be bad; -) I should watch their videos if you want to learn more.

Hope this helps,
Russ

[fredt]

Well, I wake this topic up...

Now CMSMS is on the way to php5... and QCodo has made big progress, too. I finally chose it, and am still learning - but trust me, it's very impressive and probably is the best architecture for code I've ever seen.

So I'm on the way to finish this damned app, and more than happy having not coded by hand - even if I wrote hundreds of line to implement the business code... And I'm working hard to integrate it in CMSMS, too. CMSMS provides an intelligent storage engine (pages, tags...), and templates help to define the global look easily, in a central place. It also provides standard documentation pages for this Intranet tool, while QCodo provides business mini-apps.

If anybody is interesting in working on this - or already went on this way -  I'll be happy to exchange & share.

Fred