11:03:17 AM 6161180: One of my personal projects coming up is a PHP5 web framework...prelude to a supersecret open source project 11:04:06 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: oh noes 11:04:08 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: a framework 11:04:31 AM 6161180: Yes, an evil framework 11:04:40 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: 99% of frameworks are 11:04:42 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: evil 11:04:51 AM 6161180: It's a tool to allow me to pimp myself out to various PHP conferences 11:05:00 AM 6161180: "How to build a PHP 5 framework that is not Evil" 11:05:09 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: step 1: download Cake. 11:05:14 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: there is no step 2! 11:05:50 AM 6161180: Cake is not ready 11:06:00 AM 6161180: it doesn't have any frosting yet 11:06:16 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: on the flip side, it mimics the best framework yet. 11:06:27 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: mmm cake. now i'm hungry. 11:06:28 AM 6161180: There is some truth to that 11:06:35 AM 6161180: rummages around for a snack 11:06:43 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: the beauty of ruby on rails is how it is loosely coupled 11:06:55 AM 6161180: I dunno...a lot of stuff I do now are exercises to expand my own programming skillz 11:06:58 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: it doesn't make doing things a different way any harder 11:07:11 AM 6161180: maybe it's time I looked at cake closely 11:07:20 AM 6161180: and abandoned my crazy dreams 11:07:39 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: i'm not convinced that php's design as a language really allows the creation of a good framework 11:07:58 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: it's missing a lot of important higher-level language features 11:07:58 AM 6161180: I don't see why not 11:08:03 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: meta-programming's practically impossible 11:08:20 AM 6161180: what do you mean by "meta-programming" in this instance? 11:08:28 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: writing code which writes code on the fly 11:08:40 AM 6161180: you're talking about the generator scripts? 11:08:45 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: no. 11:08:47 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: let me show you. 11:10:03 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: {:up => :move_higher, :down => :move_lower, :top => :move_to_top, :bottom => :move_to_bottom}.each do |action, list_method| define_method(action) do if params['id'] @section = Section.find(params['id']) @section.send(list_method) end redirect_to :action => 'list' end end
11:10:30 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: this bit of code writes methods when the class is invoked. it's not inside another method, it's just in the class. 11:10:46 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: the fancy thing is a closure 11:10:57 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: closures + metaprogramming = simplicity 11:11:12 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: it was paul graham who really made me see that ther ereally is a huge power difference between languages 11:11:28 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: he of course pushes lisp, but ruby has most of the features which make lisp great, without the horrible dialects. 11:12:26 AM 6161180: I guess the biggest problem is that PHP grew so fast 11:12:32 AM 6161180: hard to go back after the fact and clean up the mess 11:12:47 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: the biggest problem is that it was made by a guy who hates to program and design things. php is a sledgehammer. 11:12:51 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: but sometimes you need finer tools 11:13:06 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: it's still the best out there vs eveyrthing but ruby 11:13:07 AM sp1ffar1ff1c: for web dev