NYCPHP Meetup

[Kristina Anderson]

> Hello NYPHP,
> 
> I have seen a few posts here about DRUPAL and decided to take a look
> at it to see if it might be useful for some of my projects.
> 
> I noticed a few days ago that someone did a Twitter post and said that
> DRUPAL is what you use when you are a "failed" programmer. From what I
> can see so far, DRUPAL seems to be a "core" that pretty much takes
> care of all the "busy work" that you would normally have to spend huge
> amounts of time on if you were programming a site from scratch, i.e.
> user authorization, permissions, etc. etc. I don't see that this makes
> for the argument that anyone who uses it is a "failed" programmer and
> if that is indeed true, what makes cumbersome frameworks like CAKE or
> equivalent software not fall into the same "failed" programmer
> category.
> 
> I realize that this was a "shoot from the hip" comment but would
> really like to hear other opinions about it. So far, I don't see the
> correlation between DRUPAL and "failed" programmer, what am I missing?
> 
> TIA for any comments.
> 
> -- 
> Best regards,
>  Webmaster                          mailto:webmaster at vbplusme.com


Hi Webmaster,

Yet another huge company has "signed on" with Drupal/PHP5 -- NBC is 
underway with a massive program to convert all their websites to 
Drupal/PHP.  (I know this because I'm interviewing for a spot on the 
team this week!)  If I go into this project, I'm sure in the upcoming 
months I'll have PLENTY to say about Drupal's ins and outs...I hated 
CodeIgniter with a bloody passion.  CakePHP on the other hand, while I 
haven't used the entire framework, has some great code that inspired me 
to rewrite and use...

I'm another "ambivalent about frameworks" PHP programmer.  10 years ago 
for the web, there were no frameworks for anything, and people were 
impressed by simple stuff like a mouseover effect or a pop-out menu or 
a website that actually used a database!  Now, there is code already 
written for all this stuff -- frameworks as it were -- and that raises 
the bar on what we, as programmers, need to produce in order to impress 
people.

This is the trend that I've seen in PHP5 overall, in that we are all 
writing less "original" code and using more "frameworked" code, so 
therefore spending more time analyzing and integrating and less time 
writing and playing...but adding on to existing code is a complex task 
in and of itself...

Over the years I've spent the bulk of my career mucking around in 
already-existing code, and I've fixed enough authentication code that 
didn't authenticate, CMS that were designed without an edit mode, 
databases that lacked necessary fields, and etc etc to see why 
frameworks are a good thing from management's perspective...when their 
goal is to squeeze more productive work out of each programmer for the 
same amount of money...

When we sign on as programmers, this becomes our fact of life.  Is the 
fact that we are using frameworks in PHP5 (and presumably, not writing 
one?) an indication that we've "failed" as a programmer?  In my view, 
if we are making money and producing quality code in what has to be one 
of the most challenging fields around, we're not failures.  

I've long ago resigned myself to the fact that I just have too much 
interest in other things in life (like baseball, shopping, sleeping, 
reading) to EVER be one of those "super-genius" programmers.  In some 
circles, having interests other than programming is viewed with supreme 
suspicion...but we are, also, human beings, even if some don't care to 
admit this.

The bulk of us do like to be able to make a living and still have time 
left over to catch the game or read that book we've been wanting to get 
to or spend time with people we care about...if frameworks can help us 
do that, are we "failures"?   I think we are too hard on ourselves, and 
that makes it easier for management to be hard on us (and make us work 
harder for less money), as a result...

Kristina