This is a part of my course project.
Basically, there are vendors which provide food and at peak hours the queue gets so large that people have to wait long for their order.
Our project is like an online site which will enable users to order food. After ordering the food, the user will get an info as to where does he lie in the queue. This way students can order from their hostel rooms without actually going to the vendor and getting their time wasted by waiting in the line. As soon as the user orders the food, vendor gets notified of the project so that he can start preparing the food.
I am completely new to web development so I am not sure what to use. This project will also work as an exercise to learn about web development.
I have heard about Drupal & Joomla CMS. Also, Django framework is also there and I am actually confused as to what technology to use.
I am also confused as to what is the difference between a framework and a CMS? How do they differ and which one will suit me.
So, how do I go about developing the
application?
A framework is a basic application without any concrete business logic. It contains basic structure and sometimes basic features (like database connectivity and other standard libraries). You have to write your code yourself.
A CMS is a content management system. It is essentially a complete website but without the content. it provides tools to write content (web pages). The most popular ones (like Joomla) come with a bunch of templates too that you can download to give your site any look you want.
A CMS probably doesn't have enough features to provide you with this logic. You will probably need to do some programming to get this done. It may still be useful to use a CMS, though. Lots of them support various plugins that allow you to add these kind of features and still allow you to easily edit regular pages.
Frameworks are libraries turned on their heads. You plug a library into your code; a framework turns this around by abstracting a particular problem in such a way that you plug your code into it to solve a problem. It's the Hollywood principle: "Don't call us; we'll call you."
People who write frameworks have deep knowledge of a particular problem domain. They usually represent the distillation of several attempts to solve a problem, with best practices, clear abstractions, and good plug-in points made clear from long experience.
Django is a Python framework for web applications that have a browser front end and relational databases for persistence.
That's one example of a framework.
A CMS (Content Management System) allows users to dynamically add and manage content in a web application. I think they solve slightly different problems from Django, because it is specialized to the problem of content management.
I'd recommend starting your queuing problem without a front end at all - just text. Concentrate on the subtleties of queuing. Get that right with your object model and then expose a user interface to display it to users.
CMS is a 'content management system'. If provides modules that you can plug in. The end effect is it sets up a website for you, and you have admin pages where you can enter content. For special stuff, you use plugins. If you have to, you can write your own plugins.
A development framework is just a stack of technologies you can use to develop an application. So for example, the Grails framework uses Hibernate(persistence) and Spring(dependency injection and other stuff) under the covers -- it is providing and using existing tools (which are themselves frameworks) which you will in turn use to build the application.
With a framework, you basically start with a bunch of tools in your toolbox, but little or no parts of a running web app out of the box. You have to develop the functionality with the tools. With a CMS system, it's like they have implemented something for you, but it is really generic and you will have to tailor it to your needs.
Related
After speaking with developers, I have questions, "What framework do you use with your app?" and "What web technologies are you using on the front end?".
Therefore, in order to answer the exact question they are asking, what is the difference between "frameworks" and "technologies" in this context? How would I answer these two questions differently or do they both have the same answer?
For example, I thought that in a MEAN stack application, the "technologies" I am using are mongoDB, expressJS, angularJS, and nodeJS. What would be the "framework".
Frameworks are a subset of technologies. All computer languages are technologies. All frameworks are written in computer languages to solve specific problems. The MEAN stack consists of many technologies. NodeJS is a web application framework, that allows JavaScript to run on the server. Express is used to create APIs. Angular is typically used on the client side to provide the front end experience. MongoDB is a technology but not a framework, its a piece of software that allows an application to persist data.
Using your example of the MEAN stack, one could argue that a framework such as AngularJS is a subset of a given technology stack. I often think of a framework as a set of tools for ...... you know what, I think an analogy might better express my thoughts on this.
an analogy
construction = development?
Think of a general contractor (you know, the person(s) you call to come fix things around your house/work). So development is a lot like handy-man/construction work. They fix things, we fix things. They make you a new house or kitchen counter, we make applications... yada yada yada
components
Now think about the separate components in making a house:
plumbing
electric
framing
dry wall
roofing
finish work
I'd equate those to the separate things we use in development to serve our end goal:
database
services
client UI
the tools
Just like a plumber has special tools for his job, I view a framework like AngularJS as just another tool to serve the specialty of Client-side UI work. Bootstrap is a styling framework/tool just like a paint-roller is to finish work. The CSS or the Javascript are the nails and screws, but you can't build just a house with nails and screws, you need tools and methodologies to assemble your parts.
I dunno if that is the best analogy, but it's the one I've used for ages in explaining to laypersons what it is I do for my work and it seems to convey the point fairly well.
in closing...
... I think you can get away with the line of thinking that technology encompasses any frameworks you use. And by mentioning a framework (that they are familiar with) you are implying the technology.
I am looking to develop a multi-user web application that supports the following key features:
fill out forms with demographic data on individuals
define and administer surveys & polls
generate nice reports with graphs)
user rights administration and generic login stuff
My dilemma is whether to use a CMS (Drupal?) or develop from scratch.
Putting the time and cost issues aside for a minute, which are an obvious CMS strength, what are the weaknesses and potential risks using a CMS? my gut tells me that a CMS will be very easy and quick to start with, but when the features list begins to grow - I will pay the bill with having to delve into unfamiliar DB structure and code, try to tweak existing modules or write my own from scratch.
Is it really better, over the long run, to use a CMS?
There are two basic types of CMSes:
focused on features
focused on flexibility
The first type - focused on features - usually offer lot of modules or extensions to expand the basic functionality. You can build your web site very quickly using ready-to-use third party modules. There's a disadvantage of this way - it isn't so easy to bend or customize these modules. Usually you need to rewrite them.
Drupal. WordPress and Joomla are good examples of the first type of CMSes.
The second type - focused on flexibility - somewhere called Content Management Frameworks - don't offer so much prefabricated modules, but offer much more tools and ways to make your structure and relationships between elements fit your needs. It takes more time to learn this kind of CMS or to build your fist web site, but you can easily customize anything you need.
Some examples of the second type CMSes: SilverStripe, Symphony CMS, appRain, MODx, ezPublish.
appRain is one of the best customizable option where you will get both option of CMS and also complex coding by it's framework.
Development process is also easy. New version 4.0.4 is on they way to be released.
I am working with a friend on building a web site, in general this web site will be a custom web app along with a very custom social network type of thing..
Currently I have a mock-up site that uses simple PHP with AJAX and JSON and JQUERY and I love how it works, I love the way it all fits together.
But for a mock-up I did not implement any of the Social Network design patterns such as a login, rating, groups etc..
This brought me to a higher level of decision making requirement, I need to decide if I want to develop all this functionality by hand or use some kind of a framework.
I spent this entire day researching, and it would seem that using Drupal and such frameworks will make the Social Network part easy (overlooking the customization requirement for now..) but will make client side Web App development less so.
I found some other frameworks that are more developer friendly (customizable) such as Zend and Symfony etc.. but these seem to take allot of the power from the client and implement it in the server side, to me this seems a waste (and an unjustified performance bottleneck) ..
Finally I found Aptana Jaxer framework that seems to think the same way I feel.
That said it seems a bit under-developed, I didn't find modules for a social network and the community around it seems thin.. (searching Jaxer in StackOverflow returns few results)
So other then making server side DB comm a bit simpler it does not help me greatly..
My requirements are a good facility to develop web apps on while containing all the user centric logic usually used for social networks in advance.
What would you recommend?
EDIT:
OK, lats fine tune this question, after considering this abit further, is there a good down loadable source of a social network site in PHP that I can work around in building my web app? (I really like using JQUERY AJAX JSON etc..)
if you want to develop a social networking site from scratch, i recommend using zend-framework as a server side framework and jquery as a client side framework.
they have a lot of library which you can use such as zend_auth,zend_acl for user authentication system and Zend_Search_Lucene for search facilities and zend_gdata for youtube videos and so on.
but you can also use one of the several social networking engines available out there.
here is a link:
http://www.best-php-scripts.com/social_networking.htm
I think it depends on the goal your trying to achieve.
Personally, I tend to like to keep things simple and to decouple complex
things in smaller components, so it's easy to stay in control when you'll
incrementally add new features.
Ajax or a server-side framework ? I'd say that they're not necessary overlapping
each others. However some (server-side) frameworks tends to wrap everything in a
single zipped package to make things easier for beginners. I personally don't
like this avenue because it will make your web app dependable on this framework.
Thus, nothing prevents you to use one client-side framework for the presentation
logic and another one for server-side/business logic.
Hth,
Etienne
If you were going to start building web sites as a consulting business on the side -- keeping your day job -- and you also had a toddler and a wife, what frameworks/tools would you pick to save you typing?
Any language.
I'm looking for a productivity superstar stack that won't tie my hands too much when I have to update the site 6 months later, or "evolve" the data model once in production.
It needs to allow me to say "yes" to the client: community features, CMS, security, moderation, AJAX, ...
I would suggest Django. Super simple to get something up and running really quick. You are using Python which has a large library to go with it. For me Ruby on Rails would be a close second.
I'd probably look at DotNetNuke. Its easy to set up (a lot of hosts will do it for you) and easy to use and put together a custom site that business's will be able to maintain in the future.
Its fairly easy to create custom modules that are specific to a business and hundreds of modules for sale (or free) that can be integrated into DNN for special uses.
Take a look at Microsoft's Sharepoint server if you'd like a pre-made framework with many options for plugging in your own code. Sharepoint is kind of a world unto itself but it is a very powerful environment.
Update: I'm surprised to have been voted down on this one. Keep in mind that the questioner specifically requested frameworks that included a CMS. Sharepoint meets this criteria - unlike straight .NET or other web development frameworks.
If you are going to vote the entry down, I think you owe it to the person who asked the question to explain why you don't think he should not even explore it as an option. You could be right - collective wisdom is what voting on SO is all about. But without an explanation, we don't know why you think you are right.
My answers are going to revolve around the .NET stack.
Use Master pages and CSS templates. This makes it so much easier to pop in a new look and feel for your customer.
For sure I'd include the Dynamic Data framework in the .NET world.
Hosting might become an issue for your customer. Questions around managing email addresses, procedures on how to quickly update the website to include the new contact phone number (different for each customer, I'd assume) Consider getting a reseller account on your favorite webhost, and dole out webhosting accounts as appropriate. There are lots of issues around this point. It may turn out to be a nice source of recurring revenue.
Build yourself a few patterns including a database wrapper which would handle all your data calls (i.e. a dll which wraps all your data calls, sets up your ADO.NET objects, runs your sproc calls, and picks up the connstring from app.config or something similar.)
This goes a long way to maintainability as well.
I would recomend going with anything MVC in a language you can undertand! Theres a couple of CMS's in python, php and ruby using that design and well... that allows you to be ready for combat for Ajax and expanding anything very fast.
This is definitely not a question that can be answered.
I prefer asp.net webforms because I think it allows for extremely rapid web app development, but I am sure you will receive recommendations for:
asp.net mvc
Ruby on Rails
PHP and some framework
Python and some framework such as Django
I believe PHP has the most pre-built apps that you can use, though asp.net also has the things you are looking for.
All of these platforms and frameworks can do what you want.
Choose between Rails and Django. They both have different strengths. I like Rails better in general, but Django's admin interface can save you a lot of time when you need it.
There's another factor to take into consideration here: what are you the most familiar with? I believe that some studies have found upwards of a 30% loss of productivity when trying to learn a new language/framework.
Sometimes, there's nothing wrong with just sticking to what you know. But if you're interested in what languages/frameworks to learn, I'll refer you to the other posts because the above was the only thing I really have to add.
I recommend looking into Grails. It uses Groovy which is similiar to Java (so if you know this already you're good to go). Groovy runs on the JVM so you can still use all the great libraries already available for Java. Yet, since it's a dynamic language with a lot of the similar bells and whistles like Ruby you can use closures and that kind of neat stuff when you need/want to. And you're not slowed down by Java's traditonal slow compile-deploy-test development cycle.
Grails is already setup with Hibernate and Spring. You can create CRUD application in practically no-time (pretty much like Rails applications), and at the same time drill down and be able to control every little details since it's built on such proven and well-supported technologies. In addition there's literally hundreds of plugins available that helps you easily set up things like mailing lists, security, AJAX components and so on.
Otherwise, if you want to set up a community site and don't want to code a single line you could always check out ning.com.
I need to create a internal website and can't figure out if we should be writing our own, or using an existing framework.
Most of the website will essentially be a front end to a database. We need to have a number of people enter data into forms. We then want to be able to show different views of all this data -- including running small queries (e.g. how many resources do we have with attribute 'X'). As is usually the case with this, we will want to tweak the UI on a regular basis.
There actual data design is not a simple 1:1 mapping of resource to entry. For example, we might track several attributes for one item as the "base set of data" for that item. Then we could have several additional sets of data.
Imagine a recipe application. You might have a recipse for a starter. This could then be referenced by several other recipes that need that same information.
I feel like this is best suited for a general framework (Ruby on Rails, Django, etc), but I wonder if it might not be good for a "traditional" CMS platform like Drupal? I specifically mention Drupal since the people that would develop this have the most knowledge using php and MySql.
I usually lean towards wanting to use an existing platform, but am interested in other people's thoughts. To give you an idea of scope, I would imagine if we wrote this from scratch we are probably talking about 3-5 weeks of development.
Would you recommend writing our own, or using an existing framework? If you would suggest using something that exists what would you recommend?
Would you consider this to be best suited for a straight framework or a straight CMS?
Thanks!
It's possible that Drupal will be a good solution for you, though you'll probably need a few key additional modules like the "Content Creation Kit" (CCK) and "Views".
Unlike other web CMS systems (WordPress, Exponent, phpNuke), Drupal treats your entries as a "pool" of content, from which you pull various subsets for different areas of your site.
There is a lot of documentation for Drupal (almost too much), the biggest problem is finding the piece that's relevant to what you're trying to achieve. Diving on to one of the interactive IRC channels can be a good idea, as the community is quite helpful and is almost always willing to give you a pointer in the right direction.
The power, flexiblity and capability of Drupal is both its biggest strength and weakness - I know it took me a bit of effort to get my head around key concepts, and I'm far from being a Drupal Expert.
One last comment: Having written my own CMS from scratch, which I abandoned in favour of Drupal, I'd suggest your 3-5 week estimate is likely on the light side.
Stay away from Drupal for any site that requires customized functionality. I recently used Drupal for a website at work, and it was VERY difficult to figure out how to get it to do what I wanted it to do. There is a lot of documentation out there, but all of it is unhelpful -- it answers very specific questions about specific issues but does not provide any context as to how you would approach building the site as a whole. If you're a programmer, using a more general framework will probably work better, as CMS's are designed for a specific kind of site, and if you want your site to have non-standard functionality you are going to be fighting the system instead of working with it. If your developers are most experienced in PHP, try one of the PHP frameworks that mimics the architecture of Rails -- e.g. cakePHP or CodeIgniter.
CMSes usually make sense when you have a broad and potentially expanding array of different content types and modes you need to handle. Drupal has literally dozens. Given than you mentioned RoR, it sounds like what you need is more of a MVC style framework. Maybe similar to the sort of thing stackoverflow was built with. .NET an issue for you?
If you are really limited to 3-5 weeks, however, I think a Rails-based strategy makes sense so go with RoR or CodeIgniter
If Drupal can do what you need easily I would say go with Drupal. I don't know much about Drupal though.
Otherwise, what you describe sounds like a data driven web app or more like a reporting app. It sounds like you might have some very specific needs or that users might want very specific needs in the future. That is something hard to get from premade software since you have no idea what users are going to request. Since I'm a programmer I would probably want to build it myself.
Funny you should ask... I just came across this in SD Time's Linkpalooza this afternoon:
Ten free powerful content management systems…
There are at least 4 more mentioned in the comments to this post.
It seems to make little sense to develop a new one with so many from which to choose!
BTW, this is neither a recommendation nor endorsement of any particular CMS.
Treat Drupal as a framework. Core modules + CCK + Views is a good start to build on.
If you're doing something that you might want to expose to other applications, consider the Services module. A lot of interesting things have been done with flex frontends connected to drupal running services with amfphp.