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Closed 10 years ago.
Im thinking about starting a website project with a framework that will be also a study project for me. To be more exact a biologist kinda site with quite some filters and there is the question also if I should use separate database or flat file for 8 translations for the different species names (the site also has to be international, but just with 3-4 languages). Im thinking hard about which road to take... so I am asking for some constructive inputs please!
Im thinking of yii because of its simplicity, I tried it and it seems to be working smoothly.
Im thinking of symfony2 because it seems to be more advanced and some great websites were built with it, also drupal8 was constructed with it if Im not mistaken... and even if its harder to get going with it if its worth the effort I would do it.
Im thinking of spark, a java mini framework or Eclipse Link as later I plan to make an offline version of this webpage and I hope its not that hard to port it as a standalone java app. But I'm novice in java and hate the java documentations filled with acronyms all the time and supposing that I know those essential steps that are considered to be self evident by experienced java programmers.
I think there is no correct answer to your question. Chosing a framework is a matter of philosophy, and personal preferences. Some people will think that Yii is easier to use and some other will be amazed by symfony capabilities.
If you know a framework, I'll advise you to stick to this one and if you don't check out the basis of each ones and choose the one that seems to fit your need the most.
But at the end if you choose a popular framework (Yii, Symfony, Laravel, ...) you'll be able to achieve your goal.
Personally I like Yii, having never used the others :) For this exact reason I've flagged to close this as not constructive. There is no correct answer to this question.
I would start up a project in each, try and accomplish some common tasks, then decide. Ultimately you'll be able to acheive everything in all those frameworks. The deciding factor will be how fast and how comfortably you can use the frameworks, not how everyone else uses them.
Yii supports multiple databases very easy; Think about this;
All you have to do is create the database and the rest is, easy ...
Just create a simple blog app, and see wich one is the easyest and fastest when developing.
Related
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Closed 10 years ago.
I am working on big application build using ASP.NET which was started 1.5 years back. The Site uses 3rd party telerik RadControls for UI. The problem with the website is it uses outdated stuffs like DataSets and all with no proper architecture. I have done some research and found some new technologies like ADO.NET Entity Framework out here. I want to know that is it worth investing to learn and migrate my site to ADO.NET Entity Framework at this stage.
Additionally are there any good technologies or tools (that can be used in ASP.NET) out there in the market which can be used to make the development life easier and be upto date with latest technologies.
ALL SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE REALLY PRECIOUS.
THANKS IN ADVANCE.
There is no real answer to this question.
Entity Framework is very useful. As is ASP.NET MVC. I guess it depends on what your metrics are to determine if it is worth it.
What are the goals for migration? Are you looking for a more testable website? Its unlikely to be worth migrating a large website just for the sake of it, so determining the measure of a successful migration may naturally lead you to a decision.
Its also worth noting that ASP.NET Web forms are still a viable option. If you want rapid development, which uses data grids and such like, then forms might be your best option. You could look to move to MVC, which will allow you to enforce a cleaner separation of concerns. Its horses for courses. A quick Google and you will find plenty of forms vs mvc pros and cons.
You could also consider a piece meal migration. For example, you could build and Entity Framework model of your database and start to use it one page at a time. Slowly removing ADO, but maintaining a working site. You can also use Forms, and MVC together in one site. So you don't have to do a complete migration in one go.
Food for thought, good luck.
The problem with questions like this is that the answer is always "it depends" however, having recently done some work with Entity Framework and MVC3 I will say that it is a very good platform to work with- MVC3 is logical and easy to work with and EF does a bunch of lifting for you.
Ultimately it depends how far along the project is and how much of it is complete in the way that it currently works. For example, if you have a decently designed database and a bunch of half finished pages then making the switch is probably not going to be a lot harder than finishing up with what you have, but don't underestimate the sheer scale of a rewrite when combined with the need to learn to use several new technologies even if the technologies themselves are fairly quick to learn. On any project of significant size you will run into quirks of the platform you are working with and find yourself completely stumped at least a few times.
On the other hand, the idea that something being outdated is a reason to replace working code is one that tends to result in expensive, embarassing project overruns. If it's most of the way finished and you are just lined up to do finishing touches then make the best of what you have and remember that Shipping Is A Feature. Similarly the size of the project and how business critical it is have a big impact. If this is a minor internal project maybe you have more room for a rewrite, if it is responsible for the company's revenue stream you need to get this version out fast and then think about refactoring later.
Either way, you need to talk this over with other stakeholders before throwing yourself into a potentially high-risk endeavour.
I have generally used Obout controls as a third party toolkit. I wish I could help more about switching to ADO.
Although, I don't suppose learning it would hurt, even if you don't end up using it for this particular project.
Good luck!
It all depends... Can you afford to migrate? Is your current framework not what you need it to be?
If you want to throw away 1.5 years of development just because something new has been released, maybe you should think twice. You surely know there's another version of .NET framework coming and who knows what will it bring? Does it mean that you will migrate again next year or so?
However, if you have designed your website the way it can be easily done, by all means, switch to new technologies and migrate how much you want and how you feel comfortable.
Whether or not it is worth converting your application to EF is a decision only you can make. You know the existing code base better than any of us. Evaluate how much code you would need to change, how much time you have, how much re-testing you would need to do, and so on. Depending on what you find, that will tell you whether you should upgrade or not.
I would love to upgrade every asp.net 2.0 app I find to MVC3 with EF, but usually time and resources only permit that we fix what is broken and move on the next project.
That said, EF is a wonderful advancement in data access. If it isn't worth doing on this project, it is definitely worth learning for the next one.
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Closed 9 years ago.
I am starter game developer. And also i am 2nd year student of software engineering. I have a team, and i am the only 1 who can code something!(And i have a guy from Marvel :))) )
So, we have decided to do a 2D game targeted to PC. I have made research in this side. And found not so many choices, because at the moment 3D games are in fashion. I do not want to use a game maker by the way.
So i decided to ask you this questions:Can you give some advise about using an engine or i have to write my own one? And if i have to write my own engine, which resources must i have?
Appreciate each of your answer !
Thanx !
Since PC games has many awesome titles out there, I think indie developer like you should heading for simple and time-killer games for mobile, a good game engine for mobile (free version available) is Gideros Mobile (http://www.giderosmobile.com). It use Lua language and you can publish for both Android and iOS platform. Gideros also has an active community which are ready to answer all your questions at here: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/
Currently I have 6 month experience with it, publish 3 games with about 60.000+ downloads.
I would say you should start by researching what a typical game engine gives you. There's a lot usually, such as physics, wrappers to draw objects, wrappers to load assests (such as sound and models or pictures), possibly even networking.
A game engine is potentially a huge, huge undertaking. If you're looking to make a game, focus on that by utilizing what's available to you.
My suggestion for starting would be XNA. It's a quick learn for the basics and easy to scale for large projects. They provide a lot of what I talked about and allows you to focus on what you started the project for.
Good Luck.
If you want to use a lower-level language like C++, I suggest SFML. It is extremely simple to use and provides both high-level and low-level graphics, audio, and networking functions for different uses.
You can also use it to easily create a context for OpenGL.
http://www.sfml-dev.org/
You will have to build the latest and best version (2.0) yourself, but this tutorial will show you how:
http://sfmlcoder.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/building-sfml-2-0-with-mingw-make/
Have fun!
I'd suggest checking out FlashPunk or Flixel. Both are Flash-based engines, so they use Actionscript 3, and can target the web-browser (Flash), or PC/Mac via the use of Adobe Air. Also, the performance isn't quite there yet from what I have read, but Adobe Air can also deploy to both iOS and Android. This is merely just a suggestion though, and if I were you I'd test out a few engines/technologies until finding the one I am most comfortable with.
Good luck!
Links to both:
http://www.flashpunk.net
http://flixel.org
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Closed 10 years ago.
I have a SQL Server Database. I would really like to quickly generate a middle-tier and a front-end from this database. I would prefer something that generates web forms if possible. I understand that no code-generator will be phenomenal. However, I just want something to get me up and running quickly that I can then customize as needed.
Can anybody recommend any code-generators?
Thank you!
There is ASP.NET Dynamic Data. If you can live with MVC, EF4 and MVC3 would be my choice above Dynamic Data.
I have a friend who is releasing a code generator very soon. You provide xslts based on the data model to create classes at any layer you want. Here is the site: Code Generator
Be sure to check out the sample project.
I have successfully used Code Smith (commercial product).
It is a popular templating engine and you will find many templates on the Internet for all kinds of architecture / data access frameworks.
I have also used plain T4 templates that you can use within Visual Studio without having to install anything (although I would recommend using something like Tangible T4 Editor to get color syntax).
If you have Visual Studio (2005 or greater) you might consider T4 templates. There's a good introductory video at DNRTV. T4 is a little known code generation facility that comes with all editions of Visual Studio (even Express I believe).
On some of my projects I have used MyGeneration, a free and open source code generator. This is also a good option.
You can use Entity Framework to generate objects from database schema, and then use the MVC Framework to generate stronly-typed views that use the said generated objects as models.
Here's a good post on that - http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/07/16/code-first-development-with-entity-framework-4.aspx
I'd give SubSonic a try, especially the ActiveRecord version. It basically will generate an interface(with Linq) to an existing SQL Server database, For taking it to forms, I suspect you won't find a very good solution because there are so many implementation details that are commonly placed in webforms, such as XSS prevention, how things should look and behave, etc.
I suggest a tool that I have use for really rapid application development, is the asp.net maker. http://www.hkvstore.com/aspnetmaker/
I have used it for low budget projects, or where I need for a dirty quick solution, until the final gets ready. What I have did is that I create solution for the easy tables, and make code for the one that need too many thinks to be fix.
The pros is that have many future, its very easy and you do not need to know almost anything to make the interface, create from the database, all the environment that can edit it, have the opportunity to make a lot of adjustments, and what you get is a better page than the Scaffold can product.
The negative is that you stick with what this tool product, and you can not update the pages by your self to make some small changes, because is too complicates one, second if anything change, the pages changes, and even if you rename it and not overwrite it, it maybe not working.
You need to test it and see by your self.
Redbrook Technology has a great ASP.NET forms and code generator. It's also very cheap. Give it a try - ASP.NET Generator
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Closed 10 years ago.
Drupal seems to have lots to offer to the non-programmer. Tons of modules and easy installation. But at what point would you say you need to be a programmer? Where does it fall down and require more hands-on attention?
Also, even though they aren't "meant" to be done, I'm interested in any custom tweaks you've had to do to the code base.
I strongly disagree with the idea that you need programming skills when you want to do something different than the 'out of the box' functionality, unless "out of the box" includes the myriad of ways one can mix and match the thousands of third-party plugins.
The biggest challenge is this: Drupal's community is moving more and more towards building small, reusable blocks that can be combined in novel ways via configuration, rather than coding. This means that the number of things you can accomplish by combining small pieces via administrative screens is impressive. However, it means that the tools you put together this way lack a lot of the 'smooth edges' that would be there with a single built-to-spec plugin.
It's those places -- the rough edges -- where custom code is most frequently needed. Writing a short hook_form_alter() function to hide some unneeded form fields or change the location a form redirects to when it's completed, building a simple custom sidebar block to give the use some useful links to the different pieces you've assembled, things like that. Custom theming also takes up a lot of that 'smoothing' work.
This is to say that you can do insane amounts of stuff with zero code, but you will reach a point of diminishing returns, especially when trying to build complex rule-based logic ("Under certain circumstances, I want X to appear, otherwise the user should be prompted for Y..."). Knowing at least some PHP, not being afraid to peek at what's going on under the hood, and the willingness to write a (small!) custom module to accomplish certain tweaky goals will definitely serve you well on more complex sites.
Also, it's easy to find plugins that do interesting things but are still in beta/development. Knowing some PHP will help you keep your head above water if you decide to work with 'not quite finished' code.
The only time you'd need a programmer would be if there was some functionality that you wanted and current plugins just did not provide what you were looking for. Most Drupal-powered sites can be run by non-programming types. In short, I'd say you would need to be a programmer if you need to develop custom functionality not found in any of the available plugins out for Drupal now.
Slightly off topic, but addressing one point you made:
Also, even though they aren't "meant"
to be done, I'm interested in any
custom tweaks you've had to do to the
code base.
It's open source software. You get to decide what's "meant to be done," based on your needs and desires.
Some of the best features start out as someone changing or using something in a way no one else had anticipated, thereby producing something new, interesting, and useful. Finding out what customizations others have made like this is a great way to broaden your understanding, and nothing to be furtive about.
I've used drupal without ever need to do any "programming", and if you don't have programming skills you could always use a cheap contractor (e.g. rent-a-coder or similar) to quickly/cheaply modify/create a plug-in for you.
There are a lot of modules available, but as soon as you want to do something slightly different than the out-of-the-box functionality, you need to be a programmer.
Personally, I have never altered the core codebase. It is really not recommended. I have taken existing modules and either taken parts of them to use in my own modules, or renamed them and modified them as my own.
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Closed 10 years ago.
Which Computer-aided Software Engineering tools do you use and why? In what ways do they increase your productivity or help you design your programs? Or, in case you do not use CASE tools, what are your reasons for this?
The best CASE tool I had to work with is the Enterprise Architect from Sparx.
It's lightweight comparing to Rose (easier to buy and cheaper too) but extremely powerful. You could do great UML diagrams or database model or anything else you want but in a nice and organised way.
It greatly helps on the initial stages of the elaboration process as you could create domain model, do some preliminary use cases, map them to the requirements and present all of it in a nice way to the customer. It helps me thinking and I re-factor my design with it until I am satisfied enough to start proper documentation.
It is also very good for database models as it could reverse-engineer most databases very neatly.
The only (but quite serious) drawback it has in my eyes is that its documentation generator is, to put it mildly, crap. Getting a proper document from it is almost impossible unless you invest a significant amount of work in the templates and then it would be only OK.
I have used Rational Rose and a few other similar packages in the past. Mostly I have used them for the UML diagram elements and have not gone into the more detailed functionality such as code generation etc.
I mostly use them for aiding the design process and clarifying my own ideas. Often I find that, in trying to come up with a design for a componant, I end up needing to write down / draw what I want to happen so I can get a clear overview in my mind of what needs to happen and why. I have found that in a lot of cases, what I end up trying to draw is essentially the same as a predefined kind of diagram in UML, such as a Use Case Diagram etc. and by then adopting that style, it becomes easier to get my ideas on paper as I have some framework to work within.
So, I use CASE tools principally for thier UML / designing tools at a highish, semi-abstract level.
Oracle Designer
Not using any. No money for them.