Do you ever get halfway through developing...

Shoseki · 7 Sep 2008 at 23:58

And start thinking... what the hell are you doing...

I have spent the last month or two developing a huge PHP Web applications development framework for the hell of it, and I'm kinda wondering what the point of it all is.

I have an idea for a business that I was writing the original web application for, but at a certain point, I thought "I can't be arsed to write all this code by hand" so I started to develop a framework to generate the work itself.

Now I am even deeper into this (my framework already develops models, data access objects (complete with sql database management), model view objects, and now I am automating simple application objects (basically fancy "actions" that do standard things like allow full html interaction with the objects, create read update delete) and I'm suddenly thinking of that shed in "a beautiful mind" full of the insane drawings on the walls...

I just wish I had someone to talk to about this project... /sigh

Shoseki · 8 Sep 2008 at 09:45

I realised that a lot of what I am doing is similar to what cakephp offers :S

Shoseki · 8 Sep 2008 at 11:59

Well, at the moment it consists of a series of "generator" programs that take individual XML files and "generate" the php code that is required to produce a certain pattern.

So far I have implemented :

Model (ie, simple class)
SQLDAO (encapsulates model, adds an id, and adds simple shallow sql calls to allow the object itself (but not referenced objects) to serialise itself)
ModelView (which are simple encapsulation classes that produce HTML table headers, table fields and editable fields for the model)
SA (Simple applications, basically just Show/ShowEditable/EditandShow applications that automatically allow an object to be edited from a client-server relationship

I'm planning :
Complex object serialising (deep object serialisation)
Semantic limitations (attach to model, ie age >= 0, text must fit pattern ddmmyy etc)
Users
Workflow
Unique embedded business logic

Not sure what else yet

Shoseki · 8 Sep 2008 at 16:44

Ah, but I have an application that it is supposed to produce, and it is producing it, sloooooowly

I just lose patience sometimes because it is harder to make the framework than to make the application!