front and back-end web development, Leeds, UK
Richard's Blog - Design, coding and life in Japan
Programmers are most effective when they avoid writing code
Submitted by Richard on Thu, 12/24/2009 - 10:36I stumbled upon this blog post which includes the statement 'Programmers are most effective when they avoid writing code'.
This got me thinking, particularly about some of the tools we use.
Drupal and Wordpress
Now by implementing the power and careful code others have written for me, I can get a simple website made within 1 week not 2. Because I can add a template file I can have a renewal done within a couple of days, if I want to add a feature I can add a pre-made module for instant satisfaction. Even when I write a module, even though I am coding I know it is instantly re-usable with no customization in any project that uses the same framework.
When I mentioned using Drupal at one of the places I work, my co-workers who are largely unwilling to learn new technology said 'But we can make a cms ourselves'. I thought how much time, efffort, complaints, testing that this would take and realized even if I had to spend 30 mins a day bashing them over the head - I was still right Drupal would be fastest
Portability
Portability is the single element that makes these tools so darn amazing and powerful
What do we need?
I am so exited to see web frameworks and cms systems come together such as Expression Engine and Code Igniter, Croogo and Cake
I love Rails and the power of gems and plugins help carry this portability. Most Ruby programmers give Java a hard time - very often justified (example 1, example 2), but unnecessary config files aside Java is incredibly portable, like the fantastic Stripes framework, Java has an amazing ability to just drop in a Jar file to make your non MVC site easily MVC compatible. We need this kind of portability in the PHP world. I dream of a drop in framework which means I can add the power of MVC my legacy PHP apps. And Java CMS's hurry up and with some lean light solutions which are ruling the PHP world. Come on CMS and MVC frameworks start making these bridges so we can have LEGACY + CMS + MVC. The use of these tools put together will make developers productivity so much higher - glorious!
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