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List:       quanta
Subject:    Re: [Quanta] Is Quanta the right tool for me?
From:       Eric Laffoon <sequitur () kde ! org>
Date:       2006-07-20 5:55:50
Message-ID: 200607192255.50673.sequitur () kde ! org
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On Wednesday 19 July 2006 5:06 pm, Thibaut Cousin wrote:
> Le jeudi 20 juillet 2006 01:22, Eric Laffoon a écrit :
> > All I use it for (for years now) is for dynamic PHP and database use. ;-)
> > I would say for PHP that Quanta is a contestant for the top tool anywhere
> > at any price.
>
>   Thanks for also taking time to answer.
>   To make a long story short (because other members of the list heard the
> story once or twice already), my goal is mostly to learn the infernal duo,
> PHP/MySQL. My site is a personal site, so nobody is going to come to me
> crying if it's not ready on time, or temporarily broken.
>   So I have no "external" constraint. And I always have the old version of
> the site, in plain CSS/XHTML, to fall back to.

It's better to start that way. I started with a client asking for tools 
requiring a database and having no idea how to hook it up and said "no 
problem, let me get back to you with a price". ;-) The important thing to 
remember is there are always docs.
>
[...]
>   Unless I missed something again, I don't think I made the mistake you and
> some others pointed out: putting some PHP in the database. I can understand
> why it would be a nightmare to debug...
>   Even if I did *not* make the mistake, I admit that I had never thought of
> that. I'll be extra-careful about where I store my PHP code in the future.
> At the moment everything is new and shiny, I may be carried away and go too
> far. So thanks. :-)

It was the way your question was worded... and perhaps the reaction of those 
of us who rely so heavily for Quanta for database work. Seriously, it's nice 
to hear how easy it was for you for just HTML because it's geared for so much 
more. ;-)
>
> > Have a look at http://kittyhooch.com. I have data in the database that I
> > access only actually during the order process, because frankly I didn't
> > have that much diverse data. However the product section manages lots of
> > little PHP tricks where it can display all products, groups of products
> > or a popup window with single product information. Of course this may be
> > a different application and I'm actually moving what was in PHP classes
> > into a database because my data source is becoming more fluid. That said,
> > I have structures I in files I load data into like headings, prices, main
> > content.
>
>   Your site is very nice to browse and use. But its design is probably
> quite over my head at the moment. I'll stick to something simpler for now.
> Oh, and say hello to the cats for me. ;-) I'm moving to a house next week
> (my first), so I'm thinking seriously about having cats again...

We have a lot of customers who found us through Quanta. If you have a cat 
there is really nothing else quite like Kitty Hooch.
>
[...]
>   Honestly, I prefer MySQL over XML, but the only reason is that I want to
> learn MySQL. Obviously I need to think hard about the database structure,
> that's why I'm playing with a test site at the moment.

You can learn Mysql to learn Mysql if you have other reasons, like having the 
skill set. Depending on what you're doing different things work better. PHP5 
enables very practical use of XML which is non rigid. Rigid data sets work 
will with databases. If you move to complex relational data with heavily 
normalized structure PostgreSql is desirable. It's useful to look at PEAR 
libraries or play with basic functional abstraction if this may eventually be 
the case.
>
> > Now as to managing the content... Another option is to save files to a
> > content directory with indexed file names and story your file name in the
> > database. This also makes it easier to do things like including elements
> > in PHP strings to render to named places in your page template.
>
>   I hadn't thought of this possibility... I think that, at first, I'll go
> for content stored in the database, as an exercise. But I'll remember this
> other possibility if, later, I find my choice to be awkward.

Content stored in a database always seems awkward to me. I wrote management 
libraries to handle it and it seems I always have to edit it, so thankfully I 
made it easier. Then there are the problems if you don't have magicquotes on. 
An apostrophe can whack everything. Finally, if your database goes down or 
there are too many requests what do your visitors see? I can see where this 
is good on a news site with a management system... A lot of dynamics can be 
done with HTTP Get before inserting a database, and databases work 
particularly good for defined data sets like
* product catalogs
* dynamic lists
* voting and ranking systems
* user management systems
* news items...
>
> > As I mentioned recently on
> > this list Michal Rudolf is working on a database plugin for Kommander and
> > I have created an editing dialog. We hope to release in in the coming
> > weeks after tweaking and testing. This will make it possible to have your
> > file content be inserted into your database directly. Please keep in mind
> > this leaves testing issues! You will want to develop a local/remote test
> > and then be able to load from a file locally... which is why saving
> > content in indexed files is attractive.
>
>   That's good news! Earlier this afternoon, on the list, we had the
> beginning of a talk about developing a tool like that. So I'll be eagerly
> waiting for your plugin and I'll be happy to test it. :-)

Please go to the Kommander mailing list and announce you want to be a tester. 
We will talk you through getting it set up as soon as the rewrite is ready. 
It was working, but while Michal was less active some minor changes broke it. 
So I hope it's ready to test in the next week.
>
> > In any event the bottom line is that Quanta and Kommander remain the best
> > tools for the job with PHP/Mysql and also if you choose for instance to
> > use PHP5/XML. However if you are jumping into something new I'd run some
> > tests on a small scale first. ;-) Live and learn. Also remember the help
> > you get here and that changing to a less capable tool while changing
> > everything else is not going to help the stress of dealing with change.
> > ;-)
>
>   You're very right about that. Tonight I'm working on my test site,
> without MySQL calls for the moment, so everything is in files. I have 13
> files, scripts and stylesheets simultaneously opened, not to mention a
> shell for mysql commands and a Konqueror window for preview... It'd be
> rather unpleasant without Quanta at this point and I'd like to keep using
> it when I have to use the database.

Why don't you try phpMySql? I mean you can use the shell, but it's a lot 
easier to have an excellent web interface. 

>   So you and others today answered my first question: I don't have to
> consider looking for another development tool. I can survive until you
> release your plugin. I have enough work with my CSS, and the theoretical
> design of the database, to keep busy.
>
>   Again, I'd like to say how nice all those answers were today. I came with
> some unclear questions, was a bit overwhelmed by the precise questions I
> got in return, and then pleased with the constructive discussion that
> ensued. Regards,

It is a bit of bandwidth, but hopefully we're helping others here too as 
people discover new things all the time. ;-)
-- 
Eric Laffoon - Quanta+ Team Leader 
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
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