VillageToolbox Blog

Spent the day job today wrestling with a symfony project I inherited from a previous developer.  While I like the Mdel-View-Controller model in the abstract way, getting down and dirty with it has been quite instructive.  

First off, the learning curve is steep, because no matter how you try, you’ll never be able to understand the damn code based on first principles. Secondly, the level of complexity makes it a hinderance for other developers to come in and make quick changes.  You can’t touch the damn code until you damn sure know what you’re doing.

I’m pretty familiar with the whole thing now, and while I have some beefs specifically with the way symfony is implemented, I’d still have trouble recommending starting another major project using a MVC tool like symfony or Rails.  I’m not seeing any drastic speed gains in development, and as a programmer, not being able to easily trace my data though the engine is enough of a hinderance that I think I’ll stick to simpler development environments.

Last Friday, I spent some time with Blair Nonnecke  and several of his students at the UofG HCI (Human Computer Interaction) department.  We poked and prodded at the site for a couple of hours and came up with a big list of suggestions. I’ve started rolling a number of these things into the staging site, so they should appear on the live site soon.  

First up is a community dashboard page.  This will be the landing page for each community, and should serve as a good metric for the health of a community, showing recent activity in the various different departments.  Look for it soon.

Alright, here is where things stand right now… The site is currently in early beta testing.  Most features are working, but few are polished. The mailing lists work, but rich text messages are not storing quite right in the archives (the database is storing both rich and plain text versions.)  The various directories are all working, but the request system is spotty at best.  

I am currently implementing the post reporting system and the moderator pages, and then next up is the Ad engine, ’cause as much as I love Kevin, I’m guessing users are getting tired off his placeholder face at the bottom of every screen.

Also on tap are the classified directory, maybe an ‘Invite a Random Neighbour for Coffee’ feature, and a bunch more content in the ideas section.

Wow, 2008 is here. Everyone and their dog and their dog’s fleas has a blog, and you are now reading my first post. 

First and foremost, I plan on using this space to share my thoughts on VillageToolbox development, and to keep any who cares up to date with feature changes and other exciting stuff. Along the way, you may get subjected to random musings, and miscellaneous other crap.  We’ll see, I guess.