May User Group:: PHP Frameworks part III

How many of us have searched Source Forge for a project that appears to fit our needs only to find there's no community or documentation behind it; or the code is really poorly written; or the project is about to fork...Sometimes selecting an open source project is like renting B-grade movies at the video store; it's not so much the cost that concerns you, but rather the time wasted if you select a dog.

Please join BostonPHP as we continue our panel discussion on how to select a robust PHP framework culminating in a "PHP framework bake-off".

This month's showcased frameworks:

• Andromeda - Kenneth Downs (founder)
• Drupal - Moshe Weitzman (core-developer)

Andromeda is a complete application development system, it includes a powerful database generator, a complete web server framework, and a documentation generator. Andromeda provides source control, and an Andromeda "node" can simultaneously support any number of distinct instances of an application. Andromeda can use Joomla templates, providing and instant choice of hundreds of possibilities for the public appearance of an application.

The heart of every Andromeda application is a data dictionary, a database specification that includes all business rules for an application, including security, constraints, and automations. This dictionary is used to automate the building and upgrading of databases, and is used by the web server framework to provide zero-coding standard editing forms for the entire database.

Some frameworks aim to manage and regulate the labor of software development, but Andromeda seeks to eliminate labor. Anything that can be done automatically is done automatically. In this way Andromeda fundamentally changes the cost dynamics away from tedious repetitive technical matters and allows you to focus entirely on customer service.

more information: http://docs.secdat.com/

Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations have used Drupal to power scores of different web sites, including

• Community web portals
• Discussion sites
• Corporate web sites
• Intranet applications
• Personal web sites or blogs
• Aficionado sites
• E-commerce applications
• Resource directories
• Social Networking sites

Moshe Weitzman

Moshe has been a consistent contributor to Drupal core and Contrib since November 2001. As such, he has pretty much touched the whole core code. He maintains the user.module, the bootstrap code, and the groups.drupal.org web site. He is also a member of the Security team and a Permanent Member of the Drupal Association.

Moshe will show key pages from public Drupal powered web sites such as http://goodcharlotte.com and http://musicbox.sonybmg.com/ and http://groups.drupal.org. He will detail the techniques used to accomplish each site, thus introducing the audience to the key modules and techniquesused in Drupal development.