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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:15 pm
by Ambush Commander
The problem is that most people are too lazy to look up things themselves, so the addition of yet anoter FAQ/Wiki/Forum isn't going to help.
That is very true for certain types of questions, but not others. Obviously, nothing is going to stop people from asking "What does 'Cannot send Session Cache limiters, headers already sent' mean" type of questions. It also won't help people when they have debugging problems.

There is already a wealth of information about patterns out there on the web. Some patterns are more well-documented than others, and almost none of them are in PHP (all though that forces you to learn how to read Java). For things like Front Controllers, however, the language difference is crucial.

Not only that, but what all these sites on patterns don't have are discussions made by actual users who had to tackle these problems, and the experiences of other people.

Yes, I still like my idea. But since the proof is in the pudding, I'll try to make a proof of concept page some time. :D

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 7:50 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
Proof of concept is good ;)

I remember feeling curious and researching frontcontrollers in PHP a while back - seemed a simple one to start with. I came across a few resources. 1 was a single page summary with a bare bones description. 1 was a 16 page mutated monster. Both eventually came to the same (well, similar and oddly the logical) conclusion.

I think some brief discussions, re debate, is actually quite useful. I'll note the word "brief". No 16 page monsters where people feel compelled to use a dozen names for a simple pattern "Front Controller", with 32 varying opinions of an implementation (there are many many ways) and 1 conclusion on a single perfect way (someone forgot the other 31).

It can get scary when you delve into Patterns in PHP - lots of "one true ways" seem to be evangelised for no good reason. cough...sitepoint...cough... Couldn't resist plugging...but they're sticklers for complicating simple ideas.

I think the debate/discussion factor is actually cool. A small debate can do more to enable understanding than a single text block three times as long... Though you still need the text block as a reference...;)