Urgh...

I like writing code. Of the programming sort, that is, not the kind that teenage girls invent to secretly talk about boys, celebrities and experimental lesbianism at sleep-overs (you can’t fool me—I know what goes on). Just wanted to be clear.

Writing code, especially good code, takes time. As developers, over time we build up a stash of functions or tricks which we can re-use in future projects and this certainly helps to mitigate the cost in time, but this only goes so far.

Enter the Framework and the CMS

Frameworks range in complexity and density of features, but in the end the goal is usually to aid development by providing a codebase from which to begin. This usually takes care of some of the grunt-work—the database connecting, query building and executing, templating, caching, authentication, string processing and so on. Content Management Systems also vary greatly and, while often providing for the same needs as a frameworks, are based around a back-end interface for easy, usually form-based administration of the site and its content. Of the pre-built solutions out there, other than WordPress (if you count it as a full-blown CMS and I won’t be starting that argument here) I have only really been exposed to Drupal in any great depth. I’ve been involved in the making of a couple of bespoke ones, built for specific tasks.

Drupal is an interesting case. A hybrid in my opinion, rather than being merely a CMS, out of the box it’s more like a full-featured framework which happens to come with a back-end. It is very powerful and flexible. There seems to be a misconception out there that Drupal is both bloated and slow. It is in fact very modular, the actual core being quite small. Its compression and caching features can be used to great effect to keep even the most dynamic content-heavy sites running smoothly and serving pages quickly. Ask Nike, or MTV, or President Barack Obama (assuming he built the campaign sites himself).

So?

So, I don’t like using them. Frameworks or CMS’s. That’s not because they are not good tools. Drupal in particular is very powerful. It’s our primary development platform at OrangeBus and I don’t think there’s much we couldn’t do with it. The benefits, as I mentioned above, of such platforms are fairly obvious—and anything which can facilitate faster and more efficient development has to be a good thing.

But I like writing code. We write modules for our frameworks, plug-ins for our CMS’s, but that’s just not the same as coding something from the ground up, reloading the page and seeing it spring into life. It’s a naive attitude from a business perspective, certainly, but in a way that most people wouldn’t be able or willing to appreciate there is a tangible sense of creativity in the slower more hand on approach.

Before this blog’s temporary shutdown I had mentioned that I was working on a framework of my own for use in any personal projects I take on outside of the day job. In fact I have barely even looked at that code for months until recently. But after reopening the blog I started on a project I’ve had in the works for nearly two years. It’s nothing huge, it’s not even all that serious, but it’s fun for me. I’ll mention more about that in the future as I work out more of the details. It has also given me the opportunity to build the framework I want as I build the site, adding features to it where the site requires them to be present if it seems like they would be of benefit to other sites. This may not be the best way to develop a framework, but hey, this is the way I want to do it, so screw you.

At this point it’s worth noting that none of this is likely to be news to anyone interested in actually reading this, rendering the whole thing fairly pointless. but this is my blog, so screw you once more.

So yes, building this framework is fairly pointless—there is bound to be suitable, pre-existing solution out there. But it’s fun. I like getting my hands dirty. And my nails aren’t actually all that pretty to start with. They’re worn and manly from all the man-tasks I’ve been completely with consummate, manly ease.