Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?

[Joe]

Hi there.
I have to develop an eCommerce/intranet application for a client which
obviously has to access a database(mysql in this case) and handle
posting data to the server where I can hanle the information. Because
I'm a newbie to php(I have more experience in j2ee & asp.net...no
flaming plese :-) ), I need a something to save me typing lines and
lines of the same code all over again(a good mvc framework would be
nice) and was wondering if I could build a web application with a
CMS(say MAMBO or DRUPAL) and add DAO operations to it through DaoGen to
handle CRUD or am I better off using a good MVC FRAMEWORK like PRODO?
Thanks in advance.

Joe

[NC]

Re: Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?

Joe wrote:[color=blue]
>
> I have to develop an eCommerce/intranet application for a client which
> obviously has to access a database(mysql in this case) and handle
> posting data to the server where I can hanle the information. Because
> I'm a newbie to php(I have more experience in j2ee & asp.net...no
> flaming plese :-) ), I need a something to save me typing lines and
> lines of the same code all over again(a good mvc framework would be
> nice)[/color]

You can do better than that and type no code at all; take a look at
osCommerce:

http://www.oscommerce.org/

[color=blue]
> and was wondering if I could build a web application with a CMS(say
> MAMBO or DRUPAL)[/color]

If you wanted to write the shopping cart from scratch, you could...

Cheers,
NC

[Joe]

Re: Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?

Thankyou so much for replying. More than a shopping cart I need
something along the lines of product/invoice administrating system with
charts & reports. So I was really wondering if theres is some Content
Managment System out there which I can add a php component(for CRUD
operations, etc..) or plugin to. A CMS is handy because it saves you a
lot of time with the web pages & structure but obviously is less
flexible as say a web framework. I was hoping someone could point me to
an opensource framework which is the best of the two.
Thanks again :-)

Joe

[Jim Michaels]

Re: Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?


"Joe" <ameneghini@tin .it> wrote in message
news:1142469553 .106879.196890@ p10g2000cwp.goo glegroups.com.. .[color=blue]
> Thankyou so much for replying. More than a shopping cart I need
> something along the lines of product/invoice administrating system with
> charts & reports. So I was really wondering if theres is some Content
> Managment System out there which I can add a php component(for CRUD
> operations, etc..) or plugin to. A CMS is handy because it saves you a
> lot of time with the web pages & structure but obviously is less
> flexible as say a web framework. I was hoping someone could point me to
> an opensource framework which is the best of the two.
> Thanks again :-)
>
> Joe
>[/color]

I am speaking about something I know very little about, but I know phpnuke
is a CMS. so is Spikesource.com (LAMP+MySQL-based).

[Adam]

Re: Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?

>"Joe" <ameneghini@tin .it> wrote in message[color=blue]
>news:114246955 3.106879.196890 @p10g2000cwp.go oglegroups.com. ..[color=green]
>> Thankyou so much for replying. More than a shopping cart I need
>> something along the lines of product/invoice administrating system with
>> charts & reports. So I was really wondering if theres is some Content
>> Managment System out there which I can add a php component(for CRUD
>> operations, etc..) or plugin to. A CMS is handy because it saves you a
>> lot of time with the web pages & structure but obviously is less
>> flexible as say a web framework. I was hoping someone could point me to
>> an opensource framework which is the best of the two.
>> Thanks again :-)
>>
>> Joe[/color][/color]

Take a look at Joomla - it's fairly easy to write/add components for
it.

Adam.

[Dana Cartwright]

Re: Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?

"Adam" <anon@nowhere.c om> wrote in message
news:f63r4213b6 ngstkt14d7ms5no k1at1ik4h@4ax.c om...[color=blue][color=green]
> >"Joe" <ameneghini@tin .it> wrote in message
>>news:11424695 53.106879.19689 0@p10g2000cwp.g ooglegroups.com ...[color=darkred]
>>> Thankyou so much for replying. More than a shopping cart I need
>>> something along the lines of product/invoice administrating system with
>>> charts & reports. So I was really wondering if theres is some Content
>>> Managment System out there which I can add a php component(for CRUD
>>> operations, etc..) or plugin to.
>>> Joe[/color][/color]
>
> Take a look at Joomla - it's fairly easy to write/add components for
> it.
>
> Adam.[/color]

I'll second a vote for Joomla. I'm just finishing up writing a "component"
(a particular style of plugin) for Joomla, and it's fairly easy to do.

It's certainly easier to start with an established CMS and write some
plugins, than to roll the whole thing from scratch. And since it's open
source, you can always find a plugin that's sort of what you want, and
modify it to suit you, so you don't have to write entirely from scratch.

The problem I see with CMS's is that today they are a moving target. There
is lots of development, so new versions come out regularly. One particular
CMS gets ahead for a while, then another one zooms past it--it's not an easy
environment. The 3rd party stuff drives you nuts, because it's often tied
to a very specific version of the CMS, which makes it hard to assemble
exactly the set of features you want, due to version conflicts.

The quality of the PHP code isn't high (in my far from humble opinion), and
some of the 3rd party stuff for Joomla is downright poor, but then again, I
suspect the quality of code inside proprietary CMS's isn't great either.
The most useful things about open source CMS's are that (1) you can see
what's going on, and change it as you see fit, and (2) there's a community
of people to help you find stuff.

-Dana

[justour@opinion.com]

Re: Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?

In article <Vfr3g.1362$Gg. 1319@twister.ny roc.rr.com>,
danapub2@weavem aker.com says...[color=blue]
> "Adam" <anon@nowhere.c om> wrote in message
>[/color]

We took a long look at a number of so called eCommerce packages before
we set up our site.

Our conclusion was nothing written in PHP even comes close to being
vaguely acceptable.

It just isnt a suitable language for that scale of software. There are in
fact only a handfull of eCommerce packages even worthy of the name or
even barely suitable for the task. Mostly they were so poor in every
respect they were a joke.

Others will dissagree I've no doubt but that was our conclusion in a
nutshell.

[Adam]

Re: Which is better for an eCommerce Site, CMS or PHP Framework?

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:01:10 GMT, justour@opinion .com wrote:
[color=blue]
>In article <Vfr3g.1362$Gg. 1319@twister.ny roc.rr.com>,
>danapub2@weave maker.com says...[color=green]
>> "Adam" <anon@nowhere.c om> wrote in message
>>[/color]
>
>We took a long look at a number of so called eCommerce packages before
>we set up our site.
>
>Our conclusion was nothing written in PHP even comes close to being
>vaguely acceptable.
>
>It just isnt a suitable language for that scale of software. There are in
>fact only a handfull of eCommerce packages even worthy of the name or
>even barely suitable for the task. Mostly they were so poor in every
>respect they were a joke.
>
>Others will dissagree I've no doubt but that was our conclusion in a
>nutshell.[/color]

Out of interest - apart from plain bad coding - what were the main
drawbacks? Security?

What did you go for in the end?

Adam.