Inner-platform effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect

by Hexstream • 17 years ago

42 23 17 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

shaunxcode• 17 years ago

I do not feel that it is fair to dismiss php as merely a "template engine". It probably outgrew such a small scope of use around 3x. On a more philosophical level: the reason programmers long to create/control/extend the platform on which they exist is because they are programmers. I think once you reach this point you should go for it but also be prepared to move onto a programmable programming language.

randallsquared3• 17 years ago

I have a different complaint: I think it makes sense to have a template system for PHP because PHP is such a poor template system. :)

cousin_it5• 17 years ago

I generally like PHP but am not a very advanced user, so I'm interested: what shortcomings do you see?

hellotoby2• 17 years ago

I read it as referring to a templating engine such as Smarty (for PHP).

I've never really understood the need to abstract things in this way even for novice front-end developers since it's the concept that is important not the syntax.

e.g. I don't see any real difference in using a) <?php foreach($key as $val): ?> or b) {foreach from=$myArray item=foo}

To me the Smarty abstraction is pointless.

jquery• 17 years ago

As a highly satisfied user of the smarty templating system, I want to refer you to this (from http://www.smarty.net/whyuse.php):

) Designers can't break application code. They can mess with the templates all they want, but the code stays intact. The code will be tighter, more secure and easier to maintain.

) Errors in the templates are confined to the Smartys error handling routines, making them as simple and intuitive as possible for the designer.

) With presentation on its own layer, designers can modify or completely redesign it from scratch, all without intervention from the programmer.

) Programmers aren't messing with templates. They can go about maintaining the application code, changing the way content is acquired, making new business rules, etc. without disturbing the presentation layer.

) Templates are a close representation of what the final output will be, which is an intuitive approach. Designers don't care how the content got to the template. If you have extraneous data in the template such as an SQL statement, this opens the risk of breaking application code by accidental deletion or alteration by the designer.

) You are not opening your server to the execution of arbitrary PHP code. Smarty has many security features built in so designers won't breach security, whether intentional or accidental. They can only do what they are confined to in the templates.

stcredzero• 17 years ago

I think once you reach this point you should go for it but also be prepared to move onto a programmable programming language.

There are large numbers of programmers who have moved on to "programmable" programming languages. (Languages where meta-programming is comfortable and very useful.) It's no longer a fringe thing. Either you use this wording tongue-in-cheek, or you haven't gotten that far yet.

madair3• 17 years ago

In the database world, developers are sometimes tempted to bypass the RDBMS, for example by storing everything in one big table with two columns labeled key and value.

Ironic, if you look at the Wikipedia schema. (At least last time I looked, which I admit was a few years ago.)

pohl• 17 years ago

Would it be irony for a random HN user to post about an antipattern that happened to be reflected in the underlying HN implementation?

madair3• 17 years ago

Good point, except the the irony is the reverse of that.

I think that many observers would say that the Wikipedia system works quite well considering they are one of the most widely used sites on the Internet. Since this article is published on Wikipedia, it would seem an ironic disproof of the article's contents that the publishing platform uses the very strategy that is claimed to be an anti-pattern.

I would go a step further and suggest that the technique listed uses the relational database such so that in the end it is more like a columnar database, although I have to think about that further before I feel more sure.

Inner-platform effect

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