Transition back to Drupal

So I had written a previous post about my desire not to use Drupal and more specifically PHP for my research project. However, I have done some further in-depth analysis of the requirements for the proposed project and I think that considering the needs for a full featured system along with the ability to extend the system to meet some very specific needs, Drupal presents the best option. Like I said previously, it is cheap to host, the coding quality is much better than comparable PHP based systems and I actually do like the templating system they have developed.

Plus, I think Django will just be too much work to build and get up to speed for this project, and Plone is too expensive to host for the groups I’m working with.

I mean, it is a no-brainer. I don’t despise PHP as a language. It’s more that I prefer Python. In that sense I’m not a complete Python Nazi as some out there are.

In all honesty, PHP 5 is actually a pretty good language, it is easy and when compared to Python, PHP is definitely a much better language for the web, so why not use it? Plus, PHP and Flex work well together which provides greater opportunities for integration with the types of systems I’m focused on developing.

Tech Stack for CI (Revised)

In doing further research on available technology options for the visual learning in time and space application at CTLT, I have been considering a move away from Python and Django. Though I love the ease of working with these tools, I'm very interested in using flex to provide the UI and display of learning data.

So it seems that Flex provides an open SDK for PHP developers and not Python. Though a django developer has submitted a bridge for working with Flex, it still seems immature and I need to learn this fast rather than fighting with a system still in development.

With that said, I'm thinking PHP5 + Propel ORM + Flex, and since I will be using PHP I can't help but write a bridge to Drupal. Of course the application will need to integrate nicely with SharePoint as this is going to be the primary test case for using this custom app. However, I'm not using .NET and I'm not willing to write a custom web-part for this as the application must be available to CMS apps outside of the SharePoint MS paradigm.

So it will live as a standalone application in which others can build modules to extend and integrate into their own learning platforms. Plus, this way the application can be utilized for linking into the L.V. Patterns.