An existing 8+ year old application is being migrated from a self-contained website to a webservice-oriented architecture to allow among other things, external parties access to the calculations and data within the application.
The application allows visitors to access insurance-related information, calculate price quotes and contact agents.
The original logic of the application has been extracted from the main application to a SOAP service - so far, so good.
Based on in-house knowledge of Zend FW, the choice was made to drop the legacy code with many downsides and move to a more robust and community-backed framework - Zend.
An initial Zend FW app has been built that consumes the WSDL and allows searching and displaying of customers. After that was finished we wanted to integrate external applications/modules for components such as a basic (!) cms, mass-mailings, polls etc.
As we consider those components essential for the end-product but not our own core-product, we thus want to use external applications for this.
However - looking at e.g. tomatocms and digitalus etc., they seem to require us to build our product into theirs - and we want it the other way around. CMS pages are the exception, and not the rule.
Integrating authentication among these applications seems very difficult, as each seems to want to be 'the' application.
TL;DR:
What would be the best solutions to integrate a CMS or other apps into an existing/in progress zend FW app?
I think the best solution for you is to create a structure for Modules/Plugins where you set a pattern of use and you will make your application understand these modules created following the specifications above.
With this you allow anyone to be creating or developing models desaclopados their application.
I think this is a good example with your Wordpress plugins. Anyone can create and embed its functionality within the application page, but of course you can make in its API limitations, controlling what you want.
Related
First of all I hope I'm allowed to ask such a broad question (first time doing so).
Ok so I'm very new to React & I need a project to work on so I thought I'd recreate my portfolio (currently created in laravel) as a react & react native app.
My questions are:
Would a Rest Api NETCORE backend be a good choice for react ?
My experience is more in ASPNET MVC than Core, should i just stick
with MVC API's for now (i've already started creating a NETCORE Api
for learning purposes)?
Would a php framework such as CodeIgniter be better for this kind of
job?
My main question is if this is a good approach? I'd like to have a basic backend (auth, news posts, portfolio items etc) and then continue building on my react apps.
I was thinking that by creating a Rest API backend it would save me a lot of trouble when trying to create a react app for PC,Android or whatever (same back-end, different client).
P.S: i'm going to host my API on Azure's free websites if its ASPNET or a shared hosting if its PHP, that is the reason for which im moving away from laravel (so laravel is a no-no).
P.S2: Firebase or other clouds (except Azure) are a no-go for me. I have access to lots of resources and i'd like to use them & not use free services like firebase or whatnot.
Just giving my 2 pence here, as this is really opinion based!
In terms of the backend, it's up to you, whatever you feel more comfortable with - but I would give a keen eye on the architecture of the backend system you build.
My choice would be to create a micro services based architecture where you create simple, atomic services which only deal within their domain. For example, you could create 'Common Services' - services which can be used as dependancies by other services (events, encryption, documents etc..) then create atomic services which deal with an aspect of your application such as User Service, Payment Service, Product Service, Basket Service etc..
The idea is simple, to create simple data driven CRUD services which are modular, atomic and reusable. I've found that learning new technology is great but understanding and learning good programming architecture is even more rewarding. You can structure data to make it the most efficient for you.
Once you have built a service, you could use services like Swagger UI to automate documentation and create testing suites for them. If you haven't used Swagger I throughly recommend it.
Implement testing for each service, and go through the whole lifecycle of software development. That will really go far in your portfolio.
Here are some articles relating to building microservices in ASP.NET Core
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/microservices-architecture/multi-container-microservice-net-applications/data-driven-crud-microservice
Swagger
https://swagger.io/
As a side note, I do not develop in ASP nor any other microsoft stack - but the principle is the same
UPDATE
The issue with building monolithic applications is that the code base can get more and more complicated and huge as your app grows. Some advantages of Micorservices are:
Scalability
Fault Insolation
Eliminates long-term commitment to a single technology stack
Easier for developers to understand (and document)
My type of set up would be using Spring Boot (Java) and using Eureka Server - but you are into the MS Stack, but the link I've given you above shows how to create a basic CRUD microservice with Net Core. I would give that a go, and see how it goes, then you can move to CI/CD for Azure!
Moving on from just a simple CRUD API, you can introduce WS connections with event driven updates (server to client) rather than asking for new data.
An Architect that I once worked with (a genius guy) told me never to be too reliant on a 'Framework' - they're cool when they are doing well, but a great application should be flexible to change, so I wouldn't rely too much upon a 'framework' but that was just his opinion.
Try API Platform - dockerized, but deployable to php hosting (based on Symfony), generates react-admin based admin and optional web/mobile clients (IMHO the weakest parts of this project), openAPI (swagger) docs, easily usable with graphQL ... just try.
Building portfolio with Laravel isn't a good idea. Use Gatsby - you can use graphql (WordPress, contentfull) as a source, generate static site.
I have experience with Joomla and have modified and wrote some simple Joomla extensions. I don't have experience using one of the popular PHP frameworks (such as CakePHP), but I was thinking about using the Joomla framework because I'm familiar with Joomla. How would I use the Joomla framework for a software project instead of using regular Joomla and writing the extensions needed for it to extend it's capabilities? Thanks!
The basic idea is that you:
Get a copy of either the whole framework or just the packages you need+dependencies (from github or composer) or use the older copy that is shipped with the CMS,
Bootstrap your application (JApplicationWeb or JApplicationCli).
Write your code using the MVC structure provided.
The big difference with writing a totally independent application is that you are doing just that, you need to build everything in the application whereas in the CMS there are already a lot of things in place. (The good part of that is that you can make new code with no legacy concerns.) For example, if you look at the JIssues project you'll see that they had to think about things like authentication. So as you would expect writing a simple application is simple, writing a complex one is complex.
You can see many examples of framework applications around, ranging from the ones found in the CLI folder of your CMS installation to JIssues, and of course the three web applications in the CMS are all examples of applications on the framework.
The Joomla Framework is intended (among other things) to be the platform upon which you can build a web-application. The framework is like the frame of one of those motorcycles they build on "American Choppers." It provides the backdrop so that you can hit the ground thinking about your app without worrying about User Authentication, database connection, and a thousand other things like those that get in the way of bringing your app to its potential audience.
If you're trying to extend Joomla, the current edition is what you should be using.
I'm trying to develop an application server that will deliver content to a core group of websites, as well as provide third party services to other websites that also want to use this content. The app server will be hosting web services for these core + 3rd party websites. Authentication and all that comes into play. The data itself will consist of millions of records.
These records will come from a variety of sources: APIs, RSS feeds, REST services, etc. This app server will essentially collect this data on a routine basis, and update the database with this new information. This data will then be shared via some sort of web service (most likely REST) to the core websites and 3rd party websites.
FYI, I'm making a distinction between core sites and 3rd party websites because there will be different access levels, i.e. a core website will have more access than a 3rd party website.
All that said, I'm trying to make the best decision on which framework to use. At the risk of losing all credibility, I currently have a ton of this code written as a wordpress plugin. What started as a one-time site evolved into several sites, and some homebrew hacking to make my outdated infrastructure work across multiple sites.
I'm looking to migrate all of this to a new application server, with a solid framework.
Since everything is written in PHP, obviously I'm tempted to do the migration in PHP. However, I'm considering Python because of its powerful ability to manipulate data. I don't know if it's worth the hassle, though, of rewriting a lot of code in Python.
Could anyone give me some tips on what I should do? I'm really looking to clean up a big mess more than anything, and would like a framework to encourage some solid programming conventions.
All of the frameworks that you mentioned are capable. Pick one in the language that you know the best and use that.
I agree with #gpojd's opinion. All of them that you mentioned are fully capable.
However, it looks like they are too powerful for your job. Because they are all full-stack MVC-like web frameworks shipped with ORM, Template engine, URL redirections and i18n supports.
So, I suggest you to use more lighter/thinner frameworks. and if you don't mind choosing any programming languages, please check out the below frameworks.
Python
Werkzeug : http://werkzeug.pocoo.org/
Javascript
node.js : http://nodejs.org/
with Stylus framework : http://expressjs.com/
I'm working on a web application in Codeigniter. I'd like to integrate the functionality of my application with a CMS so that site admins can easily update the site (about pages, blog, etc). Is this easily done with PyroCMS or another Codeigniter-based CMS? Will I need to drastically restructure my existing app?
From my own experience integrating an app inside Expression Engine I can say that a CMS changes the way you usually work with CI. So be prepared to make some adjustments. Every CMS will come with it's perks and differences. It shouldn't be a big problem though.
If you want to use PyroCms take a look at this doc first:
http://www.pyrocms.com/docs/2.0/developers/creating-custom-modules
If you're looking for alternatives, there are a lot. It seems almost everyone working with CI has made it's own.
Here are a few:
http://www.ionizecms.com/
http://www.halogy.com/
http://codefight.org/
http://www.getfuelcms.com/
Also make sure you check out CI Bonfire, it's not a CMS but does help you when you start up a new project with a basic admin wrapper, which is sometimes more useful than a CMS:
http://cibonfire.com/
This was answered a year ago and answered well, but my support guy has forwarded me a few emails from users asking about this page.
When people talk about Content Management Systems they often suddenly get the idea of rigid backends where you applications have to follow specific rules. While PyroCMS certainly has a few conventions you are free to build your modules just like they are a CodeIgniter application, on the frontend or the backend.
If you want to use Models, Controllers, Views, REST API's, SOAP, whatever the hell, then you can do that.
But, we also offer some awesome tools to make building modules CRAZY-fast. Hate writing CRUD? Well don't bother. Using the Streams API you can leverage the build in "Custom Data" system we use to rock out chunks of interface for you.
Using PyroCMS for your application is certainly not "hacking it into a CMS", this is the exact use-case it was built for.
If you have an existing application, while you can't "put PyroCMS into your app" you can certainly convert your application to a module easy enough.
The simplest way of doing it is to write your models around the CMS' database. Host the CMS at a subdomain with authentication for your admins. (admin.mysite.com) or something and then use the same database to power your front-end for your site.
Is it the best approach? Probably not.
Will it work? Yes.
You will probably find it hard to expand vertically & add new features if you're relying on a 3rd party CMS for data entry & backend.
I have a web application that needs to be built using PHP/MySQL. The application will require documents to be generated from data in the MySQL database. Such documents will be printed and/or emailed and user will be prompted to run a daily print/email job based on business logic.
This application functionality needs to be made available to individual users such that they can upload data, have the system prompt them as to whether letters/emails are to be generated. The site also needs to be able to support a bulletin board, online live training events and will have admin area as well.
Question: Should a hybrid solution be developed such that the data management (upload functionality, and letter production) be a separate part of the site that authenticated Joomla users can access? That is, the document management functionality would exist separately from Joomla, but be called from within it via a link in the Joomla sitemap. Alternatively, should custom modules be developed from within Joomla to accomodate the document management functionality?
Thanks so much for your input!!
Joomla could do the job for you but based on the amount of things you need that differ from a normal Joomla site I would use a framework to build from instead of a CMS. I say this because it sounds like you need a lot more than just a CMS and it can be more work if you try making Joomla do things it wasn't designed to do. In my opinion Joomla is for "web sites" and not as much for "web apps". Of course those terms have overlap but it sounds like you would be better off with a Framework to go off of instead of working around Joomla to get what you want. However if the site is already done in Joomla it may be less work just to make a Joomla add-on.
Since you have to use PHP I would definitely recommend CakePHP for your framework. As for an integrated forum try looking at the links in this post. If that doesn't work for you, try out Vanilla forums (vanillaforums.org) which are very clean and may be easier to integrate into CakePHP than some of the other PHP forums.
If you decide to use CakePHP, check out Cake Forge to see if you can find anything there to make your life even easier.
If you were to use Joomla, the upload functionality and letter production would be written as a custom component. You can write the component to make sure that the current user is authenticated before generating the documents. I would not develop this as a separate application alongside Joomla; it would be easier to write it as a component.
Many forums and forum bridges are available for Joomla, so that would be something you wouldn't have to write.
I'm not sure what kind of live event support you're looking for.