[development] Advice Needed

[Bèr Kessels]

About the assembly thing: sure; but lets not get too meta here. 

Op dinsdag 28 augustus 2007, schreef Jeff Eaton:
> Having helped build a number of remarkably large sites that use Views  
> quite heavily, I can say that its queries are just as efficient as  
> hand-rolled ones, save the cases where its query building mechanism  
> just can't handle certain SQL constructs. (Use of aggregate  
> functions, for example).

Point is; that the original poster asked for a specific page to that he needed 
to display. He did not ask how to maintain hundreds of snippets. 

Though I tend to agree (and tend to use views a lot) I simply wanted to warn 
not only the original poster, but others about the viewsCCK kneejerk. These 
make a brilliant combination. But are often WAY overkill to achieve something 
simple. Regardless of performance (I never used that word in my arguments, 
for a reason). 

> The benefits of hand-rolled SQL and direct-to-html 15-line PHP  
> snippets are certainly compelling. It just needs to be acknowledged  
> that on any site of reasonable complexity, that 15-line snippet will  
> exist in a hundred different locations, each with minor variations  
> and tweaks and hacks and customizations. As will the 'hand-tuned' SQL  
> query.

This is simply untrue. Because it al comes down to how well you architecture 
your code. If one needs a single piece of code on 100 places, you must really 
learn about functions (and yes, I know Jeff knos about them, he's a grand 
master of PHP), but I am charging the point to make my point clear. 

To an extend you are right. Hence I deliberately mentioned the 
word 'reusability'. But serious and honoust: 
http://skimadriver.com/snowreport.php. Would you *really* advice someone to 
build a views display plugin, being a layer on a seriously complex layer 
(views), using another extremely complex layer (cck) mingled inbetween trough 
and pressed on top of theme layers, DBas etc? I certainly wont. 

Here you go:


function resort_statii_load(&$node) {
  $node->resort_statii = db_fetch_object(db_query('SELECT * from 
{resort_statii} WHERE nid = %d', $node->nid));
}

function resort_statii_view(&$node) {
  $node->content = array(
    'content' => theme('resort_statii_statii_node_table', 
$node->resort_statii);
    'weight' => 10);
}

function theme_'resort_statii_statii_node_table($resort_statii) {
 $out = '<table width="100%" cellpadding="2px">
        <tr><td colspan="4"><strong>Last Update:</strong>'. 
$resort_statii->updated_at .'</td></tr>
        <tr>
                <td colspan="2"><strong>Snow Base Up To:</strong>'. 
$resort_statii->base_up_to .'</td>
                <td colspan="2"><strong>Runs Open:</strong>'. 
$resort_statii->open_runs .'<strong>of</strong> '. 
$resort_statii->total_runs '.</td>
        </tr>
        
        <table width="100%" cellpadding="2px">';

  return $out;
}

Pseudo-code. But it explains my point: Its pragmatic++. Sure: I could develop 
hook_views tables, views display plugins, CCK fields and so forth. But if 
this cuts the crap, then why bother? 

Sure: you should bother if you aer going to build the CMs for snow-resorts. 
But as long as all you *really* need is a simple table listing all sorts of 
statii, values from a table, or a few tables, then why squeeze yourself into 
all that complexity? 

In the end, however, I think its a matter of taste.

Bèr
-- 
Drupal, Ruby on Rails and Joomla! development: webschuur.com | Drupal hosting: 
www.sympal.nl
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