[development] nodify.module idea: 'everything is a node'

[Bèr Kessels]

Hello

Op vrijdag 19 januari 2007 21:31, schreef Nedjo Rogers:
> - does this approach sound useful?

In contrast to the points Dries raises, there are a couple of good sides to 
more 'general object handling'. 
 * views can be used for stuff like users, blocks, categories etc.
 * workflows and actions can apply to these objects, by simply resusing 
existing modules. in contrast to having to duplicate this into 
a 'commentworkflow.module'.
 * CCK alike field-building works, without having to develop an etirely new 
CCK for each and every part in Drupal. 
 * permissions come for free. There is no way to e.g. apply proper permissions 
to (parts of) profiles, comments, categories, blocks etc.
 * Theming is a lot easier, esp. now that in 5 the node is abstrated into a 
real hierarchical object and passed as such to the theme. Instead of wading 
trough five entirely different concepts (just look at theme_node VS 
theme_profile, it will make you frown) theming becomes much more consistent 
and general.

However, maybe its a bad idea to call it nodifying. Nodes have been serving a 
specific purpose for too long in Drupal. I guess many developers can no 
longer see trough the nodes-as-primary-content anymore, and therefore lack 
the ability to think Out Of The Box when it comes to this.

Instead, call it some kind of general object-layer (a Drupalified Hookified 
and simplified Active Records, maybe). 

That way people won't confuse 'general objects' with for example the {nodes} 
database table. And won't need to wrap their brains around the idea of 
a 'node beig more then a title+body'. etc. Because right now people often 
fail to think about the Larger idea of generalised objects, and instead come 
with arguments like 'but putting averything in a node-table will be bad for 
performance'. Sure it will, but the whole database architecture is not even 
talked about, at this point. 
 
> - who's working on something similar? better?
A lot: Out of the top of my head: 
microcontent => blocks as nodes.
usernodes (+nodefamily+cck+pageroute) => Profiles as nodes (also refer to the 
group.drupal.org about this)
node aggregator (there are two) => RSS aggregation items + feeds are normal 
nodes.

Bèr

-- 
Drupal, Ruby on Rails and Joomla! development: webschuur.com | Drupal hosting: 
www.sympal.nl
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/attachments/20070120/596128d0/attachment.pgp