mmmmm… So just written (and probably failed) an exam on systems analysis and development where brief mention was given to design patterns.
And a few months (almost a year) back I started working in a PHP framework that makes extensive use of design patterns, called Seagull. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of true Object Oriented Programming and helped me understand how design patterns can be effectively implemented.
One of my first attempts at a personal website using Seagull is a picture archive (www.picturearchive.co.za), here I used Seagull as a base to fast track a website where I could import images and display them in a chronological order, just don’t concentrate on the looks, styling is NOT my strong point!!
Seeing how quick and easy that made things, I moved my ‘events‘ website into Seagull as well Seagull has an events/calendar module that I merely ‘tweaked’), all I really had to do was write the SQL scripts to pull the info in from the old calendar software I was running, easy peasy!
I have another exam coming up soon, but will hopefully try and dispense of some of the little pearls of wisdom that I have stumbled upon as I felt my way around a well written and stable framework.
I am also hoping to compare it with what I developed from scratch (A long time ago!) and show how the OOP way of doing things makes any module in Seagull much more extensible than my attempt at a framework.
Lastly I want to try and explain design patterns in as simple a manner as I can, hopefully by putting my thoughts out in writing I will gain a better understanding of how if all works, and can implement it more professionally, becoming a better developer in the process!!
Posted under PHP Web Development
This post was written by Shaun on October 26, 2009
