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Two sides of the coin
Posted by
,
16 November 2004
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Recent experiences with creating the Community Blog plugin made me think about the differences between creating database drivers and creating a module like the Blog. It's quite interesting to be on the other side of the coin sometimes.
Making drivers
When making drivers all you do is debugging. You only tend to think about how you can make this work on database X. You have more or less fixed input (namely IPB's coding and query generation) and a fixes output (this is what should be returned). What you do in between is totally up to you.
There is also a difference from a users point of view. All an user cares about when using the drivers is that it works. And I don't blame them, it is the primary goal of the driver... making it work.
So where is the glory in this. Well when it works, it is pretty impressive.
Making a module
When making a module all you can think about is features, features, features. What do I want it to do and how do I want it done. That is a totally different approach. Making it work comes second. The big challenge is translating features to code and a user interface.
Obviously users look at it in the same way. They want features, and a nice interface. You get lots of idea's and requests. This is a totally different experience.
When both sides meet
What happens when both sides of the coin meet? You will have features, a good interface and it works. Now all you need to do is find a meeting point.
Making drivers
When making drivers all you do is debugging. You only tend to think about how you can make this work on database X. You have more or less fixed input (namely IPB's coding and query generation) and a fixes output (this is what should be returned). What you do in between is totally up to you.
There is also a difference from a users point of view. All an user cares about when using the drivers is that it works. And I don't blame them, it is the primary goal of the driver... making it work.
So where is the glory in this. Well when it works, it is pretty impressive.
Making a module
When making a module all you can think about is features, features, features. What do I want it to do and how do I want it done. That is a totally different approach. Making it work comes second. The big challenge is translating features to code and a user interface.
Obviously users look at it in the same way. They want features, and a nice interface. You get lots of idea's and requests. This is a totally different experience.
When both sides meet
What happens when both sides of the coin meet? You will have features, a good interface and it works. Now all you need to do is find a meeting point.
