Quite nicely-designed underground student-run newspaper website at the Victoria University of Wellington. I could see myself nabbing an idea or two from these guys. ;)
It looks a lot like a django site to me, well designed and all! I think a lot of smaller media companies could leverage django/ellington, including universities like this. It’s a heck of a lot better than the Collegian’s new site, talk about a horrible change, at least they have RSS now I guess.
Erik, you’re right. Looking at the URL structures and everything, it could definitely pass for a Django site (those URls definitely remind me of Django’s slug-generation algorithm). I think it’s a PHP-based site, though, just because the studio that put together is a known PHP shop. I really don’t for for sure, though. If it is PHP, it’s proof that it is possible to do things cleanly and well in PHP, even if the language doesn’t typically encourage it.
Thanks for the Collegian link. Hadn’t seen that. Personally, if I were still reading that every day, I think the fact that they have RSS now would outweigh any poor design decisions. But that’s just me. :)
It actually appears to be a customized version of WordPress which is powering the site. Just take a look at their <head>. If you need a showcase of a clean app written in PHP, WordPress is it.
I’ve never used WordPress, but one of the main reasons I’ve avoided it is because I get a very distinct non-MVC impression about it. The fact that it lets you include PHP code in the templates scares me, as this is exactly the sort of thing that often results in nasty code.
It’s the culture of PHP, though. PHP by design is supposed to be embedded in (X)HTML, and it’s usually abused. I am a staunch believer in the “keep application logic out of the presentation layer” methodology. Maybe WordPress encourages that more than I know, but my perception is that it really doesn’t.
Jeff, WordPress isn’t an MVC architecture, however, it doesn’t need to be. Could it be? Sure, but MVC isn’t the end all, be all of programming.
And personally, I’d prefer php be allowed in any templates I use. I find absolutely no benefit from writing my templates in another language when the one it will be interpreted by will do a better job in the first place. PHP itself was originally conceived as a template language for HTML. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Furthermore, just because you use php doesn’t mean you’re necessarily writing application logic. There is a such thing as template logic. Smarty, a template language for php, can do if/else and loops (amongst other things) just like php can. So what’s the point?
Lastly, Django is a web programming framework, WordPress is a blogging application. Though they have certain aspects that may overlap, they are fundamentally different things. You’d do well not to confuse them.
just because you use php doesn’t mean you’re necessarily writing application logic
James, you’re completely right, and that’s why I said “PHP by design is supposed to be embedded in (X)HTML, and it’s usually abused. ” Of course you can write only presentation logic in PHP, but having access to the full language there usually results is people not exercising the constraint they should. Template languages, by being simplified, sort of force best practices upon you.
Lastly, Django is a web programming framework, WordPress is a blogging application. Though they have certain aspects that may overlap, they are fundamentally different things. You’d do well not to confuse them.
Woah, man. At what point did I confuse WordPress with Django? I don’t think I even mentioned Django in this thread, did I? WordPress and Django are definitely two different things, and I definitely know better than to confuse them.
I wasn’t talking about Django at all. I was simply saying that the culture of PHP is to mix application logic, presentation logic, and (X)HTML, and that turns me off. I know you can separate the three with PHP, and I know many people do ‘ but my impression is that WordPress doesn’t.
I think WordPress is a very good blogging app. In fact, it’s the only one I would ever recommend to anyone at this point. But, I think customizing a blogging app into being a newspaper CMS (which is what they’ve done here) is the wrong approach. It’s a hack, it will always be a hack, and there’s nothing you can do about it. As a hack, it’s bound to be ugly. There’s no way to gracefully hack WordPress or MoveableType into being a full-feature newspaper CMS. If you wan a blog, great. If you want a good, clean, well-written newspaper CMS, use one — or build one yourself.
001 // Erik Ankrom // 08.02.2006 // 10:27 PM
It looks a lot like a django site to me, well designed and all! I think a lot of smaller media companies could leverage django/ellington, including universities like this. It’s a heck of a lot better than the Collegian’s new site, talk about a horrible change, at least they have RSS now I guess.
002 // Jeff Croft // 08.02.2006 // 10:47 PM
Erik, you’re right. Looking at the URL structures and everything, it could definitely pass for a Django site (those URls definitely remind me of Django’s slug-generation algorithm). I think it’s a PHP-based site, though, just because the studio that put together is a known PHP shop. I really don’t for for sure, though. If it is PHP, it’s proof that it is possible to do things cleanly and well in PHP, even if the language doesn’t typically encourage it.
Thanks for the Collegian link. Hadn’t seen that. Personally, if I were still reading that every day, I think the fact that they have RSS now would outweigh any poor design decisions. But that’s just me. :)
003 // Dylan // 08.03.2006 // 8:59 PM
It actually appears to be a customized version of WordPress which is powering the site. Just take a look at their <head>. If you need a showcase of a clean app written in PHP, WordPress is it.
004 // Jeff Croft // 08.03.2006 // 9:21 PM
Really?
I’ve never used WordPress, but one of the main reasons I’ve avoided it is because I get a very distinct non-MVC impression about it. The fact that it lets you include PHP code in the templates scares me, as this is exactly the sort of thing that often results in nasty code.
It’s the culture of PHP, though. PHP by design is supposed to be embedded in (X)HTML, and it’s usually abused. I am a staunch believer in the “keep application logic out of the presentation layer” methodology. Maybe WordPress encourages that more than I know, but my perception is that it really doesn’t.
005 // James Asher // 08.04.2006 // 9:08 AM
It’s definitely WordPress.
Jeff, WordPress isn’t an MVC architecture, however, it doesn’t need to be. Could it be? Sure, but MVC isn’t the end all, be all of programming.
And personally, I’d prefer php be allowed in any templates I use. I find absolutely no benefit from writing my templates in another language when the one it will be interpreted by will do a better job in the first place. PHP itself was originally conceived as a template language for HTML. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Furthermore, just because you use php doesn’t mean you’re necessarily writing application logic. There is a such thing as template logic. Smarty, a template language for php, can do if/else and loops (amongst other things) just like php can. So what’s the point?
Lastly, Django is a web programming framework, WordPress is a blogging application. Though they have certain aspects that may overlap, they are fundamentally different things. You’d do well not to confuse them.
:-)
006 // Jeff Croft // 08.04.2006 // 9:31 AM
James, you’re completely right, and that’s why I said “PHP by design is supposed to be embedded in (X)HTML, and it’s usually abused. ” Of course you can write only presentation logic in PHP, but having access to the full language there usually results is people not exercising the constraint they should. Template languages, by being simplified, sort of force best practices upon you.
Woah, man. At what point did I confuse WordPress with Django? I don’t think I even mentioned Django in this thread, did I? WordPress and Django are definitely two different things, and I definitely know better than to confuse them.
I wasn’t talking about Django at all. I was simply saying that the culture of PHP is to mix application logic, presentation logic, and (X)HTML, and that turns me off. I know you can separate the three with PHP, and I know many people do ‘ but my impression is that WordPress doesn’t.
I think WordPress is a very good blogging app. In fact, it’s the only one I would ever recommend to anyone at this point. But, I think customizing a blogging app into being a newspaper CMS (which is what they’ve done here) is the wrong approach. It’s a hack, it will always be a hack, and there’s nothing you can do about it. As a hack, it’s bound to be ugly. There’s no way to gracefully hack WordPress or MoveableType into being a full-feature newspaper CMS. If you wan a blog, great. If you want a good, clean, well-written newspaper CMS, use one — or build one yourself.