[ic] PHP/IML

Russ Mann interchange-users@icdevgroup.org
Fri Jun 21 15:12:01 2002


> > Why don't you just rewrite the php code in IML... In MANY way
> > IML is a more
> > powerful language than php....
> >
> When I started the site I created in Interchange I had the
> choice of doing some things in PHP and some things in IC,
> and I decided to put everything in Interchange so that
> there was one session management system, one set of cookies
> and one place for all the page code.  I do have some PHP
> on the back-end which allows the proprietors of the store
> to write articles and organize some things like the
> hierarchy of sections and products since I wanted some
> things that Interchange doesn't provide.  I would say
> that having two systems for the back end is ok, but I
> wouldn't recommend it for your live site.  John's right.
> Anything you are doing in PHP you can redo in IC and
> end up with a more integrated system.

I use PHP for custom backend development because its much faster than IC,
both for the coding process and for the speed of page delivery to the end
user.  I've been considering biting the bullet though, and converting my
backend stuff to IC, but the problem is that its not easy to make add-ons
for the UI admin, which is where most of the functionality is missing.  If I
customize the UI, the next release of IC overwrites whatever I've done.

On IML being more powerful than PHP, that might be a bit of an
overstatement.  What IML was designed to do it does well, but when you want
to get outside of that, you're just a perl coder, and PHP trumps perl for
ease of use in web programming.

If anything, this is a request for the UI admin to be more customizable,
just like the regular IC pages.  The meta data thing is great, but doesn't
translate across everything.  For example, how do you customize the way the
order listing is displayed?  I'd like to be able to mark items as shipped
from the listing page instead of having to click through to every item
shipping status.  This was EASY to do in PHP, but then I had to create the
customer confirm email in PHP too.  The other thing I had to do was limit
which items a shipping users sees based on the shipping method, because I
have offices in USA, New Zealand, UK, Australia, and Canada, that are all
shipping directly.  There is absolutely NO way to create this permission
structure in IC Admin, but in PHP, it was cake.

Any thoughts?

-RM