Developing a Web Development Framework - Walking the Walk

(Actual Written on 7/31/2010)

Software architecture and design is and has always been important to me. A big part of of this is implementation. It is easy to code a hack. We all do it. Time constraints, money, whatever the reason making a hack is easy to do.

After one does enough gigs they should come to a realization that doing the same work over and over again can be simplified or organized in a way that makes life easy, shortens the development cycle, is easy to manage and maintain. With my alchemy web development framework this is a realization I am trying to achieve.
My main design goal regarding implementation is really founded on two main objectives.

1. Be able to quickly implement alchemy anywhere.
2. Easily update an existing alchemy implementation without breaking anything.

Alchemy is in alpha, but is already becoming a monster. The application framework alone is seventy directories and over 550 files. To makes matters just as interesting I host the framework on different posix servers, but my development environment is Windows.

I have just created a Sourceforge project to manage the builds. Right now I have started to move the content and documentation into my developergeekresources.com site. I am having to implement alchemy there as well in order to offer up the variousd templates and toycode examples.

Ultimately I want the alchemy framework to replace my four active websites. Replacing an existing legacy site is easier said than done. I want to make adding new content to them even easier than it currently is.

If you cannot effectively use your own stuff why would you expect anyone else to use it? Right now what I have is still rugged in certain areas. The only way to really see if you are on the right path is to use your own stuff. Too often software has become a modern factory where people that are producing the software never have to use it. Most do not even have to implement it, so they can be totaly insensitive to that discipline as well. A buddy of mine likes to say "fish or cut bait". I like to rephrase it to say "cut bait, then go fishing".

I must admit I am so busy my inclination and nature is to just slam something in and get back to work. Not such a good strategy if you are trying to build an entire framework. You gotta always be thinking about shit like "what will that change do to all the existing stuff?" and "how is that going to be able to implemented in a way that is extensible a year from now to include all the cool new stuff myself or someone else has conjured up that I have yet to even think about or consider.