Better yet, when do I need to bake or not to bake?

For almost 2 months now, I had appreciated already the power of CakePHP while building MATA, my first cake. I’ve learned more functions, discovered one-liner MySQL queries, known better cake’s classes & methods. I even mastered creating HTML tags! :P

I remember myself saying “with cake it’s a lot easier & faster.” Yes, it is. Once you’ve got to become so familiar with the framework, you’ll find application development as easy as topping the icing of the cake. I’d never had an idea you could retrieve an entire table with just a single line of code, which goes well also for updates & deletes. It has the ability to reuse an entire method used on a separate Model by merely calling them. Amazing, huh?

On the verge of  appreciating the framework more and more, I was assigned to another CakePHP project. This time a more complex application is being developed and is being baked by a well experienced baker. Not yet familiar with the project’s system flow, pressured by in-a-few-days due, faced with unfamiliar functions and statements, and the need to follow the already developed pattern, I’m once again stuck, lost and cursing about using CakePHP. Although I managed to cope with the flow, it still took me hours. :(

The better part of being involved with this project is getting hold of other functionalities of CakePHP in a working environment developed by a real “baker.” I understand better what’s the use of other functions and methods which apparently I only have the description of what’s it supposed to do.

After these experiences with two different applications using cake, I guess it’s not a question of when or when not to bake, but rather, how you would actually do the baking. You can always bake, complex application or not, you just have to have a well studied and structured approach on how to bake your cake :).

 

by tere Random Comments 1 Aug 23rd, 2006