Well, I'll quickly run down why we chose Drupal (hence, PHP). I mention 
Drupal because to me it's more of a framework which just happens to have 
a CMS built on top of it =)

Before Drupal, my team knew PHP. We had PHP books in the library, 
students were learning some PHP in classes, etc.

We were lured to Drupal because other libraries were using it (AADL at 
the time). It seemed to have good code, good security, and could be 
"hacked politely" (or "extended") and securely (if you follow the 
rules). Most of all, Drupal has good people behind it =)

Now, "even though" Drupal is PHP (and, as some say, PHP lets you be as 
insecure and as bad a coder you want...) the code that goes into its 
core has pretty strict coding standards. Of course you can find lots of 
modules which are not up to par, but you can depend on core to be tight.

_alejandro

marijane white said the following on 05/01/2010 05:04 p.m.:
> Greetings Code4Lib,
>
> Long time lurker, first time poster here.
>
> I've been turning over this question in my mind for a few weeks now, and Joe
> Hourcle's postscript in the Online PHP Course thread has prompted me to
> finally try to ask it. =)
>
> I'm interested in hearing how the members of this list have gone about
> choosing development platforms for their library coding projects and/or
> existing open source projects (ie like VuFind vs Blacklight).  For example,
> did you choose a language you already were familiar with?  One you wanted to
> learn more about?  Does your workplace have a standard enterprise
> architecture/platform that you are required to use?  If you have chosen to
> implement an existing open source project, did you choose based on the
> development platform or project maturity and features or something else?
>
> Some background -- thanks to my undergraduate computer engineering studies,
> I have a pretty solid understanding of programming fundamentals, but most of
> my pre-LIS work experience was in software testing and did not require me to
> employ much of what I learned programming-wise, so I've mostly dabbled over
> the last decade or so.  I've got a bit of experience with a bunch of
> languages and I'm not married to any of them.   I also kind of like having
> excuses to learn new ones.
>
> My situation is this: I would like to eventually implement a discovery tool
> at MPOW, but I am having a hell of a time choosing one.  I'm a solo
> librarian on a content team at a software and information services company,
> so I'm not really tied to the platforms used by the software engineering
> teams here.  I know a bit of Ruby, so I've played with Blacklight some, got
> it to install on Windows and managed to import a really rough Solr index.
> I'm more attracted to the features in VuFind, but I don't know much PHP yet
> and I haven't gotten it installed successfully yet.  My collection's
> metadata is not in an ILS (yet) and not in MARC, so I've also considered
> trying out more generic approaches like ajax-solr (though I don't know a lot
> of javascript yet, either).  I've also given a cursory look at SOPAC and
> Scriblio.  My options are wide open, and I'm having a rough time deciding
> what direction to go in.  I guess it's kind of similar to someone who is new
> to programming and attempting to choose their first language to learn.
>
> I will attempt to head off a programming language religious war =) by
> stating that I'm not really interested in the virtues of one platform over
> another, moreso the abstract reasons one might have for selecting one.
> Have any of you ever been in a similar situation?  How'd you get yourself
> unstuck?  If you haven't, what do you think you might do in a situation like
> mine?
>
>
> -marijane
>
>
>    

-- 
_________________ ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
*Ing. Alejandro Garza González*
Coordinación de proyectos y desarrollo de sistemas
Centro Innov@TE, Centro para la Innovación en Tecnología y Educación
Tecnológico de Monterrey

Tel. +52 [81] 8358.2000, Ext. 6751
Enlace intercampus: 80.689.6751, 80.788.6106
http://www.itesm.mx/innovate/

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