PHPBuilder FAQ?

Anon

To all the old hands and question answerers:

I've been following, and posting in the 'PHPBuilder Sucks' thread, and I had a thought. Why don't we get together and start a FAQ of the questions that we always end up answering here? (Like how to alternate the row colors in a table.) I don't know about you but I alwasy seem to see the same questions over and over and while I answer them every time I'd rather have a nice neat place to send people to where they can get alot of the answers for themselves.

I'd be willing to compile the FAQ and maintain it, and hopefully I'll get PHPBuilder to add a place to store it.

What do you think?

[deleted]

I had that though several months ago and I started "YAPF!" at http://www.hvt-automation.nl/yapf/

please feel free to add as much as you like, just write up what you want in there, mail it to me and I'll stick it in, with appropriate credits ofcourse.

Anon

Great, I'll put some stuff together for you. Have you tried to get it linked from PHPBuilder?

[deleted]

That would be great, thanks!

"Have you tried to get it linked from PHPBuilder?"

No I haven't. PHPBuilder is in a sad sad state at the moment, so I'm not even trying to link the two.

Anon

Rob,

I agree with you in that regard. A lot of questions that are posted are repeats.

Seems to me that there has to be an independent site that is established as a source of specific questions in regards to php. Because such a task is huge, just FAQ won't do it!

There has to be some categorization of the topics -> well-designed system for managing content rather than a slapped together FAQ.

System has to have easy access to the topics, a mechanism that eliminates repeats, search engine, etc...

Questions can be asked on the same site and if it is a unique question than it can be added to the archive.

Anon

Ohh well, it would have been nice to have a nice big button somewhere that would attract the newbie's notice so they could get information easier.

Anon

Well to do that we'd need some programmer or something, I wonder where we could find someone and what language they'd write it in?

Ohh wait couldn't we do this, and do it in PHP? ;->

Hey it'd probably make a good tutorial as well. "How to build a robust database driven FAQ system in PHP." I'd thought of building a database driven FAQ before and I believe that it's the best way to go to build something that is maintainable and accessable. All of the questions could be placed into a catagory tree, and a search engine built to allow quick access to any of the questions by key word or text search.

[deleted]

...so what's stopping you? :-)

Anon

Guys,

The biggest dilema in building a site like this is getting available bandwidth and making a good design.

Seems to me that a lot of articles I've read address the issue of how to use PHP in general, but coverage of software engineering is almost nonexistent.

I believe in principle -> Do not ever write the code, but rather port design into code.

If you dudes feel like doing something I am all for that.

Anon

The bandwidth is probably the biggest problem. I'm not sure how much traffic a FAQ site would generate, but if you keep it clean and use mostly text only I'm sure it could be run on a DSL or Cable modem connection, or at most a free host somewhere.

As for design vs code you are completely correct. While I personally prefer to sit down and start coding something, it's alwasy best to design it to be what you want before you start coding that way you won't run into any nasty surprises.

So what are we talking about:

1 - database driven question answer site (kinda like a forum but more structured).

2 - needs the ability to have questions asked and answered.

3 - needs the ability to show PHP code in a readable fashion.

4 - needs a robust search engine.

5 - needs well thought out catagories (can a question reside in more than one catagory, I believe so).

6 - should have the ability to email the person who asked the question when there question has been answered.

7 - should questions be allowed to be addressed to a specific person, or just go into a pool to be answered?

8 - can anyone ask/answer a question or is it limited to only registered users?

I'm sure there is alot more, but that's off the top of my head.

Anon

Guys,

Firstly, if we are going to write something like this, then why not think broader. Instead of slapping together FAQ why not write a system, which can be used to address information needs on topics other than PHP.

I am thinking a web based software package that

Manages extensive informational content (on software related topics)
Organized in a way to eliminate redundant info (phpbuilder phorums are highly redundant)
Provide easy navigation and access to the information
Limited number of authorized users who can post (there has to be some sort of control to eliminate redundancy)

Bandwidth -> shouldn't be a problem. I work for the U of M and right now I completing billing system and I'll be managing my own server that sits on a network with plenty of bandwidth. The only potential problem with it is if my job disappears, then so goes the site... but that's still solvable.

I like to start doing something with an end in mind. I know that you guys will agree that it makes no sense to engage in undertaking of building a software without success upon completion in mind. Plus, if it'll be something like phorum or better (hey, why not better!!!) then it'll look awefully good on a resume.

I checked on sharednic.com and there are domains like php-resource.com, php-faq.org. Why not get domain, form a group of 3-5 developers and get started?

[deleted]

Hello dudes, can I just call you back down to earth for a moment?

Let's not get too ambitious.

Why don't we first get something running before we start registering a domain?
All the ideas I saw posted are nice, but I fear we'll end up with a huge pack of specs that never get implemeneted. Let's face it, none of us really have the time to do all this in the first place 🙂

The whole point of YAPF! (Yet Another PHP FAQ) was to provide foolproof help to newbies, not just to store every known fact about PHP. My aim was to put 'the best of the phpbuilder forum' into clearly written articles or snippets so they can be referred to from the forum.

There is already a large database of 'facts' online at www.faqts.com, but it contains mostly information for the experienced, look at this for example: http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/9896/fid/51
This is exactly what I want to avoid.

The net is full of resources for PHP, and you can find almost anything you need through google, but once you find it you usually have a page with a few lines of code and half an explenation about what goes on. If you're not experienced you'll never understand it.

Anon

I agree with vincent. While we could easily build a very large and complex data management system why don't we focus on the small and get it working before we go beyond that. We can alwasy design it to handle more things but just not implement them yet.

Also I do believe in the idea of creating a newbie friendly resource, which beyond the design/coding of the system is going to involve some time in formulating quality responses to questions.

I was thinking that if we are going to do this we should open up a sourceforge project and start building it there. They have a large set of resources for the developers. Also I have a domain name and a live box that we can use as a test area before we go into buying a domain and getting it hosted.

Anon

Vincent,

I agree with all that you are saying. Starting writing a system requires a lot of time and dedication. It also requires coordination of actions, which is difficult, because all of us live in different parts of the world.

I also agree with the fact that you can find answer to almost any question through google. The thing I am getting to is that information is scattered all over the place, and my proposition was to bring all the relevent and sought for information in one place and make it available.

In order to do that there has to be a system - organized way of managing content. Slapping together bunches of .html files is an old way of doing things.

php questions can spread through the topics like mysql, regexp, OOP, algorithms implementation, html, xml, etc... Underneath mysql category you can have mysql functions, database normalization, etc. etc. etc.

This is just a sample of categories of information that can be created, but there are more of them, and undeath each category there are some more categories. Without a content management system -> I'll tell newbie to crank up web browser go to google and start doing research...

Some dudes managed to write phorum...

Anon

You are correct Dmitriy, but we should start small, build a system to catagorize questions and display answers with the ability to plug in other content as we grow, like articles, or howto's or whatever.

And while someone did write phroum if you've ever looked at the code it's very nasty. Not that they didn't do a great job just that it looks like it was coded before being designed (I should know it's how most of my personal code looks ;->).

[deleted]

Indeed there should be a content management system of some kind, I'm just saying we should not start by trying to make the most complex system we can think of.

Ambition is good, but only up to the point where you have created that which is needed.

And right now we need a 'simple' system with Q's and A's and a few "Did you know...'s"
with a good category division and a proper search. That is all. 🙂

Anon

Guys,

I am all for that. I was just trying to make sure that we won't be building a static site full of .html files.

Other than that -> let's sketch a plan...