I am in a dilema at the moment, i am wondering which package will be better to develop a social networking website.

1. Direct DHTML
2. DHTML + Joomla
3. Joomla+ Cbuilder
4. Joomla+ Cbuilder +DHTML
5. Drupal + DHTML
6. Drupal + Joomla + whatever (it is possible)

Well. . . . .and by the way, i must have control over my codes and contents, just how i want it!

Sometimes I cringe when I hear Joomla. It is just toooooooooooooooooo heavy. But I guess sthat is what makes it robust.

Heavy as in? is it slow to load results, or has too much stuffs. . .or is heavy in terms of learning? or the perfomance has issues?
When i first started joomla, when i saw that administrator part, i almost fainted!

Those with not that much experience with Joomla! tend to weigh it down with unnecessary plugins, etc. Also, they don't seem to know that you can switch from tables to CSS layout, the former which makes it heavy and slow to load.

I haven't used Drupal so I can't speak for it. I am made to understand that there is a lot of customization when using it, unlike Joomla! The lazy coder in me says go with Joomla! + CB. I have used it on a project and but for some cross-browser compatibility issues, I was up and running, including installing my own layout, in 30 minutes or less. If you have the money or your client does, there is a paid social networking plugin for joomla! though I forget the name. I hear it is more flexible than CB. I didn't have the money to spare and so have never used it

Again, call me lazy but the days of coding straight (D/X)HTML when there are more efficient alternatives, are over. No need reinventing the wheel or trying to compete with Mark Zuckerberg or Zeus. We live in the days of KISS and DRY and as I told a fellow NLer recently, I will stick by these principles until the day I retire.

you dont need Joomla or Drupal. unless you dont want your solution to follow innovation for the next 20years.
if you wish to follow innovation as time unveils it, trust me you have only one tool
do it yourself. it needs more investment but pays off in future

Exactly yawatide, these dayz too, i am getting rather lazy coding straight dhtml projects, not when i am being overwhelmed by projects.
As for joomla, i think i am at least ok with using and building my own packages now.

And i have found a way to import in all of my former
classes both client and server sided, so my former functions like $username=select_single("firstname from users where id='1' "; and others
for those that copied some of my functions then can now work with joomla. I have studied the joomla framework enough to know how to
plugin my own stuffs without disturbing the basic joomla stuffs, plugins and all work as they should. Plus more interesting, i was able to plugin
my own paginators (both ajax and php) so that i can move my old projects into joomla with great ease and still utilize the functionalities of joomla
when needed.

mambenanje:

you dont need Joomla or Drupal. unless you dont want your solution to follow innovation for the next 20years.
if you wish to follow innovation as time unveils it, trust me you have only one tool
do it yourself. it needs more investment but pays off in future

Actually, i use joomla with sense, my own joomla copy is tweaked, and i use it to automate some stuffs, but not
everything. I like having control over whatever i do, and joomla is just makin the work faster and easier.

ok Dynamic Hyper text markup language
I hear you
good luck bro but I am personally building my own CMS that fits my needs. I am tired of consuming from the west. my personal view.
Mainly because those Joomla and co were not made with Africa and our environment as a factor of the production

u are very very correct. Maybe i will do that eventually, lemme see what you have to offer first (maybe we should team up sef).
Meanwhile, i hav a partially completed client-sided framework that fits all of my needs (minus some patch patch). I dont want to
start combining mootools + jquery + prototype + YUI all on the same pages. Our local viewers will take forever to open some sites
and i am supposed to be maintaining web 0.2 standards?

hey web 0.2 lol
anyway I get you boss.
I am building a proprietory platform with a strong goal. but I will love to work with partners, but on strict legal basis.
you can hit me on my company email mambenanje is at afrovisiongroup dot com
regards

mambe, u don come again

I agree with you building your own CMS if you have the time but why would make such a statement as this?

Mainly because those Joomla and co were not made with Africa and our environment as a factor of the production

Please expatiate. I mean open source is open source. If you say it doesn't fit your needs, fine, I accept but to say Africa, are you equating it to the Peugeot car which says it is built for Nigerian roads?

Again, please expatiate

I understand why you dont understand.
yes I don come again lol. I got time to chat abit
Ok do you know the bandwidth I have here in Cameroon ??
Do you know exactly the modules that my 60+ websites and clients need ??
Do you think the Joomla developers know what works in Africa ??
Joomla was not built for the needs I am facing here and trying to bend it will not make it work.
hope expatriate is the english for what I just did above
and Boss please show ya sef on naijaborn.com ooh lol

Joomla was not built for the needs I am facing here and trying to bend it will not make it work.

Much better, mon ami de la republique. Try to stay away from the blanket statements. Not everyone in Africa surfs the web under ur own conditions

I will check out naijaborn over the weekend and get back to you.

well its not a blanket statement
its similar to saying everyone in USA is on facebook.
not 100% but its a true statement.
Yawa me and you again nah wa oh.
I hope when naijaborn gets its developer API you will contribute your own applications lol

Dont worry, i will contribute my APIs for free too!

Dynamic HTML your the best
show ya sef too on naijaborn.com

Do not tell me that you did not see me dia already?

ooh sorry ooh
I just check and I see you showing ya sef. man you are real cute lol
here on NL I only see your nick name and cant realy connect with you. But now I know the man
your looking fyne
thanks for showing ya sef!!!!

I still take to the hold that developing your own framework is better. You get it to work your own way and you integrate whatever you want to your own way. Even in the next 20 years, you can still manipulate it to work provided your earlier plannings have made way to accomodate as much updates in the W3C and other coding specifications available. Open source is good but I think whose got time could work his out and can borrow ideas from already existing ones.

Just my2cents

yawa-ti-de:

If you have the money or your client does, there is a paid social networking plugin for joomla! though I forget the name. I hear it is more flexible than CB. I didn't have the money to spare and so have never used it

@ yawa-ti-de i think the component u are referring to is JOMSOCIAL it costs $99 for the standard edition and $149 for pro.

@ dhtml my advice don't try to reinvent the wheel. Take joomla + cb and move on!U can have a lot of control over joomla once u understand its "markup language". You will have ur site running in less than 24hrs. Drupal on the other hand is no longer widely used as most people have ditched it for joomla ofcoz me included. This is due to the large joomla community and availability of a wide variety extensions ready to install. You could also try out social engine which has lots and lots of mods to extend it though you got to dig really dip into ur pockets around $250.

look at sourceforge and search for your social networking script, you might find something there that fits well.

you can also look at these guys. I like their works. I might probably get one of their solutions one day.
Yes, I know it is an indian company.
http://www.agriya.com/products/

this is the link to agriya social networking product
http://www.isocial.in/order

Heavy = so much stuff to deal with. I dont know how else to explain.

But i guess the initial development of Joomla was geared towards flexibility. As it can be used for anything and everything.

If you are looking for social networking stuff. My advice would be find something that is only strictly for social networking. Or make one if you cant find one that fits your needs

I would strongly recommend you to buy a solution if you cant make one. You may want to do it the cheapest way possible, but sometimes, might be easier to buy.

There is something else about my framework. It helps me use my style of coding in addition to what those frameworks have to offer. So i can use it with joomla or whatever and they all blend perfectly. My framework is just a short-hand method of doing things in my own style.

For instance my client sided framework is lighter than jQuery and does the same thing. Better for our slow naija servers (that was why i created it in the first place). I intend to flow along with drupal and all of them. I will not rewrite them, i will just make them easier to use (that is what my framework is all about). By the time i release the first server-sided version, u will see what i mean. I just want to standardize it first.

@dhtml don't u think u will be working so hard to make ur framework compatible with the major frameworks? I mean every time they update u also got to go back to ur code and update. Thus making u a slave of the other frameworks.

Extensibility is the keyword. I did not start the framework without research (and not without assessing my skill level).
The key to the successful frameworks is extensibility.

That is one problem that drupal lacks. When a new version comes out, plugins and stuffs need to be upgraded.

And i do not wish to distract this thread by talking about frameworks. I blv there is a separate thread for that.

inf8nity:
Yep, I meant Jomsocial. Thanks for the reminder

Babes no dey suffer anymore. It's all about minimum effort (done professionally of course) and maximum benefit. I tip my heart to all those who do otherwise. More power to you. I am just not one of them, that's all.

Exactly. minimal effort is very important. That now depends on what you want. If i can write a script that will save me ages of coding. . .then why waste time especially if i cannot download it? So, in essense, i support using what is already existing, and i also believe in creating plugins and addons when i can. At the end of the day, to have something done and packaged professionally, that is all there is to it.
For the short time i have been using joomla, i have never had to build a component or plugin yet (because so far i have found all i needed), and the ones i do not have, i import them in from my code library (thanks to the custom_page plugin) and stuffs like custom_php

Men it all depends on what you want to do and who you are doing it for
if you are working on the next facebook, Google or Twitter, you wont want it to be easily copied would you ?
so if thats the case think twice because any person can installl Joomla

You do have a point dia seriously

*dhtml:

Exactly. minimal effort is very important. That now depends on what you want. If i can write a script that will save me ages of coding. . .then why waste time especially if i cannot download it? So, in essense, i support using what is already existing, and i also believe in creating plugins and addons when i can. At the end of the day, to have something done and packaged professionally, that is all there is to it.
For the short time i have been using joomla, i have never had to build a component or plugin yet (because so far i have found all i needed), and the ones i do not have, i import them in from my code library (thanks to the custom_page plugin) and stuffs like custom_php

@dhtml That tells me you are no longer for drupal

@mambenanje
Its true everyone can install joomla but how many can make good use of its features to come up with a superb website?

@inf8nity
have you ever heard of BUSINESS ENTRY LEVEL ?
and Business Advantage ??
I guess that will get you scared when you plan to base a big Business ontop of Joomla.
if a client wants a basic social network, or something that Joomla can handle and their budget fits that. You can use Joomla so that you make the cash and give the client a solution
but man if you want a big business, stay off Joomla or spend sometime rewriting the core like Google did with Apache

That aspect of drupal i cant tolerate. I mean, here i am with joomla 1.5, and i am still using plenty of joomla 1.0 plugins. In drupal from what i hear, that may not be possible, 'cos they prefer functionality to backward compatibility. To someone that has plenty projects that you may wish to upgrade in future, you may have some trouble migrating. But that is just one view, i need to see advantages and all to compare. Joomla too has some of its shortcomings (but those ones i can still tolerate). But i have not actually used joomla yet. And that even reminds me sef, maybe i should have added the cakewalk framework too.