An ORM for egroupware

[Raphael_Alla-2]

Hi,

after having compared egroupware with other framework, and developped
BlueErp (http://open.mitija.com/blueerp), it strikes me that here is no ORM
layer available for egroupware. It seems to be a “must have” feature for any
OO framework which requires persistence of its objects.

For BlueErp, we have been developping the “entity” framework, which fits
this purpose and goes on top of the existing egw database layer. This
development has been going on progressively for over two years and the code
is now relatively stable.

At the same time, we are looking at other PHP ORM solutions and we have
identified doctrine (http://www.doctrine-project.org/) as quite an
interesting alternative.

Using an ORM brings a lot of advantages, most specifically it reduces the
amount of lines of code to write and make development faster. As this
feature is currently missing from egroupware, we are more than willing to
contribute some of our code and experience in this domain.

Please let us know your thoughts.

Raphael

–
Raphael Alla
Alphalog Calédonie
Mitija Australia
+61 4 15 678 576
+687 78 86 86
http://www.mitija.com
http://www.alphalog.nc

[Ralf_Becker_6]

Hi Raphael,

Raphael Alla schrieb:

Hi,

after having compared egroupware with other framework, and developped
BlueErp (http://open.mitija.com/blueerp), it strikes me that here is no
ORM layer available for egroupware. It seems to be a “must have” feature
for any OO framework which requires persistence of its objects.

For BlueErp, we have been developping the “entity” framework, which fits
this purpose and goes on top of the existing egw database layer. This
development has been going on progressively for over two years and the
code is now relatively stable.

At the same time, we are looking at other PHP ORM solutions and we have
identified doctrine (http://www.doctrine-project.org/) as quite an
interesting alternative.

Just had a short look, and it looks really good

Using an ORM brings a lot of advantages, most specifically it reduces
the amount of lines of code to write and make development faster. As
this feature is currently missing from egroupware, we are more than
willing to contribute some of our code and experience in this domain.

I see no problem using doctrine in EGroupware, as it’s running on top of
PDO, which we already use for sqlfs.
Thought just adding it and not using it in the EGroupware core makes no
sense to me.

I have no plans currently for writing a new database centric
application, for which a tool like doctrine would be of good use. I dont
think I have the time to rewrite any of the existing apps, just to give
doctrine a try

Please let us know your thoughts.

I’d say integrate it in BlueErp and keep everyone posted about your
experiences. I’m happy to commit it to our API, if one of the core apps
is using it, or multiple 3rd party apps requiring it. We could make it
to a pseudo app “doctrine”, which other apps can require like eTemplate.

Ralf

Ps: I’m going to Australia again this summer (December/January), maybe
we can manage to meet this time

Ralf Becker
Director Software Development

Stylite GmbH
[open style of IT]

Morschheimer Strasse 15
67292 Kirchheimbolanden

fon +49 (0) 6352 70629-0
fax +49 (0) 6352 70629-30
mailto: rb@stylite.de

www.stylite.de
www.egroupware.org

---

Geschäftsführer Andre Keller, Gudrun Müller,
Nigel Vickers und Ralf Becker
Registergericht Kaiserslautern HRB 30575
Umsatzsteuer-Id / VAT-Id: DE214280951

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[Raphael_Alla-2]

Hi Ralf,

thanks for your response -

Using an ORM brings a lot of advantages, most specifically it reduces
the amount of lines of code to write and make development faster. As
this feature is currently missing from egroupware, we are more than
willing to contribute some of our code and experience in this domain.

I see no problem using doctrine in EGroupware, as it’s running on top of
PDO, which we already use for sqlfs.
Thought just adding it and not using it in the EGroupware core makes no
sense to me.

I have no plans currently for writing a new database centric
application, for which a tool like doctrine would be of good use. I dont
think I have the time to rewrite any of the existing apps, just to give
doctrine a try

My plan is as follows:

1. check that doctrine can be integrated with egw without too much pain (it
   should not)
2. Create a “db tools” version capable of supporting doctrine schemas
   2bis) See if one of the core apps can be modified to take advantage of it. I
   think the benefit of the framework would be demonstrated if we can see that
   we use less lines of code while keeping the code clarity using doctrine.
   Something like the tracker may be a good candidate.

Please let us know your thoughts.

I’d say integrate it in BlueErp and keep everyone posted about your
experiences. I’m happy to commit it to our API, if one of the core apps
is using it, or multiple 3rd party apps requiring it. We could make it
to a pseudo app “doctrine”, which other apps can require like eTemplate.

OK. It could help for me to work in an svn branch (which would be kept
synchronised to trunk) rather than on my own. Please let me know if this can
be organised.

Ralf

Ps: I’m going to Australia again this summer (December/January), maybe
we can manage to meet this time

With pleasure

–
Ralf Becker
Director Software Development

Stylite GmbH
[open style of IT]

Morschheimer Strasse 15
67292 Kirchheimbolanden

fon +49 (0) 6352 70629-0
fax +49 (0) 6352 70629-30
mailto: rb@stylite.de

www.stylite.de
www.egroupware.org

---

Geschäftsführer Andre Keller, Gudrun Müller,
Nigel Vickers und Ralf Becker
Registergericht Kaiserslautern HRB 30575
Umsatzsteuer-Id / VAT-Id: DE214280951

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Enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge
This is your chance to win up to $100,000 in prizes! For a limited time,
vendors submitting new applications to BlackBerry App World™ will have
the opportunity to enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge. See full prize
details at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/Challenge

---

eGroupWare-developers mailing list
eGroupWare-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/egroupware-developers

–
Raphael Alla
Alphalog Calédonie
Mitija Australia
+61 4 15 678 576
+687 78 86 86
http://www.mitija.com
http://www.alphalog.nc