I’m working on projects based on Open Source Technologies like Drupal, Symfony and WordPress every day. It is truly awesome. There is so much just out of box that makes our business easier and helps and also defines the websphere and its developers.

Though it is really awesome there is a lack of modern coding standards and patterns in some projects like WordPress and Drupal. In both projects the API is functional. The hook system is flexible it is easy and it is fast, but it is also a pure PITA. Another part I’m not very happy about is the way both projects handle the templating. When you look at the WordPress default theme HTML code is defined in functions and everything is mixed up. There is a tendency, but nothing more.

Things are changing in Drupal as they introduce more and more components from Symfony, which is to me THE shining example of clean and proper coding.

An unbearable amount of developers is working with those technologies and most of the websites are based on them. It may make it harder to motive programmers when the implementation standard advances, but programmers are getting better and better and these projects could lift the level of the whole developing community by miles… and they should.