EchoWho - an advanced social network content management system...

[Justei]

foxx, the grumpy cat suits you ;).

No but seriously though, I must say at first glance it didn't look too bad, however I must agree with foxx.

But the biggest problem I have with this is, how are you guys planning on getting big enough? Considering the fact that facebook exists, twitter, and all other social networks, what is your plan?

And also, seeing as you guys are going to be a social network, it's safe to assume that you guys are planning on going big. Why use PHP? It's not very scalable, and therefore you could loose more money then you would have to if you went with a more scalable solution such as Ruby or w/e.

From looking at that code, your security is lacking in the code as well, why not use a framework? (if you wanna use PHP anyway).
At least it's going to help you with the security, and most likely going to be a lot better performance wise (considering I doubt you can make a better one yourself, by looking at your code).

App, have you done any research on apps? Why not use a solution such as Phonegap? I currently work as a CTO at a company that develops a web site, and seeing as we didn't want to outsource the app development, and didn't want to have to hire a app developer for android and one for iPhone or whatever, I did some research and now we are doing the app in Phonegap instead, inhouse, cheaper, and faster.

[s-p-n]

But the biggest problem I have with this is, how are you guys planning on getting big enough? Considering the fact that facebook exists, twitter, and all other social networks, what is your plan?

By not releasing a demo so their HTML doesn't get ripped, duh!

[Justei]

By not releasing a demo so their HTML doesn't get ripped, duh!

Oh yeah! Of course!
That's the hardest part, forgot! It's not like someone else could just code the same thing up in an hour, no, that would be impossible! :D

xD...

[Chris]

The picture in the background isn't even high res. It's blurry.

I will agree that just like others, my first glance made me think that it looked really nice, maybe that will catch all the suckers into thinking it's a good social network!

On further investigation, the code is messy (what you provided at least; I can't imagine what the rest looks like), the design lacks aspect ratio like already pointed out, and not only that but the grammar isn't even right on the homepage.

[TimeBomb]

And also, seeing as you guys are going to be a social network, it's safe to assume that you guys are planning on going big. Why use PHP? It's not very scalable, and therefore you could loose more money then you would have to if you went with a more scalable solution such as Ruby or w/e.

I assure you that PHP can work quite well for very large applications, such as a social network. You have a ton of utilities at your disposal that can cache or in some other manner speed up/increase scalability of a PHP application. Remember, you aren't limited to Apache. I could even run PHP using node.js as a webserver.

[Justei]

I assure you that PHP can work quite well for very large applications, such as a social network. You have a ton of utilities at your disposal that can cache or in some other manner speed up/increase scalability of a PHP application. Remember, you aren't limited to Apache. I could even run PHP using node.js as a webserver.

I know that, I've designed, and worked on large scale websites(including a social network with about 1.000.000 concurrent users), using PHP, and I still use PHP every day for most of my projects.

However, I'm simply stating that PHP might not be the best option for his project, a thought I think should be put into every developers thought if you are creating a large scale network website, to actually think about how the website in itself is going to work.

Keep in mind that the site might not work well with caching, what if the content changes on it dynamicly every 3-4 minutes? Then caching wont be as effective as you would have wanted.

So yes, I have to correct myself, PHP can be scalable, if it's done properly and in the right situation. For a bigger website, such as a social network, I think you will most likely go with RoR or some other solution.
Just like Twitter, Shoppify, Basecamp.

But yes, just like you said, you can use PHP as well. Completely depends on the site in itself and requirements.

In the end, it's up to the project in itself, what's best for the project is what should be used to make it. I'm merely trying to encourage thinking about other options.

[s-p-n]

In the end, it's up to the project in itself, what's best for the project is what should be used to make it. I'm merely trying to encourage thinking about other options.

Meh, It's up to the developer. If facebook is stubborn enough to use PHP even though it forces them to create inhumane optimization, I'm pretty certain you can use any language you want for any project if you try hard enough. What ever's easier for you to do I guess is the most efficient choice (labor-wise). I agree with Justei because I don't like using PHP. Timebomb likes using PHP so he argues that PHP can do it. The truth is Node.JS, ruby on rails, and PHP can all do a social network.

The other truth is, these guys at EchoWho probably shouldn't make a social network in any language.. Not for any reason other than to learn, that is. If doing it for the money, disappointment will surely follow.

[Grenadier]

Also, i am pretty confused as to why you are using a theme forest theme for your site if you are a web developer...
WordPress - Quick Host - Business and Hosting WordPress Theme | ThemeForest

[שเ๒єtгเ๒є]

having a class called Session carring on objects that should be called User is pretty stupid. the snippet is enough i see, fail guys fail xD

Oh yeah! Of course!
That's the hardest part, forgot! It's not like someone else could just code the same thing up in an hour, no, that would be impossible! :D

xD...

i love your sacasm haha :D


whatever, sure u can do anything in any language if its built for it, the question is does it make sense. using php is like cutting wood with a hammer, dont hurt yourself Hotcut, the design is pretty, but beware of it.
s-p-n facebook isnt just stubborn, they are stupid. but np, lets all go mark zuckerberg hand in hand with exceptions. ^_°
however php is quick and feels handy for many ppl, but i will never go that line anymore, heil asp.net! ... xDD

[Papercup]

We are resuming the development and taking all things into account, thanks.

This is purely educational for me and Lucca, as we no way have the potential to make a 'professional' network. It's good practice for communication and team work skills.

Obviously, It's not to the best standard but we are improving it.

Grenadier, That's completely off-topic.

[WireShark]

I love this one if this will be opensource! nice!

[TimeBomb]

whatever, sure u can do anything in any language if its built for it, the question is does it make sense. using php is like cutting wood with a hammer, dont hurt yourself Hotcut, the design is pretty, but beware of it.
s-p-n facebook isnt just stubborn, they are stupid. but np, lets all go mark zuckerberg hand in hand with exceptions. ^_°
however php is quick and feels handy for many ppl, but i will never go that line anymore, heil asp.net! ... xDD

You're wrong. Plain and simple. PHP has a lot of faults, but optimization, scalability, and maintaining large applications need not be a worry if you're a true professional. PHP is a shitty language primarily because its API is horrible. But it's feature-rich, it's fast, it's community is large - which means lots of support and third-party libraries and it can technically be optimized and scaled. Facebook is a great example of that, and Mark Zuckerburg is a genius entrepreneur (and, from what I hear, somewhat of a douchebag as well as a meh programmer).

[Jordan]

You're wrong. Plain and simple. PHP has a lot of faults, but optimization, scalability, and maintaining large applications need not be a worry if you're a true professional. PHP is a shitty language primarily because its API is horrible. But it's feature-rich, it's fast, it's community is large - which means lots of support and third-party libraries and it can technically be optimized and scaled. Facebook is a great example of that, and Mark Zuckerburg is a genius entrepreneur (and, from what I hear, somewhat of a douchebag as well as a meh programmer).

"fast" somebody has obviously never tried to scale vanilla PHP.

[שเ๒єtгเ๒є]

You're wrong. Plain and simple. PHP has a lot of faults, but optimization, scalability, and maintaining large applications need not be a worry if you're a true professional. PHP is a shitty language primarily because its API is horrible. But it's feature-rich, it's fast, it's community is large - which means lots of support and third-party libraries and it can technically be optimized and scaled. Facebook is a great example of that, and Mark Zuckerburg is a genius entrepreneur (and, from what I hear, somewhat of a douchebag as well as a meh programmer).

there are competitions thats feature rich too, thats not the point, can express any language with features. the point on PHP is, that the "features" are horrible classified, without php.net u are unable to track any function, there are no namespaces (ok there are, but not like i want them, i still have to import my files, the current used namespace seems to be useless in most cases), there arent similar name conventions. (look at the array functions, they arent named "array_*" all, but almost lol.)
there are even constants that are still totaly messed up. the problem of PHP is the team doesnt care optimizations of their libs, they are prolly working on it without even holding (online) team meetings, thats ridiculous. (looks like every developer does his shit how he wants it on PHP, without any right general direction)

now u tell me PHP ist fast? by loading all existing libs of the php team in runtime automatically, its not for sure (but's neither slow to be fair).
then, this language isnt able to compile. i.e. ASP.net is a way faster (except for the first compiling).
mightful third part libraries are fine and ok, but the shit will never end by working with PHP, its not even able to debug in a detailed case. i wonder how mark finished his project without freaking out.

dont get me wrong, i dont say PHP is the worsest ever u shouldnt program, everybody is free to do how he feels like. i myself have to give a big thanks to PHP, cuz without PHP i never found out programming is so much fun, it gave me the right direction in my life. but after 2 years of noob programming and finally learning professional programming with professional layers'n'models, i would rather stop programming than returning back to PHP.

srsly ...

if ("456" == 456) { echo "fuck you php!"; }
if (strpos("Hallo", 'H') == FALSE) { echo "fuck this shit!"; }
...
the problem isnt we lack of third libs, never, never. the problem is how php is ...
- full of surprises
- inconsistent
- no boilerplates
- flacky
- opaque

my fav article about php: PHP: a fractal of bad design - fuzzy notepad
thx to you RZ for giving me this link few months ago, it helped me to stop clip on PHP like an insane bish.


sincerely, VibeTribe

[TimeBomb]

snip

I've been forced to deal with ASP.NET a couple times (Specifically DotNetNuke; terribly slow), and have found it to be noticeably slower than the majority of other PHP applications I've dealt with. That being said, the speed of a language obviously depends not only on the structure and overall quality of the code, but also on the server setup; you can make almost any website blazing fast with enough setup and resources.

PHP is poorly designed, I probably know this better than most people on this forum. I personally overcome that primarily via building and using components to be used when building applications. Similar to the idea of a framework but more of a toolkit or library than a framework. Doing this means you deal directly with PHP's API less while making PHP applications that much more predictable, usable, and so on.

That being said, from a programming point of view, PHP's API has a painful amount of flaws. I've participated in a bit of PHP's internal discussion - primarily about PHP 5.5, but had to stop. The language's API really is too far gone. Nevertheless, from a business point of view, PHP is still a very usable, viable language for even enterprise-level applications.