[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Much appreciated. You're under absolutely no obligation to go through with it. I understand it's a big ask.
I see what you mean, but I don't think I'm explaining myself properly. What I'd like to achieve, is a simple forum API that isn't hard to learn, and isn't too strict, much like CodeIgniter is. I think the key to this is structure and meaningful method names. Once I have that in the bag, I think the rest is self-explanatory. It's just that I've redesigned my database back-end now twice, and each time I've thrown it out thinking "this is just getting too complex!".
Vanilla is awesome. It's not MVC, and it's a bit hard to understand, but I really like the concept, although they seem to use objects for just about everything. I like that approach, as you can edit each object accordingly to make it behave differently. I like this idea, as it helps add a layer of protection to your application, as well as extra functionality. For example, say I have an object for a post, I could have $post->get_content() and $post->get_db_safe_content() or something like that. So then we have two methods on the same object, capable of passing back the content in different formats.
I'm still really confused. We've discussed so much, but I can't even remember whether you suggested that the models pass back objects, or accept objects etc... For example, I think get_post should pass back a post object, as it might need to be edited or something, but then again, is there even any need when you can just pass the text to an update method in the model, and just insert it without even having to initialise the object from the database.
I think everything has it's pros and cons. I think what would make a difference is if I used objects for the posts, but didn't actually have a save() method, but rather the object can be passed to the model, and the model can ascertain whether or not there are any problems using methods in that object (is_valid()) for example(?). This should help prevent incorrectly formatted data being inserted into the database.
Argh! So many thoughts now, I just don't know... (This one of my more annoying traits). I'm going to go back to checking out Vanilla and chilling before my head explodes...
