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An interview with Francisco Burzi
updated by rck, 2005-08-18

phpNuke is a well-known portal solution and the base of a lot of other open source CMS projects. Think about postNuke, phpWebSite or Xoops. I did an interview with Francisco Burzi, the man behind the phpNuke project.

Mr. Burzi tells about his family, his job, the future of phpNuke and his thoughts on theoretical aspects of content management systems.

Thanks to Robert Kennedy for proof-reading!

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Technology

What's more important to you & why: Performance or Maintainability?

Performance is a very important point directly proportional to the usability and this directly affects users/visitors of the system.

Maintainability is important for the developers. I think that both can go together without any problem, but obviously it requires a plan to reach the goal.

What's more important to you & why: Performance or Security?

Again both are important, but if there is a priority I'll select security over performance without any doubt.

What's more important to you & why: Security or ease of use?

Security in first place. Ease of use comes with a good design from the start, but the easy of use will be lost if the security is poor.

What's more important to you & why: Code reuse or specialisation?

Code reuse is great for a developer to make the development work easier, specialization is required for each part of the code to do specific actions, if there is a way to specialize with code reuse, that'll be nice, otherwise I'll select specialisation.

What's more important to you & why: Size of database or full information / logging?

Full information, if you're talking about registered users of the system I think that doesn't matter. Users should be able to introduce the information they want to give. They should not feel obligated/forced to give away to much information if the system really doesn't need it. The size of databases, with nowadays power on servers and the high capacity devices is something I don't think is tooimportant, but the idea is that the database grows in a decent manner without garbage information that isn't useful to anyone.

What's more important to you & why: Flat-files or Databases?

Database are great for large amount of data. Flat files are great for search engine indexation. Hard to say, both have pros and cons.

What's more important to you & why: Knowledge (think: Encarta) or Intelligence (figuring things out without knowledge)?

Intelligence brings knowledge.

What do you think about XHTML2? (note: it will introduce features like SECTION, H (without the number), L (new line), etc.)

Do not know too much about XHTML2 yet, if it becomes a standard on web browsers I'll adopt it on PHP-Nuke.

What do you think about XSLT?

Yet another attempt to yet another standard? We'll give its time, but I don't worry about it.

What's your choice and why: Smarty, XSLT or a self-made template engine?

Self-made engine. I can have more control over it.

What's your choice and why: PEAR, selfmade libraries or something else?

Self-made libraries. Anything else requires too much time to study and understand the use and at this point of code maturity, the libraries are already there.

Do you think that XML is the future?

No. I believe in the HTML evolution and maybe a combination of XML and HTML. But XML alone will stay for heavy data processes.

What do you think about alternatives to textarea (Wysiwyg editors, Textile, etc.)?

They are nice. PHP-Nuke adopted a Wysiwyg editor recently, but it requires attention for security issues. But is a definitive add on that should be included.

What do you think about Drag & Drop in Websites?

Useless. There is a running culture without the use of Drag & Drop and I don't think it's needed for websites.

What do you think about Ajax?

It's an interesting idea to combine Javascript, XML and CSS and I think it can have a "must see" future.

What do you think about User Tracking / Clickstream analysis?

I know it with other name, spyware. I don't believe in these intrusive techniques.

What do you think about cross-browser rendering? Do you do any cross-browser testing?

Sometimes, but since PHP-Nuke doesn't use complex CSS nor HTML to generate a page, most of the actual browsers are compatible. In the future, when PHP-Nuke starts using complex CSS, that will be another story and heavy cross-browser rendering tests should be made.

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RSSComments
The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
  • Thanks

    Posted on 2005-08-20 12:40:42 By Anonymous

    Thanks for this detailed informations! Hinrich

  • No Subject

    Posted on 2005-08-23 23:53:09 By Anonymous

    excellent interview!

  • Great Read!

    Posted on 2006-03-27 09:55:30 By Anonymous

    This interview with Francisco was an absolute pleasure to read, I'm an IT graduate from Australia just starting to look into the advantages of using CMS and portal systems. To get an insight into one of the early developers of a Portal system was fantastic ;)

    • Re: Great Read!

      Posted on 2006-03-27 16:47:14 By rck[110]

      Glad to hear that! Btw., I have a couple of years experience with CMSes, too. Maybe you'd like to start a discussion or two in my forums? I'd gladly join...

  • Great Read!

    Posted on 2006-04-03 20:59:26 By Anonymous

    Excellent Interview. Congratulations!!!

  • Burzi And Nuke

    Posted on 2006-08-09 18:33:10 By Anonymous

    I'm A TÜRK Webmaster Thank You Burzi php-nuke forever number one cms ;)

  • No Subject

    Posted on 2006-11-27 17:39:39 By Anonymous

    Someone needs to create an online or correspondence school for Nuke. Burzi says his programming is easy and in the community I'm a part of none of us fully understand it. Nuke technical help forums abound for a very good reason and even there, the pros can't figure out a lot of things. Nuke is the greatest but create a site with full definitions of variables and their uses and all entailed in programming Nuke, make money doing it, I know a million people that would pay.
    vive le Nuke.

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