The Glass is Too Big - Home

Several people have written me privately to ask whether PHUI is a good idea. First, I've never done much judging of "good" or "bad" until I've judged whether something works. Now that it does (and the files will be showing up on PHPGeek.com when their usable by others), the question of good and bad does enter more into the equation.

Here's my basic take on it. For me, a tool's value is determined by whether it helps me accomplish a goal or not. In the case of evaluating languages and things like using PHP on the commandline or even something like PHUI, if they further my goals faster and better than anything else, they come up as good ideas. I've seen it over and over that someone looks over my shoulder at one of my Frankenstein creations that I've built to help me work better and asks, "Where did you get that? That looks useful." Note at this point that the observer is impressed and, based entirely on functionality thinks the application is a good idea. However, in a startling number of cases, when I say that I wrote it and follow that up by saying I wrote it in PHP/Javascript/other heretical language/method, I hear, "Well, if you had written it in J2EE Java, it would be more scalable/powerful, etc.". The thing is that when I ask them how long it would take to do it "right" and make it a "good" idea, they invariably give me a time thats 2-10X slower to get built and often 10X as long as the task that the software replaces takes.

In short, unless another tool that lets *me* get it done more quickly or better functionality, it isn't a better tool or solution. I know and like PHP and I've worked with Javascript forever. PHUI combines the 2 and gives me a tool to build quick GUI apps without needing VB/C++ or even GTK, meaning no other tools and, for me, no context switching and learning curve.

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