[horde] Introduction

[mdean at kcnet.com]

> Could you explain what you mean be object factory? I haven't had a chance to 
> puzzle out what it means in the context of phpGW yet. I'm familiar with the 
> Factory and Abstract Factory design patterns, which Horde makes heavy use of -
 
> is that it?

It may be.  The object factory takes care of including the proper class file 
and returning a new instance of an object.  It also prevents multiple 
inclusions of the file by tracking what has already been included.  This is 
very similar to some aspects of COM development.  An example:

$obj = CreateObject("boWorkorders"); // include file, get object
$obj->SomeMethod(); // Use it

> Are you set on php3 compatibility as well? If not, I'd suggest looking into 
> PEAR's DB:: layer; it's quite good in my experience, and supports a mysql, 
> mssql, msql, oracle, odbc, etc...

>From what I know, quite a few users still use PHP3, so I maintain backwards 
compatibility.  I run PHP4 myself for dev and production.  I wrote my own layer 
to deal with SQL specific issues, and I'm not aware if PEAR solves them 
(getting current timestamp, date/char casting, limit, etc).  Really moot since 
it's a PHP4 thing.

> Well, we're certainly still looking for a decent seed for WHUPS - the cvs 
> viewer has grown into its own module now (Chora), but we'll still use the 
Horde 
> inter-app stuff to link them together if desired. Right now there's little 
> activity on WHUPS, but if someone stepped forward to work on it, I have a 
> feeling a number of us would be very happy to jump in and help.
> 
> That said, I'm a little unclear what you have in mind in terms of 
> collaboration, and what it is that _you_ are looking to get from _us_. =) 
Care 
> to elaborate a bit?

What I am trying to accomplish is getting DCL's planned features in place.  
What I am looking for is possible interest in combining development effort, but 
I am not sure if this fits into your scheme of things.  I'm just putting out a 
feeler to see if there's any interest in pursuing this...if not, that's fine.  
Could you expound on your plan for WHUPS?

Mike