Hi guys. My intention is not to make comparisons or discuss which
framework is better. I know the power from both CakePHP and Rails. I'm
sure that there's a way to do similar things in both of them.
So, this is the situation: in Rails framework, I'm used to do
somethings that I'd like to do on CakePHP (some of them I haven't
found on the documentation).
They are:
- Package management
In Rails, I have the "Gemfile" file, where I write the version of each
"gem" used in the application. If I want to upgrade or downgrade, I
change the version and run the "bundle update" command. How do you
update plugins? Do you use tools like GIT to checkout each one to
newer versions?
- Migrations
When I need to change the database, I create a empty "migration" file
through the console command "rails generate migration". Then, in the
generated file, I add the changes, like
"rename_column :users, :address, :location". After that, I run "rake
db:migrate" and the database is migrated. How to do that on CakePHP?
- Automated Deployment
Deployment in Rails can be made automated using the "Capistrano" ruby
gem. Basically, I run "cap production deploy" in the command line.
Then, based on the instructions on the "deploy.rb" file, it logs into
the server(s), clone the newest version of the code from the git
repository, and backups the current release, so I can rollback. It
also can create symlinks for "shared" folders (like user uploads),
recompile the assets, run pending migrations, install new
dependencies, restart some server processes, restart the application
itself, and can execute other command line tasks. Is there something
similar on CakePHP?
- Assets compression
In Rails, when I'm in production mode, the CSS and JS assets are
automatically compiled into single files, and regenerated after each
deployment. That's a native feature in Rails 3.1+. Is that possible on
CakePHP?
- Workers and Background Jobs
Rails can use a gem called "delayed_job" to enqueue tasks to be
executed in background by "workers", like sending an e-mail after user
signup, for example. How do you do that?
- Namespaces for controllers
If I want to create an admin interface, or a web service (using the
"api" namespace, for example), or a "mobile" namespace, I just create
the respective folders on the "controllers" folder. Then, I put the
controllers there and create the routes to access them. What's the
best way to do that on Cake?
- Access model methods from view
It seems that CakePHP return an associative array when I grab data
from the database, and not the true "objects". So, I can not access
the model methods.
Let's suppose my UserModel class provides a method called "age" that
calculates the user current age based on his birthday. In Rails, I
could do this on the view: <%= @user.age %>. I need to create a view
helper for doing that on Cake? Like <?php $helpers-
>calc_user_age($user); ?> (or something like that) ?
Another situation: Let's suppose I want to get the last comment from a
user, and within the comment, insert a link to the related post using
the post title.
In Rails I would do something like @user.comments.last.post.title to
get the post title. How could I do that in Cake, without using that
"recursive=3" feature that gets lots of unnecessary data?
- Chaining model scopes
Let's suppose I have a model called Post. In Rails, I can create
scopes on models and mix them the way I want.
If I want to the get the "5 last published posts from the category
Programming ordered by the most accessed", for example, I would call
them this way:
"Post.published.from_category("programming").most_accessed.limit(5)".
If I want only the draft posts ordered by recent, integrated with
pagination, I would call "Post.drafts.recent.page(2)".
What is the best way to create and chain scopes on CakePHP? Build
dynamically an array of conditions and send it as the parameter for
"find"?
- Tests
What are the testing tools adopted by the CakePHP community? I need to
test the models and its methods, test the controllers and its
responses and variables, and test the views content (also Javascript
interaction), create fixtures, etc. I also would know if there is a
way to create something like autotest, that run the tests after file
saves.
Well, basically these are the points. Sorry for the long post, and for
my error-prone and redundant english (i'm not a native speaker). Hope
we can have a good conversation. Thank you!
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