I design and redesign a lot of systems and databases for different organizations and companies. Planning usually starts with listening to the organization’s people, then I usually map out the database and optimize its design so it’s an efficient part of the overall system within the organization. This leads to more stable systems, less down-time, and less time wasted later. The savings compound while the rewards exponentially increase.
When it comes to PHP web development, e-commerce and software programming, I’m usually considered a Business Systems Architect first. I’m the guy that charts everything out and asks a lot of questions. Experience has told me that without a good system design, it’s going to be a bumpy road rewriting code, accommodating design flaws, or having to make changes midstream.
Serious web companies need to invest in migrating to PHP frameworks and DBALs
If your company has grown and you’re at a point where you feel your systems are too flimsy or problematic to handle future growth, you need to anticipate the bigger you become, the bigger your problems will become unless you modernize.
I urge you to learn about DBAL/ORM here and if you stumbled on this post, I highly recommend considering using a PHP framework like Symfony and a DBAL called Doctrine if you are planning to modernize to a future-compatible system that requires it to be scalable and if your system will be subjected to a collaborative web development team. A one-person web development team could also benefit, but the benefits that your team can work with ready-to-go tools to help them stay on the same page, that’s an investment that will always pay off if you have the right developers with the right skills and motivation.
These systems are worth the effort to learn and migrate to, they both add an extra layer of efficiency and scalability.
How? The framework maximizes efficiency by allowing teams to work from a standard, structured base and getting the most out of stable and reusable code while the DBAL uncouples your code from your database system to allow you to scale and even change your database later without worrying about modifying much, if any code later! Not to mention the DBAL caches and manages the database automatically to maximize execution time while minimizing server resource loads.
Modernizing your company to a PHP framework that utilizes a database ORM/DBAL will ensure your future web talent can assimilate as efficiently as possible. Migrating to a more structured platform is also a form of asset protection for your digital properties.
More ROI for your business
See it as an investment that will produce ever-increasing dividends in efficiencies and better, more effective code for your business in the future.
Establishing a better collaborative web development environment is, in itself, one of those assets that will compound future rewards and create new technological opportunities for your company that would not have been possible if your team was stuck in the “spaghetti code” nightmares where your web development team would have to spend a majority of its time repairing and duct-taping a misconceived contrivance of cowboy-coded gobbley gook and perpetually keep the Frankenstein “unsystem” alive for the sake of being busy. For someone who enjoys writing code to be creative and create innovative new solutions that can help people or advance an organization’s cause, this would be my version of hell.
If your organization is growing and you think you need to redesign your systems, please call Aaron at (904) 294-0803. I’d love to hear from non-profits like the Dolly Parton Imagination Library or the Wounded Warrior Project these are non-profits I truly admire and welcome doing volunteer work for them. I believe I could help these non-profits save money, streamline and maximize their web assets. If you are a luxury retail jewelry store, I have special experience migrating legacy inventory product data to Magento and launching new Magento eCommerce sites and can refer you to a network of capable, competent and trustworthy web developers to help you grow your online jewelry presence, like what I did for Riddle’s Jewelry.
Aaron Belchamber
PHP Developer, Business Analyst, Marketing Director
AaronBelchamber.com