Re: standardization across apps?

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 00:14:06 -0500 taylor <taylor@justaddfire.com> wrote: > i might be crazy, but why don't the many CMS, forum, link directory, > etc packages integrate with a unified user manager? > is this possible? is there perhaps an xml standard for contact > datatypes that could be used? There is a system in PEAR that does that - and I think if they can really get it right - and get it widely used, it will be a killer tool - avoiding all the problems you say. XML is, I think, the wrong tool for this job though. As others have said, making better use of classes to package up applications, even if it means that a program is just a very thin layer that calls the class, would also be incredibly useful - if they just dump output to screen - or use one common template solution (like http://Smarty.php.net). then programmers (like me) could really take different systems and with some very simple configuration, they would just all work together, and without having to write inside a particular framework, like phpNuke or Horde. Alister