Bridge or solid integration?

[James]

So there's a lot of discussions lately about bridging/integrating third-party software. I'm just wondering:
Would you prefer a bridge to multiple third-party software or one solid integration of one third-party software?

I personally would prefer a bridge to other software. I figure, let the forum developers do what they do best and let the third-party application developers do what they do best. The end result? Two "best" applications with a bridge between them

 

[Alpha1]

So far I haven't seen successful bridges. Fragmented functionality sucks IMO and adds unneeded learning curve.

 

[JVCode]

Depends what CMS they choose to integrate.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

I don't think xenforo should become cumbersome'd with worrying about bridges into third party products, as that is what third party developers worry about. Doing this type of thing then commits them to constantly upgrade and support a third party products evolution, let alone to think about the backwards version specifics, then mod conflict issues people will raise, etc. I don't see xenforo getting involved in it, and if they do, I think they are committing into something they shouldn't be... which as a prospective future license holder, I would want for my money the developers working on this product to better it as a standalone solution, not having to constantly support or update mods that integrate third party products.

 

[Caliburn]

Solid integration w/ Wordpress 3.0+

I'm hoping that once XenForo becomes public, that somebody does this. Otherwise, I am going to have to hire a developer to do this for me.

 

[AlexT]

Deleted

 

[Dismounted]

Bridge. Make a light-weight API to provide the necessary access to user data and posts information. With this API we should be able to avoid loading the complete backend of XF and only load the stuff that's really necessary for the integration (perhaps parameters can decide what is to be loaded).

Counter example: With VB, it's quite common for a bridge to load the complete VB backend through require_once('path_to_vb/global.php');. This is not efficient and certainly adds additional burden to the hardware; essentially you are loading two separated pieces of software (for instance Wordpress and vBulletin) for every single page that is being the integrated.

And this depends on how loosely coupled the software is (and I'm willing to bet XF is relatively loose, partly due to MVC principles). Taking your example with vBulletin: it is very tightly coupled in that one thing could not run without another; that dependency relies on another, etc. and eventually you might as well load the whole system.

 

[Shamil]

As the product is in its early stages, I support a full integration.

 

[AlexT]

Deleted.

 

[Tigratrus]

So far I haven't seen successful bridges. Fragmented functionality sucks IMO and adds unneeded learning curve.

Actually there's an awesome multi-product bridge for J! called jFusion. The idea behind it is that jFusion abstracts out all the bridge type functionality, and the developer just needs to build a plugin to handle the specifics of their software's authentication etc. There are plugins for vB, Magento, SMF, PHPBB, Moodle, MyBB etc.

They have pretty extensive resources for developers available and will actively help develop new plugins though they won't do it all by themselves (for obvious reasons). Alan over there has done a LOT of work on the vB plugin so that it handles forum activity modules in J! a discussion bot so that articles spawn a new thread in a designated forum that essentially makes vB the comment system for the article. They also have a visual integration IIRC, though we never used it because it would alter our VBSE URLs and we lose all our SERPs. I understand that the next gen of the system is supposed to do away with the urls changing when the visual integration is invoked.

It's also single sign in, single sign out. Totally transparent to our members.

I'm sure Mike or Kier could bang out a basic jFusion plugin in near record time, adding all the bells and whistles would probably take longer. I'd really love to see a deep integration with WP though as I'd be interested in putting pure WP 3.x at the system root and using J! as infrastructure and for it's extensions (directories, reviews etc). not to mention the RAD DB GUI that is Fabrik.

 

[Brent W]

Solid integration with Wordpress 3.0.

 

[MilesDB]

I support solid integration. It's better to leave bridges to third-party providers. XenForo should not worry about what direction WP takes and keep aligning itself, etc. I read somewhere here or at vBulletin forum that WP code is crappy. I think Mert said that.

 

[Tigratrus]

Solid integration with Wordpress 3.0.

Yikes! Ban him! Quick, before he... Err says he doesn't like where vB went post IB... Umm...
NVM!

Welcome BSG! Maybe we should have a poll for which CMS integration is most wanted? I'm guessing WP 3.x would win hands down. I know I'd vote for it .

 

[MilesDB]

Maybe we should have a poll for which CMS integration is most wanted?

That's what I was thinking too. Maybe Peggy or Lawrence can edit this thread to include a poll.

 

[Peggy]

.... as a prospective future license holder, I would want for my money the developers working on this product to better it as a standalone solution, not having to constantly support or update mods that integrate third party products.

I could not agree more.

 

[Peggy]

Yikes! Ban him! Quick, before he... Err says he doesn't like where vB went post IB... Umm...
NVM!

Welcome BSG! Maybe we should have a poll for which CMS integration is most wanted? I'm guessing WP 3.x would win hands down. I know I'd vote for it .

That's what I was thinking too. Maybe Peggy or Lawrence can edit this thread to include a poll.

I think this would be better in a new thread, don't you?

 

[MilesDB]

I think this would be better in a new thread, don't you?

Replies here are in their first page. I'd turn this one to a poll. But maybe you are right. I don't always see things clearly.

 

[Peggy]

Well, James was asking about all third-party software, not specifically about a CMS.
So that's why I think that this should be a new thread.