Processwire and the "aha!" moments...

[PhotoWebMax]

Hi All,

I have spent a decent amount of time over the last two days (starting yesterday on American Thanksgiving) rebuilding my main personal business photo site with Processwire. For now this project is still being developed on a local install of MAMP. I did not wake up yesterday with the intension of starting this project - but I just went for it...

Going back a few months: I discovered Processwire by accident. I was not really looking for a new CMS to replace my weapon of choice, namely MODx. Processwire seemed intriguing, but to be honest I had serious reservations in the beginning. After some initial tire kicking my conclusion was "this looks like a really interesting alternative, but this system is for advanced developer geeks with skills, it might never be the playground for you..." 

Initially my commitment to Processwire was an awkward stop and go experience. But I stuck with it. I asked some basic questions that just screamed "newbie alert" but the constructive and helpful responses were rewarding. I began to take notice and found that overall the Processwire Forum was simply first class.

I know my way around markup HTML, CSS and pushing pixels around. But I can't write scripting code like PHP to save my life. I thought this was going to be a deal breaker - but I stuck with it. 

Fast forward to today: I am amazed at how much I got done! I am taking an existing MODx site and converting/improving all the dynamic elements from MODx to Processwire. Along the way I am streamlining the markup, the CSS, the logic, while adding more efficient Processwire building blocks than I thought possible, all without needing to fire off "help me" requests to the Processwire forum. I am also improving my CSS skills and I am even beginning to feel less intimated with working with PHP code. 

I guess you could call this the Processwire "aha" moment. It just feels good! I am really enjoying working with this system. There is so much in the Processwire arena that is still a mirage in the sand, but I think that with time I will add more and more knowledge. 

I guess that is it. I really appreciate the help and encouragement from you all...

Cheers,

Max

[Peter Knight]

Hi All,

I did not wake up yesterday with the intension of starting this project - but I just went for it...

Max

This is called the ProcessWire tractor beam. You've been pulled into its path! You wake up one day and know you won't be happy until your own site is completely rebuilt in PW. Even though you don't have time, you have real work to do and your current site and CMS have been perfectly "ok". Before you know it your life is full of echo statements, you're visiting the forums multiple times per day and you can't sleep at 5am because you're crazy excited about the great thing PW allowed you to do with your site that you never thought possible.

Anyway, nice write up. Thanks for sharing

[pwired]

I am sure that many will recognize what you are writing there. You have a good writing style.

It has to do that working with processwire has a side effect: it pushes you into learning code.

You can ask yourself why processwire has this side effect. But if you think about it, it is because

processwire has no shell, no front (rules). You can bring together your own (any) html and css

and put it as a front on processwire. With processwire you can not avoid to see that paths,

values, functionality, etc, between the html tags are replaceable by php and api. So naturally

you are going to fiddle around to see what is all possible. This leads in a natural way to learn

coding, the side effect of pw. Of course, not every pw user will go the road of coding, that is

simply up to the user, but processwire puts a big temptation on you   

Having said this, everybody can already make nice websites with processwire with only a few

php scripts that you don't need to learn but simply save as snippets and re-use them in your

websites.