Technologies
We appreciate the strengths and weaknesses that each platform has to offer and we make technology decisions according to the long term objectives of the client and the project.
Extro Interactive is platform agnostic. We appreciate the strengths and weaknesses that each platform has to offer and make technology decisions according to the long term objectives of the client and the project.
At the same time, we have developed a depth of experience in some leading platforms and technologies, such as LAMP/WAMP, Flash/Actionscript/Flex, Microsoft Windows Server with .Net framework. When these technologies prove suitable for the task at hand, we lean towards them and our existing products and processes to leverage our expertise.
Here are a few questions that come up from time to time regarding our approach to technology:
Why do you have a preference for Open Source Software? (e.g. PHP, Apache, MySQL)
PHP is also an ideal choice for web-focused software where integration with many different platforms and systems is an ever-present theme. PHP is officially supported and endorsed by key players such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and many others. An Open Source approach also allows us to avoid platform and vendor lock-in and the associated costs and restrictions. Furthermore, PHP is an ideal choice for secondary websites and systems, (e.g. blogs, microsites, wiki, help-desk, etc), where the massive PHP community offers ready-made best-of-breed open source solutions. PHP is sometimes underestimated - it is capable of powering extremely high availability systems. (e.g. PHP powers the presentation layer of Facebook.com!)
MySQL is a solid, fast, and lightweight database engine. MySQL easily meets performance and scalability requirements, even with reasonably aggressive growth targets for new and existing projects. MySQL is also reported to reduce TCO of database infrastructure typically by around 90%. Our processes also offer streamlined migration paths to improved performance and stability of MySQL Enterprise, or others flavours such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
What is so great about CakePHP development framework?
CakePHP offers speed to market & flexibility without compromising software quality through MVC, ORM and extensive in-built support for common Web 2.0 challenges (such as AJAX components, vendor plugins, SOAP integration, etc). Despite the focus on speed to market, software quality is well addressed, with best practices supported in areas such as built-in automated testing, native use of MVC and ORM design patterns, etc.
CakePHP is also supported by an active and growing developer community.
Why do you sometimes prefer Windows Servers over of Linux Servers?
When we encounter extensive requirements for integration with Microsoft Office-based products and document types, at least a portion of our servers should be running Windows Server compatability. Given the platform independence of our web server and database software we benefit from greater simplicity and uniformity by running all our servers on the same server operating system (using WAMP - Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP), rather than supporting both Windows & Linux servers.
