A Huge Application is Easy to Program

A huge application such as this forum is easy to create or at least close to cloning if you understand intermediate (typical usage) understanding of PHP and MySQL. You can make it look like this and make the features almost similar. The hardest part is the software engineering part - making at fast, secure, and reliable.

There, that is my opinion for the day. Anyone may feel free to disagree.

Well if you are making it just to run on your server, yeah not that hard. If you make something that can run on different OS'es, varied versions of PHP with different settings and sometimes with different database systems then its not easy. There are so many more things you need to consider when making things like that.

Then add to that security issues, stability of code and efficency and you then have something that an intermediate person can't do. That then requires proper knowledge of the language and how different versions operate. It also requires knowledge of things like ANSI SQL and making sure that the SQL works on different databases and doesn't use functions unique to a db. It also means that you dont rely of functions that only exist on one OS or platform.

Feeling Free to Disagree

yep

I forgot to add compatibility on the list

No, I think I'll agree. After all, just consider how one clones the various "large" applications that are out there today:

phpBB - collect yours, and all your freinds' bug and security fixes for the last year, then put them all together... unfixed.

Mozilla - Take someone else's old code, rename it. Rename it again when you find out the name can't be used. Then, rename it again when people start whining about something stupid like "But we're already USING that name!" Come back and say that the name was only a "codename" and you can't understand why everyone's fussing about it. Claim moral superiority. Actually ever looking at the code is totally optional.

Linux - Mix a whole lot of coffee and beer and IT'S ON MAN! IT'S ON!!!

WindowsME - this is the whole thousand monkeys, thousand years thing.....

MS Server 2003 - Take all your old code and remove everything that made it do anything, then hype up the security and speed improvements while downplaying the fact that it literally doesn't actually do anything.

MySQL - copy excel.exe && rename excel.exe mysql.exe

eMacs - Wait until the Linux guys are done, copy all their source code, then add syntax highlighting.

roflmao! Those last two have gotta be the most accurate

rofl @ ctb

You mean Acces? Excel is a spreadsheet.

Lol - I like this one:

But you can still add a little to that ->

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Come back and say that the name was only a "codename" and you can't understand why everyone's fussing about it.
<insert_into_paragraph>
Act like nothing was wrong in the first place and claim you knew it was only an internal codename 30 days before the documentation was changed.
</insert_into_paragraph>
Claim moral superiority.
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Thats right, Access is a database. Excel is a spreadsheet. MySQL is a glorified Spreadsheet.

Yes exactly, comon guys don't you read web sites properly:

"MySQL is the world's most popular open source glorified Spreadsheet, recognized for its speed and reliability. MySQL AB, the company founded by the creators of the MySQL glorified Spreadsheet based on the underated Excel Spreadsheet software, provides MySQL software development and related support and services." -- www.mysql.com