To PHP from .net?

[JustCurious]

We have a .net site about sport events with special dynamic content custom apps.
They are for player's score submission, score elaboration and individual stats, leaderboard and ranking outputting.
Developers created a custom CMS and custom graphics, no skins system. Other pages are usual static website pages.
The admin panel is very limited, quite raw, and often unreliable.

We absolutely need to have full control of appearance and graphics.
Since we plan to add soon new features to the site (more events, social network, e-commerce) we are at crossroad.

As it is, the existing .net site has too much appearance and graphics restrictions, we need to separate UI and graphics from implementation, and we need an easier and more effective admin panel.
We'd need something like WordPress dashboard and its many graphics options (themes), with the capability to manage dynamic content and to keep the existing dynamic work done so far by .net developers.

So we're considering to move to PHP and WordPress for appearance control options and for ease of use.

Could WordPress be fit enough to do this job? Could be a nice move to go to PHP?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[Michael_Morris1]

I would suggest auditing Drupal and Joomla as well to see if they are as (or more suited) to your needs.

[JustCurious]

Thanks Michael.

Could you please share frankly your opinion about this topic?

I'm here to learn from you guys......

[praetor]

The .net application was badly developed, the problem isn't .net itself. If you already have .net hosting you could use the Orchard CMS which is let's say a drupal for .net , open source and all. If you really want a php based solution, then depending on the requierements wordpress could be enough or you might need a 'real' cms or a customized solution (this seems to be the case if want to add so many different things from e commerce to social networking).

However in all the cases you'll need someone skilled with that particular cms or code. Regarding the platform, php or .net don't matter much, horrible code can be (and it is) written on both. It all comes down to cost in the end, but a good developer is expensive no matter the platform.

[JustCurious]

praetor,
we were considering WordPress/PHP mostly for the many appearance options and ease of use.
And we wanted to be finally able to change the..... site's header or background color without asking the developer to do that.

Right now almost everything has to be done only by the developer.

What I need to know now about WP is if it will be able to handle the dynamic content, exactly: player's scores submission, score elaboration and individual stats, leaderboard and ranking outputting.
And also if porting existing .net code for these functions can be possible.

Thanks

[praetor]

WP is a blog engine/ light cms , yes it allows appearance customization and you can update the content yourself. But if you want players to submit socres and all that stuff, you'd require at least a special plugin for that. In fact it doesn;t matter if youre using WP, or other cms, you'll need someone to develop a plugin specifically for your needs.

Existing .net code seems very bad , I wouldn't port it anywhere (ok maybe some bits, but you'd still need the plumbing to make them work). Even if you'd use a .net cms or a customized .net application it won't work just copy/pasting the code. As for php,well it uses a different programming language, teh code will have to be written specifically in php and again, just a simple 'translation' from vb.net (or c#) to php doesn't work.

[JustCurious]

praetor,
to be honest at the beginning the main concern was to translate in code my partner's brilliant idea: based on a single data of the score, he created an algorithm able to output all the main stats of the player for this sport.
And I have to admit that as for this task the developer has done a good job, it wasn't easy.
No focus on appearance, UI, admin panel was put at that moment, 2 years ago.
I joined him only few months ago.

[praetor]

Sadly, the web application you want is more than a single algorithm and someone has to take care of the 'boring' details as well.

[logic_earth]

To me this sounds more like...The starter in the car is broken, lets replace the whole engine! Far more expensive and time consuming replacing the whole engine then just replacing the starter.

[system]