Using a framework can prevent this to some degree by offering you a certain structure, but in the end it is up to the developers whether the code ends in a mess… However, it definitely decreases the learning curve for users (developers) who already know the framework.

And yes, a well-known application could be a good promoter of the framework itself.

Anyway, I am looking forward to your wiki application :)

Moreover if an application based on the framework is well know it full urge many other developpers to have a look at the framework.

Hence it is something which has to be realized by some community members with a need for such an installer infrastructure…

I’m personnaly very interrested in writing a wiki with a wikka like syntax)
The IBM tutorial http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/os-dw-os-php-wiki1.html
Create an interactive production wiki using PHP seems to be a good starting point for this !

if you don’t provide a convenient installation method the project wouldn’t be available for the mass users.

Yes, table prefixes are a problem when using plain SQL. However, I think in the meantime this problem has been solved with the introduction of the schema concept, which allows you to specify the tables with PHP (and I assume it takes the table prefix in account when it translates those settings to SQL).

I don’t think there should be support for installation methods in the core framework because only a minority of applications would benefit from it. And so far no solution emerged from the community, which could mean nobody is interested in it, or that it is not that easy to write a generic solution…

Your are trying to execute a SQL script inside the php code… but your SQL script contains informations such as table prefix when you are building tables… but this kind of information could be modified by user… (it would be a very bad idea to have to change both app/config/database.php and the SQL script)

So the solution could be to have a SQL script with variables instead of table prefix (and database name)

Unfortunately I don’t know how to do this.

I like CakePHP very much but I really think that a well suported installation method for application which are build with CakePHP should be supported

Two kinds of installations should be supported

- the first one, modifying manually app/config/database.php , executing a SQL script (with database name and table prefix as variable), and executing other PHP code for post install

- a second one with a form that user could fill in.

As I described in the article, I think you can expect a user will be able to modify database.php manually if you describe it in the installation instructions.

Another option is, as you mention, to write an installation script. Either as a php script independent of cakephp, or as a cake shell script.

Hope that helps!