Developer News: Interview of Mage by ArabXOOPS Community

Posted by: marianeOn 2010/10/10 9:20:00 11668 reads
The Arabxoops Community was pleased to interview Mage in the monthly newsletters.
to meet this creative and modest person more and to benefit from his experience in XOOPS.
Below the english version of the interview :

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Who’s Mage?
My name is Gregory Mage, I am from Switzerland and I live in a small town near Geneva: Lully. I am 26 year old and I work in a watchmaking industry, I'm in charge of technical development of new models.

What got you to XOOPS?
I discovered XOOPS in 2006 by chance when I researched for a CMS for an association of climbing (http://www.sertec-escalade.org ) where I am active in. I’ve tried many CMS and XOOPS was the only one that fulfilled my requirements.
Starting with XOOPS has been difficult because I didn’t know PHP and CSS, I knew just the HTML, but after few months I just was able to make changes to modules and themes.

How did you get started in programming?
I have been programming since 2001. I have started with programming on ADA95, C and C++ during my study in the engineering School of Geneva.
Since 2008 I have been interesting by PHP and took some lessons to improve my knowledge and to be able to develop Xoops modules. I learned a lot from Venom, DuGris, Kraven30 and Muss.

What do you like the most about XOOPS?
It's hard to say ... I think I like everything in xoops. There are certainly many things to improve but overall Xoops is really good

What is the most interesting experience you have ever had from XOOPS:
I learned a lot in the module development, but TDMDownloads is my best exeperience because it was my first module. Now I'm learning daily new things in php during the development of new modules.

If you could add one feature to XOOPS, what would it be?
It lacks two very important things in xoops:
- The multi-language.
- URL rewriting.
Unfortunately today the multi-language does not function well and the URL rewriting is relatively complex to implement. I hope the next version of xoops will improve these 2 points.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?
I think my best module is TDMDownloads but I am not yet satisfied with its performance ... Actually, I work on other modules and I hope they will be better than TDMDownloads.

what about your experience in xoops 2.5 ?
Participating in the development of the new xoops core was a great experience for me because I learned a lot of things.
First I have improved my knowledge of PHP and XOOPS architecture.
Secondly I learned to know better Kraven30 and Muss.

In 2.5 I have coded the simplest things because I don't have yet the level of programming of Kraven30 or Muss. In fact, these two are really the ones who have made a lot of new development

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?
I like sports like badminton, walking and climbing (several times a week). And to be in the mountains

What wishes and advises would you have for the Arab XOOPS community ?
I wish this community to continue to grow because there is lot of potential in it. A big thanks to Mariane and Mowaffak for all their generous participations in XOOPS and Arabxoops community.