Mystify Soccer - New site build

New site build

I've just seen that I haven't done a single news article at all this year! 

I have been working a lot on the game in terms of little tweaks quite regularly, but the main work I have been doing is a complete new site build.

There are a couple of reasons for this, which may mean very little to the majority of you. One is that the site is built using, what is now, a very old framework (over 10 years, which is a long time in technology terms). This means that it isn't as flexible with modern devices as it should be, and also is starting to require more and more 'sticking plasters' to keep it running as well as I'd like. I did try to upgrade it to the latest version of the same framework but, partly due to reason number 2, it started to become a thankless task and I reverted it all.

Reason number 2 is the fact that modern applications now work very differently to how I built most of this in terms of data. Therefore, I needed to change the system to have a separate data service that the site can interact with. I had been doing this with any new features over the last few years anyway, but anything built originally is still working with a merged web and data layer. So it's a bit of a mix and needs standardising - if only for my own sanity!

There is a 3rd reason in the fact it is good practice for my day job, but you'll care even less about that.

So a new site is underway which, once complete, will mean a complete decoupling of site and data. In theory, this means that anybody can build applications to link to the data (not just I) and the data layer will make sure all data is correct at all times. Plus, any future site re-builds by myself will also mean it's just the site and not anything to do with data management. 

It basically makes things much simpler for me and enables me to make other changes far easier.

I appreciate the current site was also built to move forward with technology - and it did - but people keep changing technology........

Anyway, that is the big job I'm currently on with. I still have an awful lot to do, but it is progressing pretty regularly in the background. I'm also attempting to make it multi-language, so we'll see how that goes.