Some designers charge far too much , and do very little other than buy a template strip it out and add a few new items to make it look all diffrent

Fantastic article!!

For other usage its – waste of time and money.

* Try to not emply one of the checkout stages -> impossible

* Try to use the datagrids in a different project -> impossible

* Try to disable the banners left and right, as well as product compare and wishlist -> 6 hours down the toilet.

* Try to make a new checkoutmodule for a specific payment provider? -> impossible (it took my payment provider 8 month to come up with a plugin after they started development)

* Change 4 small things in a template -> you will change directories at least 80 times!

* Try to have a bikini with 10 options that all have stocktracking -> impossible to maintain.

-> Impossible means not undoable but not at all practical.

Yes I do have a lot of experience zend certified and have implemented 10 custom stores with at least 200 products each.

There is some russian in this cartsystem.

I believe that Magento does offer a lot of very good features but not necessarily flexibility. I have often found it very difficult to make “quick changes” in Magento including very simple things such as layout and text changes.

Once a developer has got used to the system they will no doubt be quicker than when they had first looked at the system. However I do see that there is a limit to how quick things can be with Magento – when adding features there are often many things to consider including xml files, using correct case for models/controllers etc. and even creating redundant files to adhere to the system architecture.

There are also issues with debugging and fixing – quite often a developer will delve into the database or just output a few variables to see what is going on. Because of the deeply nested class and inheritance structure it is often extremely difficult to “step through” the code to figure out where the problem code is.

The database is equally as complex which has taken away the ability to explore it to find/fix problems.

No matter how much experience you have with Magento I believe that is still quicker and more cost effective to work with other open-source eCommerce solutions.

I do not recommend Magento for use in a business for the following reasons:
* The majority of developers will need to start from scratch to understand the system
* If a developer leaves, it is a big job finding someone else and training them up
* Skills with Magento are generally non-transferable meaning developers are not gaining as much experience as they could do with other systems. This also means a smaller pool of talent for you to choose from.
* Developing with Magento will always be slower than developing with other less bloated systems

I hope that helps and if you need any more advice let me know.

Thanks for your point of view on Magento. I’d like to hear your opinion on something:

You stated Magento is bad in reaching its goals as it does not allow the community and developers to easily get used to it. On the other side, you seemed to make the impression on me that you still think that the complexity of Magento allows for a lot of flexibility once you know how it all works together. Or did I misunderstand?

Now at first, the complexity and steep learning curve seems to be a disadvantage for any business since the development costs for the launch increase. However, what if you as a developer get used to the code and are then able to quickly implement changes? Would you be able to implement these changes in a more timely fashion than if you had to work on any other open-source ecommerce solution?

If you were, this would most likely be a greater business advantage and could make up for the initial development costs. I ‘d like to hear your take on that. Thanks.

I understood exactly what you meant when there was no “clear flow”

Call me old skool, but I like editing one piece of video next to other to build a clean storyline… I don’t care if the technology is non-linear… the story still has to be followed in a straight line…

Seperate your data and you logic… sure… but why abstract your logic from the game plan?

Kind of joking… but not really… I will think twice about starting a new life long career as a magento “employee”…