Quick questions Max Milbers

Hi Max, can you tell us about your self and your role in the Virtuemart project?

I am 33 years old, married and have a little daugther and live in Dresden. Actually I studied engineering design and started developing for the Fraunhofer Institut as student assistent proving the concept of GPGPU. Later I wrote a program in java for calculation of screws and bolts. Due the economy crysis 2008 I lost my marketing partner and needed an online shop. I started to setup pages in joomla and so I came to Virtuemart.

My role was at begin just a developer who needed an online store to sell his goods. I was the only one working on the new version (vm1.2) and became dissapointed by the rest of the leading team. There was no programmer leading anymore. So some other team members and me started a fork JMart to have the possibility to rewrite the code as we programmers think it should be. After some months Sören, the former leader, asked us to takeover the lead of virtuemart. We accepted the offer and so I became a project leader of virtuemart. My main interest was in this time to develop Virtuemart 1.5, which is now released as Virtuemart 2.

My role as project leader means now, that I give the direction and coordinate all subteams development, forum, marketing, infrastructure, presentation, and schooling. On the other side I am a kind of utility man supporting the team members so that they can do their work and when no one is available doing it myself. I also found with some team members a company for virtuemart, so that the project gets a better fundament for a stable and steady development.

Virtuemart 2 RC has been released, what is the major differences from Virtuemart 1.1.x?

There are some big main differences and it is hard to say wich has the most impact. From programmers point the biggest difference is that we use the coding patterns and the framework of Joomla. Virtuemart 2 needs php5 and so we could write the code object orientated. This means for coders that virtuemart is not an own world anylonger. They can use their knowledge of the joomla framework and write standard Joomla plugins for virtuemart. Also for newcomers it is a lot easier due the use of known patterns and the object orientated programming. This means for endusers, that there will be a lot more plugins, modules and extensions in general. Also the custom development will be cheaper, faster and easier.

People who configure and install shops for endusers will like the use of the joomla template system, the override possibilities and the various methods to adjust virtuemart with own plugins and even own views. They can now use  a lot easier the joomla structure to organize the shop.

If you are an end-user that have been working with Virtuemart 1, what is the immediate reaction when you start using Virtuemart 2?

When the enduser is a shopowner he will be stunned first by the new calculation system. The new calculation system is rule based which can be applied on different criterias like category, shoppergroup, delivery country/state, and so on. It will be also extendable by plugins. The next really new thing are the new customfields, which allow a very high flexibility. It is possible to create with them the computer configurator working with inventory. Also in combination with the new abstract products, they allow the creation of product patterns. Also interesting for a global shop is the real multicurrency concept of Virtuemart 2.

The normal shopper of VM2 will notice the lovely checkout, useable without any steps and completly anonym. He will like the different templates used by different categories and of course the speed of the page.

Can you describe the road of development from the 1-series to Virtuemart 2?

Oh this is really a long story. We started Virtuemart 2 as a rewrite of VM1.2. But in endeffect we had to rewrite all. So Virtuemart 2 is now like almost written from scratch. We had the problem at the begin that a lot developers did not really understand the whole concept of OOP and were used to write quick and dirty. This leaded to some conflicts and they left the team. This discussions took a lot of energy and time and of course this people try to tell you that you do everything wrong and that you are too unexperienced. But after visiting a workshop about nooku by johann at j and beyond in Kerkrade, I felt confirmed that my way of writing virtuemart is the right one. After that I decided to write virtuemart in direction of nooku conventions. We were able to reduce the code again by 10%, but with more and improved features. Joomla 1.6 is a big problem, because it needed adjustmens for every subversion. There are also some obstacles here and there. Small exampel, there is no joomla native method to know if you are running on j1.5 series or higher, we had to add our own methods. So we are at the moment not really lucky with j1.6 and personally I dont think that strictly time based release cycles are a good thing.

Whats in the pipe for Virtuemart during the second part of 2011?

The final version next month, plugins for downloadables, a shop on virtuemart.net, schooling, a ticket/subscription system for paid support and a bit more.