Author Archives: alankent
Dear Magento Community – Thank You!
Coming from Australia a few years back, I know Thanks Giving is an American thing. I also know Magento is a truly international product. But it seemed a good time to say a quick “thank you” to the community for all the feedback and support so far. I am relatively new to Magento compared to many (around a […]
Magento 2 Roadmap Through to GA
Wondering what is coming for Magento 2 through to GA? Here is a high level (unofficial) summary. Disclaimer: This blog does not constitute official communication and does not necessarily reflect that of my employer. And even if this was official, the plan would be subject to change without notice. We are using Agile after all! […]
Is It Useful to Categorize Modules?
Is it useful to categorize modules? Would it make Magento easier to understand? I have been working with the tech writers recently on the Magento 2 documentation and how to get concepts across in the clearest way possible which got me thinking about how to describe modules in a better way than a flat list […]
Want to Help Remove Modules from Magento 2? (Quick Note)
“I secretly wish Magento dropped the newsletter functionality entirely. It’s misleading merchants to think its suitable for email marketing” – Ashley Schroder @aschroder. Ok, so let’s ignore the bit about publicly tweeting a secret wish (!!) and talk about how this can be achieved. But before I do so, another relevant tweet in response. “Have suggested that […]
Reporting Magento 2 Issues (Quick Note)
“If I’d known a simple message was all that was needed, I would have done this myself” was a recent comment on GitHub. (I had copied the content of some tweets into GitHub. And yes, it was an issue we needed to dig into.) So just to make it clear. If you find a bug and […]
Is PHPNG vs HHVM the Right First Question? (Quick Note)
I am the first to admit I am not a PHP expert. I don’t have the same depth of PHP knowledge and experience than many others do. There has been a lot of discussion about PHPNG vs HHVM and which is faster. As I see it PHPNG is not here yet, so until then its interesting […]
Magento 2 Service Contract Patterns
As we continue to work on the services in Magento 2, patterns are emerging. This post describes a few such patterns. These patterns are going to be released on GitHub progressively over the next few weeks as code gets completed. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent any commitment on […]
Performance versus Scalability (Quick Note)
A frequent source of confusion I come across is the difference between performance and scalability. They are related, but not the same thing. Performance is speed – for example, how fast does a web page come up for a user in a web browser. Scalability is about how much load you can throw at a site […]
Magento Installation Process Thoughts
The Magento team has been looking at the best way to build and then update sites for Magento 2. The team has committed to using Composer where each module, theme, and language pack will be a Composer package. There were and are some interesting challenges. I thought others might find these interesting as well. Now […]
Magento on Docker on GitHub (Quick Note)
In case anyone is interested, I am kicking off an effort on defining a series of Docker images and topologies for use with Magento (https://github.com/alankent/magento-on-docker). This is intended for Magento 1 and Magento 2, and hopefully a useful resource for anyone looking at using Docker to deploy Magento. I anticipate this project proceeding as follows: Spend […]
Alan Kent's Blog 