The Advantages of Magento’s Modularity
One of Magento’s major advantages over other systems is its modularity. It manifests itself in the form of the following benefits in the case of implementations of this platform:
1. First of all, we have three layers: core, community and local, which overwrite the data in the given order, i.e. we can, for example, change the core functionality of Magento but without overwriting files, in practice it can be done by copying files for instance from core to local and there to make programming changes, thanks to which we are sure that in the case of updates we do not lose any changes. Our basic integration modules will be located in the community layer so that in the case of “temporary actions” (such as a temporary promotion that changes a certain logic) you can overwrite our module in the local layer, and afterward delete the overwrite to return to the original version without conflict.
2. As far as new functionalities are concerned, we solve everything modularly, if we add functionality to a product such as saving to PDF, files to download, etc. a separate module will be responsible for each item. This is important because, in case of a conflict in one place, it is enough to disable the module so that the remaining functionality is stable and you can solve the problem on the development server, the lack of the possibility of writing to PDF will not be a problem for the user on the product card.
3. Related to the above, but independent – Magento for almost all activities (and certainly for all basic actions such as saving the model, or including the action in the controller) has an extensive system of events for observers. This is important because any modules can work with others without interfering with their code. Therefore, there is no situation in which the programmer is forced to modify the basic logic of the individual elements to add their code.
4. Magento uses an extensive version of the MVC template, so we separate the logic of the application from the view or the receipt of data, hence changes in the view will not affect, for example, logic and are easier to implement. An additional benefit is the use of mini-controllers, so-called blocks. These blocks can be used anywhere and have their own logic, so their development is flexible and independent of what is happening in the other blocks. Of course, these blocks are not limited, so they have capabilities like the main controller.
5. Magento as an instance – Mage.php as a pure class allows you to take advantage of all its benefits without switching on the entire system with the MVC layer. This is extremely useful, for example, with workers who will be constantly working in the background and must be as optimal as possible. Thanks to the use of this, we do not need to write certain elements from scratch (as it often happens with workers), only we can use, for example, the product model during the background update.
6. Despite the modularity, Magento has an advanced compilation system (gathering only used classes to one place) and an extensive cache system. The Magento compilation combined with accelerators such as OPcache (compiling and caching PHP scripts) makes Magento work just as fast as much less extensive systems, and at the same time is more stable. In addition to Magento, you can use any key-value system such as Redis.
