International PHP Magazine: Poll: Which One of the Following Makes CodeIgniter the Best Framework?
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The International PHP Magazine has posted the results for this week's poll that asked which, of the options given, was what made the CodeIgniter framework the best.   There were only four options this time:   Saves Time and Code for Simple things Based on MVC pattern Easy to Extend Flexibility to create own libraries and helpers   Coming in in a close race for second and first were the "flexibility" and "saves time" options (with the first beating the other by less than 2 percent).   Be sure to check out and cast your vote in their latest poll posted this week that asks "What's the best way to do QA in PHP?"
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Perl has a wealth of good web frameworks. One of the season's toolkits, CGI::Application, has recently seen a bout of new development to make building web apps faster and much easier. Mark Stosberg demonstrates these new features and how to use them.
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As Chris Hartjes points out there's a new release of the popular PHP framework CakePHP (as well as a new web site design).   While speaking with nate last night via IM, he told me about the latest set of changes for CakePHP 1.2. There is simply just too much to mention, so I suggest heading on over to the brand-spanking-new CakePHP home page and checking out the changelog.   You can grab the latest download directly from the homepage or look into the manual to find out more about the framework and how it can be used.
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Richard Lord has posted some thoughts about why he likes one of his latest explorations - the Zend Framework - on his blog today.   I've been researching the Zend Framework for PHP in relation to a project I'm working on and I have to say I'm now a fan of it. There's lots to like about it, and some to dislike about it too. But to me the best aspect of it is the flexibility it offers.   He also mentions other reasons for liking it, including the simplicity of working his current application/workflow into the Framework's methods. There is one hit he mentions that the Framework team could improve on - the documentation.
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Yet another PHP framework can be added to the lists already out there - Simplicity:   The Simplicity PHP Application Framework is an advanced, scalable and extensible PHP application framework to aid developers in creating high traffic, high availability Web 2.0 online applications. Integrating a solid MVC framework with some of the best Open Source projects around Simplicity aims to assist developers with any amount of experience in taking their applications to a new level.   As mentioned on the Ajaxian post about the framework, there's an Ajax admin console that lets the developer configure everything in their app including database info, creation of controllers and drop-in predefined actions.
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On his blog today, Ilia Alshanetsky has posted an update on one of the last issues before PHP 5.2 is released - the Filter extension - and some of the problems that have surrounded it.    If you have been monitoring PHP's internal mailing list you probably know that over the last few weeks we've been locked in a stalemate in regard to the API revision of the filter extension brought to light by Dan from our documentation team. This is also the reason why despite this being early October PHP 5.2 is still not out.    Fortunately, after mediation with Derick and Pierre the two protagonists of the filter conundrum a compromised was finally reached.    He mentions the commit that was made to include it into the current build, and no complaints have been lodged against it. He also comments that, with this isse out of the way, developers can look for PHP 5.2RC5 out as soon as this Thursday (10.05.06). Ilia also gives a brief tour of the filter extension's functions.
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The symfony project asks the community on their blog what sorts of projects they're using the framework for:    We are trying to get a better view of the use of symfony, and of what people think are its strongest and weakest points.   If you have five minutes to spare, we'd love to have your feedback on the matter. There is a poll thread in the forum where you can express your opinion.    If you're a user of the symfony framework, be sure to head over to the post and grab the list of questions they'd like to hear about. Tons of developers have already responded, so add your answers today!
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The Zend Developer Zone has an announcement about another "Webinar Wednesday" that Zend is putting on June 20th focusing on the Zend Framework (version 1.0).   The Zend Framework is emerging as the preferred PHP programmer's toolkit for designing Web applications with best practices. In the month's prior to the 1.0 release, Zend Framework had over 1 million downloads and multiple commercial products are already being developed with Zend Framework. In this webinar, Bill Karwin, Product Engineering Manager, will provide an overview of the design philosophy, the major components of the framework and its future directions. Topics will cover MVC, Search, Data Access, Web Services, Filter, Authentication, Cache and more.   You can sign up by going to the conference's website and entering all of your information. Details on how to connect and when will be sent to your email. The event if free of charge, so there's no reason not to come and get the latest scoop on this powerful framework's upcoming version.
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On his blog Jan Lehnardt has posted an alternative method for using the Code Igniter framework together with the Zend Framework with only the parts you need.   I want to use Code Igniter for some applications and I want to use some bits of the Zend Framework inside my Code Igniter classes. There is a tutorial explaining how to set it up. But there is a problem.   He reverses the method the other tutorial uses and chooses to go with Code Igniter for the application logic side of things, making use of the helper and autoload functionality of CodeIgniter to pull things together. He includes code to make his method clear.
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The results from the latest poll conducted by the International PHP Magazine have been released. This time, they asked developers what they thought was the best way to do QA for their PHP applications.   Among the options were things like "Do API documentation", "Use code analyzers that check CS violations, XSS or SQL injection attacks" and the number one choice - "Do unit tests using PHPUnit or phpt". Three other options followed behind (using debugging tools, code analyzers and having a commit mailing list) with the API documentation falling down in last place.   They already started up this week's poll too. This time, they ask developers to vote on which of the options make for good PHP code. There's four options - structured, consistent, portable and secure. Get your vote in today!
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Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:Community News: PHP 5.2.1 ReleasedZend Developer Zone: Zend_Acl / Zend_Auth example scenarioJSLabs Blog:  5 tips for creating high performance web appsRob Allen's Blog: Modules (Zend Framework)Alexander Netkachev's Blog: How to use Zend Framework Controller/Action approach?DevShed: Using Abstract Factory Classes in PHP 5 to Work with Online FormsWebCheatSheet.com: Two New Tutorials - Database Export & Sending EmailIlia Alshanetsky's Blog: Month of PHP BugsWindows Skills Blog: Using SQLite as a database backend for a lightweight serverCommunity News: DreamStats "rootpath" File Inclusion Vulnerability IdentifiedPHP.net: PHP Manual UpdatesCommunity News: MySQL native driver for PHP - mysqlndAlexander Netkachev's Blog: Controller/Action versus Folder/PageSymfony Project: Online doc interface improvedFelix Geisendorfer's Blog: Making error handling for Model::save more beautiful in CakePHP
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Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:Matthew O'Phinney's Blog: svn:externals (and the Zend Framework)Mark Jaquith's Blog: WordPress 2.0.6: Feedburner issue, and fixJob Posting: Unborn Media Inc Seeks PHP/MySQL Developer (Boston, MA)Zend Developer Zone: Tutorial : Using Zend Framework Without PDONetmag.co.uk: Make your own SoapChristopher Jones' Blog: Duplicate Columns in "2 Day Plus PHP Developer Guide"International PHP Magazine: Poll Question: Which is the Best PHP MVC Framework?William Candillon's Blog: phpAspect alpha 0.1.0 is released!Community News: phpthrowdown Registration OpenZend Developer Zone:  AJAX Chat Part Tutorial 6 : Updating the User ListIBM developerWorks: U2 PDO Driver Tutorial, Parts 1 & 2Stoyan Stefanov's Blog: Reusing an existing database connection with MDB2DevShed: Introducing the Memento PatternNexen.net: PHP statistics for December 2006Sandro Groganz's Blog: Syntax Highlighting & Migrating Permalinks in WordPress
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The International PHP Magazine has posted results from their latest poll conducted over this past week asking which, of their given options, is the best helpful hint for creating a web application in PHP.   Two of the options ranked higher than the rest with one (Page/object caching) coming out on top of the other (Don't save performance testing for the end of the project). The remainder of the votes were divided pretty evenly between the last three options: "Use multi result set queries to your database", "gzip compression", and "Tune your web server".   While you're in the polling mood, you should check out this week's new poll that wonders which of their options might be the biggest hindrance to PHP5's adoption in the community.
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On the symfony blog today, there's a new article looking to dispel some misunderstanding that's come up surrounding the speed of symfony applications and what effect it can have in a real-world situation.    We regularly see framework benchmarks pop up somewhere on the net, comparing symfony to other frameworks, either in PHP or in other languages. The conclusion of some of them is "symfony takes more time than other frameworks to display a 'hello, world', which makes it unsuitable for real-world web applications".   If some benchmarks show that symfony is slower, jumping to the conclusion that symfony is not optimized is a big mistake. [...] If symfony is well implemented (or so we think), then its speed is just the sum of the individual speeds of all the features it includes. Or, to put it differently, Symfony's speed is the consequence of a series of choices that we made to decide whether a feature should or should not make it to the core.    They suggest that the speed of symfony applications does not come as a result of the main portion of the framework, but rather as a choice of the development team as to what parts they wanted to include in the core and what not to. They also point out that, while speed does matter somewhat, especially in larger applications, it shouldn't be highest on the list.
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Cristian Bichis sent along a message today reminding us about the unofficial Zend Framework forums that's been started over on zfforums.com:   This is the only forum dedicated to the Zend Framework (in English) and several users have already joined with lots of topics started including MVC, Zend_Db, Concepts related to the framework and Ideas about it and its future. So, join up yourself and talk with other Zend Framework developers at zfforums.com.   There's already some decent activity over there - around 120 members with over 350 posts going - not too bad considering they've just started up. Head on over, get yourself signed up and start participating in the discussion to help build these forums into a great resource for Zend Framework developers everywhere.
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With all of the push to move to PHP5 these days, some people are asking more questions of some of the most common PHP applications as to how they plan to proceed. Nick Halstead asks his question on his blog today - should the community boycott WordPress?   Technology moves forward and PHP will long term lose its dominant position unless it gets everyone to move along with it. [...] Frankly I use WordPress because it has the best plugins but it is no coding wonder and Matt [Mullenweg]'s energies would be better placed helping to move it to PHP 5 only.   The reference there is to a post from Matt (from the WordPress project) going after the community a bit for trying to force a move to PHP5 and that it's "not a big deal" like some are making it out to be. Nick feels that, if it's the case that Matt doesn't even see the move to PHP5 as a big deal, maybe WordPress shouldn't be the one of the blogging tools of choice.
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On the Secunia.com site today, there's a new vulnerability posted that users of the CodeIgniter framework should pay attention to - a "weakness and directory traversal vulnerability".   Lukasz Pilorz has reported a vulnerability and a weakness in CodeIgniter, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose sensitive information and conduct cross-site scripting and header injection attacks.   There are two problems that lead to this issue - a non-sanitized input parameter and unsanitized data being passed to the xss_clean function. These issues affect CodeIgniter version 1.5.3 and, as of the time of this post, no update has been made in an official release. It is mentioned, however, that the problem has been fixed in the CVS and is waiting for a release.