IBM developerWorks: Get started with Project Zero and PHP
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The IBM developerWorks website has posted their introduction to getting PHP up and working with the Project Zero development environment.   Project Zero provides an environment for the rapid development of interactive Web applications based on popular Web technologies such as PHP. This tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to get started with Project Zero, from installing the development tools to constructing an Ajax Web 2.0 sample using PHP as the back-end scripting language. Exporting an application is covered on the way, together with examples of debugging and extending a Web 2.0 application.   It walks you through the installation, developing two simple applications with HTML and Javascript and include the Dojo library for extra functionality. You'll have to have an IBM ID (free registration) to check out the tutorial, though.
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Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:Zend Developer Zone: php|works - Day Two WrapupDevShed: Invoice Management in a PHP Invoicing SystemJared White's Blog: Developer Preview 2 of Willowgarden has been released todayZend Developer Zone: php|works - Day One WrapupP&aacute;draic Brady's Blog: PFP II: Return of Patterns For PHPPHPHacks.com: Generate OpenOffice documents with PHPThinkPHP Blog: SQL injections for dummies - and how to fix themILoveJackDaniels.com: Regular Expressions Cheat SheetDevShed: Tracking Website Statistics with PHPJob Posting: Red Ventures Seeks Mid/Sr Web Developer (Charlotte, NC)Scott Mattocks' Blog: PHP-GTK News #22Community News: Senza Limiti Acquires Ajax-based PHP Grid, Plans to Open Source ItAlexander Netkachev's Blog: Installing Propel object persistence layer for Web applicationDevShed: Main Methods of the DirectoryIterator Class in PHP 5Ilia Alshanetsky's Blog: PHP 5.2.0 RC4 Released!
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Cal Evans has posted his notes from the (just passed) Web Builder 2.0 Conference that happened over in Las Vegas. PHP had its presence there through Cal's "PHP Powers Mashups" talk and others like Chris Shiflett.   There was plenty to see and do at the conference besides PHP and Cal highlights just a few:  AJAX Optimization talks  An overview of some Flickr Stats Google's mashup offerings An introduction to  and some talk of benchmarking Ajax  Check out the full post though - it's jam-packed with links and some great event information.
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According to this quick post on the Zend Developer Zone today, the Zend Framework project has a new leader to take the place of Jayson Maynard when he left.    After a difficult search, we have found the seasoned veteran we need to track, manage, and coordinate our ever growing group of contributors and Zend liaisons, and our lengthy list of components and sub-projects on our published roadmap for ZF 1.0, and beyond.   Fortunately, we were introduced to Bill Karwin. Bill is up to this challenge, having performed similar project organization duties at several companies, including Borland and Lutris Technologies. He is also committed to the open-source community, and is a member of the MySQL Guild.    Cal has some other nice things to say about Bill, including a compliment on Bill's grasp on the Zend Framework project.
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The International PHP Magazine has posted results from their latest PHP community poll as voted on by visitors to their site. The question for this poll asked developers what they thought, of the choices on the list, was the most common mistake that PHP developers make.   Coming in at number one by an overwhelming lead was "Not escaping entities and SQL input" (a definite problem indeed) with the next highest option, "Not using a Framework" a full twenty percent lower. The next two options were closer (descending) - "Using old PHP versions" and "No or little use of Object Orientation".   There's a new poll this week for your consideration - this time asking which stage, of the five options, should come first in the development cycle of a typical content management system. Head on over and cast your vote today!
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In this new post to his blog, Richard Heyes talks about an example he's come across of PHP being used as backend behind a large marketing project:    I recently read an interesting example at Neil Shearing's internet marketing strategies blog of combining .NET desktop software with a PHP backend.   We all know PHP is often slated by "real programmers" as a scripting language only useful for kiddie's home pages, and its nice to see a serious marketer choosing PHP to power the backend to a serious piece of viral software with the potential to go load-mad.    Richard also points out some of his experience trying to market his software and which of his customers are the ones that would provide the most return (the ones looking for updates) and how he can gather their information more productively to further his project's goals.
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(InfoWorld) - To celebrate the 10th anniversary of its alphaWorks Web site for experimental technologies, IBM on Monday will begin hosting projects including a precision weather-forecasting application and two offerings for developers. Being offered via a new effort called alphaWorks Services, the projects stray from the previous format in which users have been able to download prototype technologies. This time around, IBM is offering what amounts to hosted online applications, Chris Spencer, emerging technology strategist at IBM alphaWorks, said. The alphaWorks Services platform leverages the software-as-a-service delivery model, IBM said. One project, Deep Thunder, provides high-resolution, localized weather forecasts for businesses, down to the hour and specific square mile. "We actually have two meteorologists who are on staff and this [effort] is out of IBM Research, Spencer said. With Deep Thunder, a business could learn if snow is falling in an area or what the weather is like at a manufacturing center. Or, a transportation department could find out which streets need plowing. Although Deep Thunder sounds suspiciously like an application rather than middleware, a development tool, or a platform, Spencer would not characterize it as an application. IBM says it isn't in the applications business. "What we're offering here is a prototype of an idea," Spencer said. "I would not say this is an application." An IBM representative later described Deep Thunder as a demo. An industry analyst agreed with IBM's assessment that Deep Thunder does not move Big Blue into the application business. "I think of Deep Thunder more as a great demonstration of both making the results of a high computational problem available -- most of us don't have that much computing power available -- and then using mashup-type technology to interface it to a Web-based application," said Amy Wohl, editor of the Amy Wohl's Opinions newsletter, in an e-mail response to question. "I don't think IBM is going into the weather forecasting business but you have to use some application to show how this sort of thing works. "I'm fairly sure that IBM intends to stay in the middleware and infrastructure part of the software business and leave the applications to their partners," Wohl said. The other hosted projects include ADIEU (Ad Hoc Development and Integration tool for End Users), which is a collaborative online environment for developing Web services, and Web Relational Blocks (WebRB), providing a GUI to construct front-end Web applications from back-end databases. ADIEU, available as either a download or a hosted service, features a card-based programming paradigm, in which each card contains specific programming functionality. Offering a simplified way to build applications, ADIEU is similar to Apple's HyperCard concept, Spencer said. "I love the idea of ADIEU -- that someone can write an application in a few hours or less," Wohl said. "[It] sounds like a great idea for prototyping or for small needs where big investments or long waits couldn't be justified." WebRB features a GUI for nonprogrammers to build applications. "What's kind of nice is they don't have to understand the database schema," or the details of the database, said Spencer. The project uses technology such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Cascading Style Sheets in a hosted environment. Components are dragged and dropped onto a canvas. It remains to be seen whether the three projects become official IBM products. Since its formation in 1996, alphaWorks has released 700 technologies to early adopters and contributed 30 technologies to the open source community, Spencer said. Open source technologies have include the Jikes Java compiler and the Xerces XML parser. One project originating on alphaWorks, the Servlet Express Engine, later formed the basis for the IBM WebSphere application server. All told, about 250 alphaWorks projects became products or product extensions for IBM. "It's evidence of the community having an influence on IBM," Spencer said. The alphaWorks site attracts about 165,000 unique visitors per month, Spencer said. "We have everything from developers to executives and they represent anything from Fortune 100 companies to SMBs (small and medium-size businesses)," said Spencer.
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Christopher Jones has a note on his blog today about the Orcale Develop Conference happening in San Francisco October 23rd through the 25th and some of the PHP involvement there.    First on my ToDo list is Oracle's user conference. PHP is well represented at Oracle Develop. This is a new part of the huge Oracle OpenWorld event running in San Francisco in a few weeks.   Registrations are still open for Oracle Develop. You can register separately or if you register for the full OpenWorld you get the Develop conference gratis, I was told.  Check the fine print on this.    Talks for the conference include:  Rasmus Lerdorf's "Getting Rich with PHP" "Hands-on Lab: Developing and Deploying Oracle and PHP" from a representative from Oracle and Christopher Jones giving a talk on "The PHP/Oracle Experience: Building for Scalability"    Check out the conference website for more information and to register today.
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Mike Potter (from Adobe) has issued an invitation for all PHP and Ruby developers attending the MAX Conference to track each other down, as well as him.   I think this would be a perfect time for these groups of people to get together, showcase what you're working on, and talk about the problems that you're facing.  We're working out the details of MAXUP, but if you're going to MAX, plan on arriving on the Sunday so that on Monday we can get together and showcase and talk about the work that's going on with Flex and languages other than Java and ColdFusion.   He suggests using the entry's comments to help coordinate the meetings. The Early Bird pricing is still in effect for the conference, so there's no time like the present to reserve your spot.
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Jared White has released the latest Developer Preview of his application framework for PHP 5 - Willowgarden DP2.   I'm so pleased to announce that Developer Preview 2 is ready. This is where the project is really starting to solidify and settle into a cohesive whole that can be used for hands-on development. I've been working on several Web site and applications using the DP2 codebase, and it has made my life as a PHP developer so much more fun than the bad old days of cobbling together scripts nearly from scratch.   A new wiki for the project has also been launched with content already being added - a User Guide and areas for tutorials and howtos. Jared also puts a call out to PHP 5 developers out there looking for something to get involved with to take a good look at the Willowgarden project and send him an email ("remove everything after jared before the @ sign").
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InfoWorld - Students at North Carolina State University are learning to build business applications in the Web 2.0 mold usingÂ an IBM incubator project called Project Zero.
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With all of the recent talk about business cases for PHP, Ben Ramsey wanted to get some of his thoughts on the matter out and into his blog in a new post.   I don't believe anyone has ever published any white papers on PHP, giving it a business case, and while we have companies like Zend, OmniTI, and eZ Systems providing support for PHP, I haven't seen any documentation from them like this. So, last Thursday when Stuart Herbert announced his Google Group for developing a business case for PHP, I took notice and joined.   Definitely good to hear encouraging words about a project that could ultimately help out the language as a whole break into an area where the growth has been the slowest.
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Felix Geisendorfer shares, in this new post to the ThinkingPHP blog, some of his experiences with writing his code using test driven development.   So far I've had tons of fun trying to create php code using test driven development. It caused my code to become a lot more structured/consistent because writing the tests shows you interfaces problems right away. This is because the process of writing the test forces you to think a lot more about *how* you want to use some class / piece of code vs. your traditional "how can I get task x done"-thinking.   He also points out another benefit - it makes refactoring the code even easier (so there's more of a likelyhood that you'll use it again and again). He talks specifics about a library that he's been working on and the processes he's gone through to make things work with the testing versus his normal development cycle.
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The Hiveminds Magazine has pointed out a new effort that's been kicked off today to try to get the PHP community (and providers) to finally make the leap and drop PHP4 support all together:   The idea is to make a unified, concentrated effort to drop PHP4 support and drive PHP5 adoption in the year 2008. Think of it. All CMS, forum and framework projects going completely over to PHP5 on a set date! This would be like a bomb dropping on the web hosting world and cause ripples throughout the open source world.   They point out some of the projects that are leaning either way from ezPublish hanging on to PHP4 and apps like Drupal that have embraced PHP5. In fact, it's the Drupal group that's written up the proposal on how it would all go down - the "Go PHP5 Effort".   It is a dangerous cycle, and one that needs to be broken. The open source PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed open source PHP projects have all agreed that effective 5 February 2008, any new feature release will have a minimum  required PHP version no older than PHP 5.2.0.   There's tons of comments to the proposal in both parties (and some in between noting that there are already several PHP4 applications that run quite happily on PHP5).
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In a new post to his blog today, Mike Potter talks about the WebORB for PHP software and a new feature based on Adobe technology - a Flex-based console.   [It] includes a service browser, as well as a number of useful examples, showing both the client side code (in Flex) and server side code in PHP. The getting started guide (again, built into the console or available on the web) provides a good tutorial for creating your first WebORB powered application.   He likes the project overall, but notes a small issue he has with starting a new project - a prompt to use the Flex Data Services. Overall, though, he has high hopes for the future of the project.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted a review of Packt Publishing's "Learning PHP Data Objects" book writen up by Akash Mehta.   In Learning PHP Data Objects, the author Dennis Popel examines this new [database access] system and explains how to begin using PDO in development as a replacement for typical database drivers. The book is an excellent introduction to the data abstraction layer and also provides essential insight into the inner workings of database interaction with PHP.   Akash talks briefly about the history of PDO and what it can be used for first, then gets into the contents of the book (things like the intro chapters and the quality of the writing). The thing he thinks makes the bok stand out, though, is the examples and sample code that reflect both simple methods and more complex issues PDO developers might run into.
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Ivo Jansch is very happy to announce that it's official - he will be authoring a book for php|architect all about PHP in the Enterprise:   It will be one of the first books about PHP that will not cover PHP code. It is loosely based on my 'enterprise PHP development' talk at the Zend UK Business Conference last year. It will cover the entire development lifecycle of a software project, but targeted at PHP development teams.   He points out that the first version of the book will be handed in in March so ideally it will be released soon after that. He's also open to ideas/content suggestions/etc that you might want to post to his blog for consideration.