David Coallier's Blog: PEAR::DB is Deprecated, Got It?
629114
In response to several other posts lately about the PEAR::DB package in PEAR (and things that could be done to improve it), David Coallier got a bit fed up and shared his opinion - "PEAR::DB is deprecated, got it?"   All new features are made into MDB2 and not DB, the only thing that is being done on DB is security fixes. So MDB2 is first of all, faster, smaller (Because of it's driver and modularity), easier, and has more features (LOB handling, Iterator, etc) and better end-user documentation, quite solid docs indeed.   Of course, the comments of the post are full of people arguing to keep it around and others that agree with David, especially in light of a MDB2 driver for the Zend Framework he mentions.
313082
P&aacute;draic Brady, looking ahead to the work he will be doing over the next few months, is proposing on his blog about a new Zend Framework component - Zend_Service_Currency.    I did a quick check on what PHP classes are available for the purpose. There's really not a whole lot out there. There's a PEAR class along the lines I need, but it's released under the PHP License and, not to be too argumentative, I prefer non-PEAR solutions where the end-user may have no access to update PEAR.   So since the project is planned to use the Zend Framework, I shot off a mail to the Framework's fw-general mailing list to see if it would be a worthwhile contribution.    He sees that someone else had already opened a proposal for the same idea and decided to join with that group to work up the module. He also links to his original proposal and gives a brief overview of the goals of the package.
684147
Latest PEAR Releases:Mail_Queue 1.2.1PHP_DocBlockGenerator 1.1.1PHP_FunctionCallTracer 1.0.0File_PDF 0.3.0CodeGen_MySQL_Plugin 0.9.1devCodeGen_MySQL 0.9.1dev
144395
David has posted an article to the Expirmentalworks.net blog about a task that he and Johannes Schluter have finished up - importing the PHP CVS tree over into Git.   A few month ago Johannes Schluter and I started discussing about GIT and other decentralized version control systems. During our exploration of GIT we thought about importing the PHP CVS tree into git. A few weeks later and a lot of wasted cpu time, we finally managed to provide an inofficial GIT mirror of the PHP CVS repository. ItÃ¢ÂÂs provided by Johannes Schluter and mirrored by me.    The post documents the path they followed - using git-cvsimport, parsecvs and a path they needed to make - to finally get the import working without any flaws. You can check out their unofficial repository here (it's updates twice a day from the live CVS).
448160
Helgi has posted about the updates that have recently been made to the PEAR website (pear.php.net) to help correct some issues and bring in some new features.   I just did a new release of pear.php.net which has a bunch of new features and bug fixes, most of which you can see here.  Some of the updates include:  One column design instead of the 2 column design Usage of the YUI CSS reset + fonts The package list on http://pear.php.net/packages.php doesn't highlight deprecated packages anymore Now developers can see bug reports by unconfirmed accounts The RSS feeds now contain new line breaks! Patch uploading during ticket creation now works   He also specifically mentions some of the feedback he's gotten on certain things (like the new layout, the CSS of the site and the DES passwords) and explains some of the rationale behind their update/use.
700863
PÃ¡draic Brady notes in a new post today that his Services_Yadis package has been official proposed to the PEAR group:   This provides a PHP5 implementation of the Yadis Specification 1.0 a requirement of the OpenID Authentication 2.0 Specification. There are way too many specifications out there! The proposal is a reflection of February's "Zend_Service_Yadis" proposal to the Zend Framework. The main differences (beside the PEARification) were fixing the main bugs the ZF sample code had.   He also mentions his next proposal - to create an OpenID Consumer package.
193310
Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:onPHP5.com: Clickable, Obfuscated Email AddressesJacob Santos' Blog: PHP BlackjackThe Bakery: RESTful Web Services With CakePHPDeveloper.com: Developing a Ajax-driven Shopping Cart with PHP and PrototypeGreg Beaver's Blog: Mac OS X ships with security hole-laden PEAR - how to upgrade immediatelyNexen.net: English Articles and a Single Distribution ResourceJob Posting: Red Ventures Seeks Several LAMP Developers (Charlotte, NC)The Bakery: Checking for duplicate records (unique record)DevShed: The Basics of Abstract Factory Classes in PHP 5NewsForge.com: A DIY calendar control in PHPDevGuide.net: Dynamic Bitmap Graphics with PHP and GDRichard Heyes' Blog: Browser DetectionInternational PHP Magazine: Poll Question: Which is the Most Important Feature of PHP 5?Builder.au: Dynamic XML document construction with the PHP DOMCommunity News: PEAR Version 1.5.0 Released
223418
Wrapping up a three-part series today, DevShed has posted part three of their look at combining PHP and MySQL with their final excerpt from the O'Reilly book "Learning PHP and MySQL" (Michele Davis and Jon Phillips).   In this conclusion to a three-part series, you will add PEAR into the mix of what you have already learned.   They show the installation of the needed PEAR classes, translating the previous example from the MySQL functions to use the PEAR class - writing, executing, and returning the results from the database.
16028
Latest PEAR Releases:HTML_Table 1.8.1HTML_QuickForm_DHTMLRulesTableless 0.3.2PhpDocumentor 1.4.0RC1pearweb_gopear 0.6.0pearweb_gopear 1.0.0PEAR_Frontend_Web 0.7.1DB_Table 1.5.0Net_LDAP 1.0.0RC2pearweb_gopear 1.0.1DB 1.7.12SOAP 0.11.0SOAP_Interop 0.8.2PHP_DocBlockGenerator 1.0.0RC1Services_Digg 0.1.2PEAR_PackageUpdate_Web 0.4.0PEAR_PackageUpdate 0.7.0PEAR_Info 1.7.0RC1PHP_CodeSniffer 0.7.0Auth 1.5.3Auth 1.5.4
114793
On his blog today, Lorenzo Alberton Talks about DBMS and the character sets they support and issues a call for help for anyone interested to help them (on the PEAR::MDB2 project) set up proper character set support for each database.    We're working on PEAR::MDB2 charset and collation support. That means that we're in the process of figuring out what's the best way to set the charset in each DBMS, and how to make it portable and consistent through all of them.   I'll try to explain how the various DBMS implement charset settings first, then describe the MDB2 status-quo regarding charset support. Finally, we'd like to get some feedback to implement a better charset support in MDB2.    He lists out the types of character sets - client, connection, database/table/field, and result - explaining each of their roles in the average connection. He then breaks out the different databases into the different settings they support for the different character set types.   The call for help comes in with him asking anyone out there with experience and skill in these areas to get in touch and help out if they can. Contact information is in the post. You can also check out some of Lukas Smith's comments over on his blog too.
642360
DevShed has started a new series looking at working with PHP and databases with this new tutorial posted today, an excerpt from the O'Reilly book "Programming PHP, Second Edition".   We focus on the PEAR DB system, which lets you use the same functions to access any database, rather than on the myriad database-specific extensions. In this chapter, you'll learn how to fetch data from the database, how to store data in the database, and how to handle errors. We finish with a sample application that shows how to put various database techniques into action.   In this first part of the series, they look at what kinds of things are possible with the database connection, some of the basics of using the PEAR DB class and working with data source names to help with the connection.
430429
As mentioned by Richard Heyes, there's a new blog post from Larry Garfield talking about the death of PHP4, how the community has responded to it and some of his own thoughts on the matter.   The problem is the source for that "everyone" [is still using PHP4] claim. The most widely referenced stats are the Nexen stats, and according to them 70%+ of the world still uses PHP 4. Horrors!   He takes a closer look at the stats and comes up with a slightly different sort of conclusion that the stats can't really measure. They can show the server-based usage measurements of PHP4 vs PHP5, but they can't show the number of developers behind each of them.  According to Larry:  Even if we assume that 70% of PHP developers are using 70% of random servers running PHP, and that they're all using proprietary, one-off applications on a server with a sysadmin who refuses to upgrade at a company that has no support contract with any distribution vendor... Where are they?
732440
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!
701847
Latest PEAR Releases:Console_CommandLine 0.2.0PHP_Debug 1.0.0Text_Highlighter 0.7.1Log 1.9.14XML_Query2XML 1.6.0RC1pearweb 1.17.0pearweb_index 1.16.12PEAR 1.7.0RC2Text_Diff 0.3.2Date_Holidays 0.17.2pearweb_index 1.16.13XML_Query2XML 1.6.0pearweb 1.17.1
524454
PÃ¡draic Brady has followed up his last post on PEAR. This time he's covered the method to package and distribute source code using the PEAR installer.  All right then! You read the last blog entry advocating PEAR (or found it during the week ;-)) and you want to know all about packaging code so your users can install your library or application using the PEAR installer. A few things first:  1. You don't need to propose a package to PEAR to do this. 2. You don't need to create a PEAR "channel" although it's very much recommended (another future blog post no doubt). 3. You don't need a whole lot of effort.  Taking your source code, and generating a PEAR package is a relatively simple task.  He covers the process at lengths with easy to follow steps.
529877
Latest PEAR Releases:PEAR 1.5.1PHP_ParserGenerator 0.1.5pearweb_phars 1.2.0pearweb 1.9.2pearweb 1.9.1PHP_Parser 0.2.0PHP_Parser_DocblockParser 0.1.0pearweb 1.9.3pearweb 1.9.4pearweb 1.9.5Validate_LV 1.0.0RC1pearweb 1.9.6pearweb 1.10.0Mail_Mime 1.4.0a1Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_MDB2 0.1.8Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_DBQuery 0.1.8Structures_DataGrid_Renderer_XLS 0.1.2Structures_DataGrid 0.8.2Text_Wiki 1.2.0RC2
402184
Continuing on with his look at his OpenID library and its implementation, Padraic Brady has two new posts with more of the story.   From the first post:   As a follow on from my previous entry about OpenID in the Zend Framework, I've been in brief contact with Dmitry Stogov across a scattering of emails. Dmitry posted his OpenID proposal for the framework over at the Proposals Wiki earlier in the week. [...] It's actually very hard to comment constructively rather than simply handing over my code which probably says a lot more all by itself. [...] Anyway, I've agreed to port my OpenID library to PEAR as a PHP5 package. I checked with the mailing list, and the approach I've taken in splitting the library across a number of freestanding components hasn't seen any objections. On the flipside, it does help by providing upgrades to existing PEAR Encryption packages which are not yet migrated to PHP5 versions.   And from post number two:   Over the weekend, I managed to grab a few hours to dig around my OpenID library with the ultimate development tools: patience and experimentation. [...] What I've refactored towards is a splitting of the OpenID process based on three categories: Request, Redirect, Response.