Sys-con.com: Product Review - Zend Studio for Eclipse
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The Eclipse section of the Sys-con.com website has posted a review of Zend's latest offering for PHP developers - Zend Studio for Eclipse.   Zend saw that this was a great place to cozy up to and has been developing a professional version of its PDT environment (released earlier this year) for over a year now.  The PDT version is its open source free-ware version of an editor IDE that is based on the Eclipse foundation materials. This article will attempt to introduce you to the Professional version that will be released soon.   They take an overview look first and the install process and what kind of "feel" the interface has. They also dive a little deeper into some of the other aspects of the software like the code editor, the debugger, preferences and the code gallery.
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On the Zend Developer Zone today, there's this new tutorial that looks at making the move from PHP4's object-oriented programming up to the "more complete obejct model of PHP5" - specifically with the Decorator design pattern.   While working on a project I realized one particular solution was a pretty good way to demonstrate the decorator design pattern together with some of PHP5's features, including abstract classes, interfaces, type hinting, the final keyword and the visibility of properties and methods. This article is intended for those of you who, like myself, are moving from object-oriented programming, including some use of design patterns, in PHP4, to the more complete object model of PHP5.   He sets up a scenario about the development of an online pizza ordering system to show how to "decorate" a pizza with each of the toppings on a list (instead of having to list out every pizza in every possible topping combination). Of course, all of the code is included and explained so you understand exactly what's happening. Finally, there's a demonstration of its usage - a simple call that grabs the stock level/name/cost of each of the items in stock (pizza combinations).
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Cal Evans has made a new post to the Zend Developer Zone gathering together all the slides he could find from the recent Zend/PHP Conference & Expo (2007):   Most of these have already been posted on the speakers blogs. However, I thought it would be a good idea to gang them all together on one post for those who are looking for them. I've also linked to the blog posts of any speakers who blogged about ZendCon as well. Watch this page for updates, as new slides come in, I'll update the page.   If you were a speaker at the conference and you don't see your slides linked, send Cal at note at cal [at] this domain with your info.
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Padraic Brady has put together a very comprehensive post on his blog today about using the Zend_Feed component of the Zend Framework to help with the aggregation of content from other sites (like RSS and Atom feeds).   In this entry I explore Zend_Feed from the perspective of someone aggregating RSS and Atom feeds with a view to building a database of uniquely identified content for later presentation in a "Planet" style application. [...] In fact all we create here is a simple command line script to aggregate content frequently (e.g. just set up cron to run it every hour or so) into a database for later presentation.   He guides you through each step of the way:   Setting Up Database And Models The Aggregator Script Foundation Using Zend_Feed to get common data for RSS/Atom entries Putting It All Together   There's plenty of code (and SQL to insert) in the post and he explains each point well, helping to make the development process smoother. There's even a summary section to toss in a few extra bits of information just in case you missed them along the way.
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With the date for the Zend/PHP Conference & Expo (October 8-11th, San Francisco) conference growing closer all the time, the more updates the better. The Zend Developer Zone has such an update with more details about the keynote talks, sessions, the "after hours" events and more.   Ok, it's been a few days since I've given a ZendCon update so let's burn a few bytes and talk about what is being planned.   The updates concerning the keynotes are the topics the two speakers will be presenting - Cory Doctorow on "copy machines" and Joel Spolsky with his "Great Software" talk. The sessions for the conference are still mostly the same, but the "after hours" activities have exploded.   Things on the list include a ZCE party on Monday, Happy Hour 2.0 on Tuesday and on Wednesday an all-out karaoke party poolside at the hotel.   There's still plenty of time to register for the event and to get more details on the conference and the whens and wheres, check out the main conference site.
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Jonathan Snook has posted some of his first impressions of the Zend Framework to his blog today - and so far, they're pretty good:   Last week, the first production release of the Zend Framework was released. I've taken some time to read through the documentation to understand what each of the components do. And you know what? I think I like it.   He talks about what the framework is, how it compares to the CakePHP framework and his example of making a simple del.icio.us class to pull recent posts from a feed.
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Debugging can be one of the most important tools to a developer (web or otherwise) and one of the more popular PHP IDEs, Zend Studio, makes it relatively simple to do. The Developer Tutorials website has this new tutorial to help you get started on the path to being bug free.   For the majority of experienced PHP developers, Zend Studio is considered the top-of-the-line PHP IDE. [...] In this tutorial, we will explore how to use the latest update of Zend Studio for debugging PHP scripts.   They walk through an overview of the IDE, some of the requirements and the install process and, finally, they finish it off with a few pages talking about how the get the debugging up and running.
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From Carlo on the FCHouse.com blog, there's this new guide to debugging your PHP5 application with the Eclipse PDT functionality in an OS X environment.   In these months I have developed in PHP with Eclipse PDT (Php Development Tool). During the first days I tried to make the debugging works, but without great results, therefore I dropped and I took back the usual debugging technique of every good script developer: echo $variableName; or simply logging everything possible in some log files.   Knowing that this wasn't "the right way" to do things, Carlo searched for something better. He found a hint on another blog and ultimately figured out how to get his Eclipse/Apache/XDebug installation to work on his Mac. His post also includes the "glue" that you'll need to get them all working happily together.
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Chris Shiflett has posted his look back at this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo on his blog today.   It has been more than two weeks since ZendCon, yet I can't seem to manage to find the time to recap the event. (Work has been keeping me busy.) This will be brief.   In the post, he talks about the attendees, his security talk, the community deck of cards, Wez Furlong's talk, and more. Check out his post for more info on the conference and what all went on.
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Nick Halstead has started up another programming competition today - this time it's a bit broader in scope and doesn't focus so much on just PHP.   I have a couple of licenses for Zend Studio Professional that I have been holding back to give away for a competition. So after writing yesterdays programming 'tips' I thought perhaps I should get my readers to submit their own tips and then give away one copy for what I think is the best 'tip' and then I will also hold a online vote for the second copy.   The basic process is to submit your favorite tip to Nick and he'll pick his favorite of the day. This happens each day and at the end of the week, there'll be a drawing for the licenses from each day's top tips.   Submit your entries via his contact form.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted the latest episode of their PHP Abstract podcast series with a focus this time on screen scraping (as recorded by Matthew Turland).   Matt has been building PHP applications since 2002. He joined the ranks of PHP-Oracle developers in 2006 when he became a programmer for METHODS Technology Solutions. He contributes to open source projects such as the Zend and Forkr frameworks. [...] We are going to veer off the beaten path today as Matthew talks to us about Screen Scraping.   You can download the mp3 directly or you can  to get this and the most recent episodes.
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Roy Ganor-Shwaartz (Team Leader at Zend for the PDT/Zend Studio for Eclipse projects) dropped us a line to let us know that he'll be speaking at this year's EclipseCon (2008).   It seems that PHP developers have attracted much attention from the Eclipse community. In the next EclipseCon conference I am going to make two sessions about PDT and its ecosystem.   His two talks are: Developing Rich Internet Application with Eclipse Tools (Wednesday) and Extending the PDT Project (Tuesday).    EclipseCon 2008 is happening March 17th through the 20th in Santa Clara, California and there's still time to get in on the Early Bird Discount for your registration (through Dec. 31st). Check out the conference schedule for a complete list of speakers.
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Padraic Brady has posted a manifesto of sorts about the work that he's been doing on his PHPSpec library and trying to work it into the approval process for the Zend Framework.   I'll be attempting to pound the Zend Framework into submission so I can apply Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) using PHPSpec when I write a Controller. Why? Because I feel like it, and it gives me an excuse to promote one possible incarnation of PHPMock and the PHPSpec Zend Framework extension. See? Perfectly reasonable selfishness!   He hopes to move it past the typical test-driven development process that PHPUnit offers and "kick your ass into high-TDD gear" without having to have worked much with it before then (the key is simplicity).   He includes some code examples (how it should flow) and describes some of the challenges that he's coming across so far, specifically with the way that the Zend Framework works with the Controllers and what he wants to accomplish.
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According to the Zend Developer Zone, the Zend Framework is going to the even more powerful in the future with the inclusion of command line functionality.   So, without further adieu, it is my pleasure to announce that Zend Framework 1.5 will include a robust, powerful, and- yes- 15-minute-demo-enabled command line interface for code generation!   They've set up a default structure (that's "recommended") but doesn't have to be strictly adhered to. They know how most developers have structured their applications and made it accordingly. There's three proposals in the group - the Zend_Console, Zend_Build component and the Zend_Build for Core.
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Havard Eide is asking for your help in a new entry to his blog. He's looking for ways to speed up his development in Eclipse, specifically in the debugging.   There is one thing I do need over everything else: remote debugging. Having used Zend Studio for 3 years now it hasn't been the best editor ( I'd rather prefer PHPEclipse/PDT ) but the remote debugging facility is superb [...] Eclipse it has all the tools you need to develop with but the debugging is slow, way too slow!   He's looking for anyone out there that might be able to help him speed up the debugging on his Leopard-installed version of Eclipse ("So slow actually that I had to install Zend Studio 5.5 for whenever I have to debug a file...")
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Following on the heels of these comments from Alexander Netkachev, the Zend Developer Zone has posted the full project plan for the next release of the PHP IDE Zend is working on, version 0.7.   The plan of the 0.7 version is based on the initial SRS which is available here. On top of that SRS many bugs were submitted together with enhancement requests that were/will be included in the 0.7 release. You can find all PHP IDE open bugs here.   The announcement is broken up into three sections - the release deliverables, the release milestones, and the target operating environments - each with plenty of details to show you exactly what the team is working towards.
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The Eclipse PHP Development Tools project, which invites millions of Web scripters to the integrated development environment, incites changes for Zend Technologies.