Zend Developer Zone: The Storage Medium
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The Zend Developer Zone is continuing on from previous parts of a series in this new tutorial posted today - part three of the "Ajax Chat Tutorial" tutorial series.   As our chat application gathers pace we return to the server side of the application. At this point we have setup the Zend Framework with an IndexController class to handle server requests. When we receive a new chat message from the user, we will need to store it. For this tutorial I've selected a file based solution using XML.   They start with a look at the storage method - XML on the backend, pushed into a MySQL database (along with the message format). There's a quick refresher on SimpleXML before they show how to integrate this storage method into the current system.
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On his blog, Premature Optimization, Shahar Evron has posted some information about work he's done on the Zend_Http_Client package of the Zend Framework - including the push to make it live.   Earlier this week, I finally (after long and hard work) pushed the Zend_Http_Client out of the incubator and into the core of Zend Framework, and it will be released with the 0.6 preview release.   Some of the things introduced in this package include the introduction of "connection adapters", a method of having an adapter object made responsible for handling the networking connection. The default for this is the socket adapter, but work is already being done to create cURL and  future ideas for a caching adapter or a pfsockopen-based option for more preferment connection needs.   Shahar also includes some stats to show off what the new package can do and how many requests per second it can handle.
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The latest episode of the Zend Developer Zone's podcast, PHP Abstract, has been posted. This time it's hosted by Chris Hartjes on the subject of "Opinionated Software".   Today's special guest is Chris Hartjes. Chris has been building PHP applications since 1998. Currently employed as a Senior Developer for the Cake Development Corporation, Chris has been labeled as an "agent provocateur" within the PHP community. He contributes to open source projects, gives lectures on programming-related topics and tries to share what he's learned via his blog.   Opinionated software entails things like frameworks (his specific example is with the CakePHP framework's ActiveRecord functionality) that has a sort of agreement with the developer that things are going to be where it expects them (allowing for less time configuring and more time developing).   To hear more about this sort of software, grab the latest show's mp3 or subscribe to the feed in your aggregator of choice.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted an interview its editor, Cal Evans got to do with author and podcaster Paul Reinheimer.    Many of you will recognize the name Paul Reinheimer as the primary instructor for php|architect's training classes. Others will recognize him as one of the two hosts of the podcast PRO::PHP Podcast. Still others know him as the author of Professional Web APIs with PHP from Wrox Press.   I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with this young but rising star in the PHP community last year at php|works. Now, after sitting way too long on the shelf, IÃ¢ÂÂve finally had enough time to finish this interview and present it to you.    Cal and Paul talk about things like how he got into programming, why he made the move into PHP, Paul's API experiences and COMET.
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Popular posts from PHPDeveloper.org for the past week:Padraic Brady's Blog: Complex Views w/Zend Framework - The Final Chapter: ZFE & Zend_Layout in Core!php|architect: Stuff your stockings: single issues 30% offDeveloperTutorials.com: How to Install PHP 5 on LinuxStoyan Stefanov's Blog: Fancy FormattingSymbianOne.com: Your S60 Web server gets a boostAndreas Gohr's Blog: MySimple.php - A lightweight PHPMyAdmin substituteNessa's Blog: Working with Permissions in PHPSymfony Blog: Symfony 1.0.10 is OutMatthew Turland's Blog: Web Scraping Article PublishedJan Lehnardt's Blog: REST Controller for PHP Applications
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted two more handy security tips - one concerning file/directory naming and the other about input validation.   From the first tip:   Don't rely on obscure names to keep your application safe. You should always check permissions, test for vulnerabilities with testing tools and keep an eye on your log files for suspicious activity. When designing your applications and web sites though, don't make it easy for bad people to do bad things. Donât use default or common names for your files and directories.   And from the second:   It's a sad fact of life but users are evil. Users want nothing more than to find a way to exploit your application. As soon as you let your guard down and start thinking "I'm only selling small stuffed animals so how evil can my users really be?" you've lost the battle.   You can catch up on these and the other previous security tips on this page on the Zend Developer Zone website.
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Matthew O'Phinney has posted the slides from a New York PHP User Group meeting that Mark de Visser (of Zend) and he spoke at:   Mark presented information on Zend's development stack and toolset (which I entirely missed, as I was still in transit), and I came in to give an overview of Zend Framework.   Matthew posted the slides right to his blog. They're in a browser-based slideshow system that will launch wen you double-click on the index file.
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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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Cal Evans has another update about the upcoming (Oct 8th through 11th) to the Zend Developer Zone today:   ZendCon is sneaking up on us fast. If you've not got your tickets yet, time is running out so you had better hurry. To whet your appetite, ere are a few blog posts or ZendCon mentions from speakers and attendees who will be there this year.   Included in his list are bloggers like Terry Chay, Brian DeShong and Mike Naberenzy and events like the Happy Hour 2.0 and the Unconference.
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In a a new post to his blog today, Padraic Brady mentions a component of the Zend Framework that's fallen into the wayside in favor of a Zend-sponsored OpenID component, Zend_Service_Openid. Despite this setback, he still plans on helping with its resurrection, maybe just in a different form.   After posting some questions to the mailing list before adding any additional formal proposals, I have learned another OpenID library for the Zend Framework is also in progress within Zend.   The upshot of this, given it's a Zend sponsored library, is that I feel like there's little choice but to abandon my own version of a proposal for the framework. So it's status is "withdrawn" at this moment as is Zend_Service_Yadis, being a linked proposal. The library itself is not being abandoned, far from it as it has always been my intention to release it under a New BSD License and that plan is not wavering.    He talks about some of the thoughts going through his head of the choice that Zend made and how his library approached the OpenID authentication issues.
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On the Zend Developer Zone, Cal Evans talks about one of the presenters of the upcoming Zend/PHP Conference and Expo - Ben Ramsey. He asked Ben some questions about the conference and a talk that he'll be giving - "XML & Web Services with PHP (An Overview)".   Ben Ramsey will be speaking on "XML & Web Services with PHP (An Overview)" at the upcoming Zend/PHPConference and Expo. Since I hang out with Ben in the freenode.net #phpc channel I thought it would be cool to talk to him for a bit about his session.   They talk about why Ben is passionate about web services, the two popular protocols for using these services - SOAP and REST, and which one of them Ben prefers.
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Aaron Wormus has a new note on his blog today about his presentation at this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo and another speaker he's excited to hear.    One of the Zend conference sessions that I'm pretty excited about is Don Samisa Abeysinghe's (of WSO2) "Fully Fletched Web Services with PHP".   I'll be presenting a session on "Moving to PHP5 with Style." This tutorial/case study will be based on experience in transitioning several codebases from PHP4 to PHP5, creating unit tests & started a move towards a service based architecture without a complete platform rewrite.    Aaron's talk fits under the banner of the "PHP Development" talks, including others on topics like hosting PHP applications on Windows, working with PDO, unicoding in PHP6, and using PHPUnit.
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Christian Wenz, back from the php/db|works conference and at a break following the conference, has posted some of his thoughts about this years conference over on his blog.   My schedule was crammed right after php|works 2006, so I could not find an earlier possibility to blog. Anyway, the extended entry contains my short report on php|arch's second conference this year.   He talks about some sightseeing before-hand, Tutorial Day, XML Security demos, Unicode in PHP6, a "slight problem" concerning his laptop, and his role on the Zend PHP5 Certification Panel. Check out the full entry for all of the details and "expect a separate blog entry later" on his experience on the panel.
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In a new post to his blog today, Paul Jones mentions his podcast for the Zend Developer Zone (a Solar Overview) and provides the script that he worked from to record the show.   In this episode, I'm going to give a brief overview of Solar project and how it helps with the mundane aspects of building applications. Solar is an open-source library and framework for PHP 5; you can read more about it at solarphp.com...   The rest of the show notes includes links to things like Yawp, Solar's built-in localization and it's exception handling code.    Check out more about Solar at Solarphp.com and check out the PHP Abstract podcast episode Paul recorded on the Zend Developer Zone site.
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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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The Zend Developer Zone has posted a review of Theo Schlossnagle's book from the Developer's Library series "Scalable Internet Architectures".   I had the pleasure of meeting Theo Schlossnagle at OSCON 2006. He gave me 30 minutes to peek inside his brain and do an interview. 30 minutes just was not enough time. So when I received his latest book in the mail I was excited. Finally a chance to get more in-depth on some of the topics we covered. I've taken the time to collect my thoughts for you here so you can decide whether this book is a good one for you.   Cal talks about how he hated the book (from a reviewer's perspective, not a developer), the contents of the book, and his personal favorite section - "Distributed Databases are Easy, Just Read the Fine Print". His only critism is that the book seems to come across in a "demanding" tone (misunderstood by those that don't know Theo's style as just being matter of fact).
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If you missed the Zend Webcast talking about "Advanced PHP Solutions" with Zeev Suaski, ComputerWorld has your chance to grab the download from it.   PHP continues to enjoy phenomenal growth becoming the de-facto standard for enterprise Web applications. With the introduction of PHP 5, PHP has reached new levels of support for Web Services, XML and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) meeting the robust demands of the enterprise environment. Learn how you can achieve scalability, performance, availability and reliability for your enterprise-class PHP applications with advanced PHP solutions from Zend Technologies.   In the webcast, Zeev talks about integrating web services, tracking and improving the response times in your application, scaling your applications, and troubleshooting applications down to the exact line of code.