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PHP Cookbook
The approach that the authors use in PHP Cookbook is great. Like most computer books, the authors usually include a summary (in sentence forms) to illustrate what the readers will expect in each chapter. Skalar and Trachtenberg take this even further by including some preliminary (code) examples to explain the general ideas behind each chapters. The examples in the book are self-contained. In most cases, I've found examples to exactly fit my needs -- this makes it one of the better reference books.
Each chapter in the book is divided into multiple sections of Problem / Solution / Discussion with a FAQ style. In each case, a simple description of a problem is followed by a PHP script as the solution. But the meat is actually in the discussions: in-depth details are included here, where the authors also include references, extended ideas, and scripts to inform the readers how much more they can do about the issue.
For example, I was going to add a simple script to my website to parse RSS/RDF files from certain news websites (CNN, Slashdot, ...), and use it as my Mozilla homepage. (Who wouldn't?) This script seems to be simple, but I may make a mistake here and there. As reference, I opened up the book to the section "Parsing XML with SAX." Then I realized the authors already had the script to parse RSS/RDF files in the discussion. Bravo!
For myself, the most useful chapters I found are: Web Basics, Forms, Database Access, and XML. There are also good examples in topics such as security, internationalization, and file processing/management. However, this book does not cover the basics of PHP. If you are a good programmer, you should be able to get away with this using the PHP Manual. A good book to learn PHP is Programming PHP, also by O'Reilly.
Although this book covers a wide range of topics, it does not cover topics like generating PDFs. I would also like to see the authors add one (maybe two) case studies in later editions. That would give the reader a more concrete example of how to combine tricks presented by this book. Other than that, at the price of $39.95 (or $61.95 CAD), this book is a great buy!
Topics
- Strings
- Numbers
- Dates and Times
- Arrays
- Variables
- Functions
- Classes and Objects
- Web Basics - available online as example chapter
- Forms
- Database Access
- Web Automation
- XML
- Regular Expressions
- Encryption and Security
- Graphics
- Internationalization and Localization
- Internet Services
- Files
- Directories
- Client-Side PHP
- PEAR
You can purchase the PHP Cookbook from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Linux comes with a php2asp utility, so that you can write scripts in your favorite language, then have it automatically turned into ASP for running on the WinDOS boxes that your boss bought (PHBs just love their FUD ;-)
it does not cover topics like generating PDFs
Isn't PDF a closed format? Can you generate a PDF with PHP without also generating an Adobe lawsuit?
Never confuse volume with power.
One thing I would like to see more PHP books do is to cover the various Security problems that are prevalent in many PHP based web applications.
Don't get me wrong, I find PHP to be the best and friendliest solution for many things, but some of the Security problems could easily be avoided with some common sense security advice.
In all seriousness I enjoy PHP because it is pretty self explanatory, and it can use plain old html inside it too. It's just nice to use a scripting language for the web that was made for webpages originally, not a language that was created for ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
You would think slashdot was written in PHP, considering the amount of coverage it gets in the book reviews.
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?
Not to be confused with "PHP Developer's Cookbook" (ISBN: 0672323257 - Publisher: Pearson Education) which is a very well regarded reference for PHP. Just wanted to avoid confusion and suggest the book at the same time. There seems to be a flood of PHP/MySQL books out there, or people are just getting around to reviewing them....not sure.
"A teacher overheard him say that he was using PHP, and as part of our Zero-Tolerance policy against drug use, he was immediately suspended. No questions asked," said Principal Clyde Thurlow. "We're not quite sure what PHP is, but we suspect it may be a derivative of PCP, or maybe a new designer drug like GHB."
Parents are frightened by the discovery of this new menace in their children's school, and are demanding the school do something. "We heard that he found out about PHP at school on the internet. There may even be a PHP web ring operating on school grounds," said irate parent Carol Blessing. "School is supposed to be teaching our kids how to read and write. Not about dangerous drugs like PHP."
In response to parental demands the school has reconfigured its internet WatchDog software to block access to all internet sites mentioning PHP. Officials say this should prevent any other students from falling prey like Brett Tyson did. They have also stepped up locker searches and brought in drug sniffing dogs.
Interviews with students suggested that PHP use is wide spread around the school, but is particularly concentrated in the geeky nerd population. When contacted by BBspot.com, Brett Tyson said, "I don't know what the hell is going on dude, but this suspension gives me more time for fraggin'. Yee haw!"
PHP is a hypertext preprocessor, which sounds very dangerous. It is believed that many users started by using Perl and moved on to the more powerful PHP. For more information on how to recognize if your child may be using PHP please visit http://www.php.net.
As a web developer, php has been a real life saver.
It would take a whole lot of perl code to achieve the same functionality that can be accomplished in 200 well-written php code. (Depending on what it did - it's based off my personal experiences).
In addition, the ability to mix and match html/php on a cross-platform programming language, as well as write scripts that also run on the command line is worth it's weight in gold (note to people who don't understand that saying, it's really valuable to me). Although perl and cgi scripts can be ran from the command line, they can't have (X)HTML mixed in quite as easily.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=57725&ci d=5631859
I've been doing PHP web development on and off for a couple of years now and I've always found that it's greatest strength has been the availability of very god online resources.
PHP.net and many other excellent resources are only a browser click away and remain up to date for free. PHP is one of those areas where I'll save my money and buy a book I'll get genuine reference use from.
The actual document specification for PDF is open. Adobe just happened to not only create the format, but also make the most popular PDF reader and writer (the Acrobat series.) There are, however, free alternatives such as Ghostscript that generate great PDFs from a Postscript file (which you can generate from any program in Windows just by checking the "Print to File" box on a Postscript printer.)
If you're interested in generating PDFs from PHP, there are a myriad of options available by searching Google. Some web hosting companies also support generating PDFs from PHP, which makes generating PDFs a cinch.
HTH!
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Forget Java man and go to PHP!
PHP is 4 times faster than Java technology 'JSP' (Java server pages).
This tallies because compiled "C" program is 4 times faster than Java.
Moreover, PHP is getting the object oriented features of Java language.
The real usefulness of Java is 'Java applets' which run on client browsers but on the server side you simply use PHP.
PHP is a very lightening fast object oriented scripting language. PHP is 100% written in "C" and there is no virtual machine as in Java. Nothing can beat "C" language ("C" is a language which never dies!!)
(Java is just another language. The PHP project needs millions of Java programmers who can add the Java's language features like inner classes, static, private, protected and others to PHP. PHP already has some of java' features).
Java programmers will really "LOVE" PHP as PHP class is identical to Java's class keyword.
Read the benchmars of Java JSP and PHP. PHP tops in the speed!!
Read the doc here and mirrors at [1], [2], [3], [4].
I've got the Perl cookbook, and have used many of the source code samples found inside in my work. However, most of the development I do is PHP, and I'm extremely excited to hear that they've released a cookbook for PHP. I reccomend this and the Perl cookbook to any developer who wants advice or inspiration.
Matthew Walker
http://www.tweeterdiet.com/ - My Diet Tracking Tool
1) consistant database integration - Why not have a SetDBType() function, rather than hardcoding mysql_connect, mssql_connect, myodbc_connect, pgqsl_connect, etc?
.NET support?
2) Native XML support - It's just not there? Why re-invent the wheel each time? Give us a good XML tree-walking engine DAMMIT!
3) sane and consistant functions. Single quotes, double quotes, some functions work with both, some work with one or the other, embedded html in an echo screws up if you don't double quote it, etc.
4)
In short, PHP is a good language for small projects, but just doesn't cut it in an enterprise setting.
I use it for just about everything these days over perl. Spam filters, graphing, smtp server, ncurses frontends for apps, fractals, you name it. I also post a lot of what I do in it on my site: http://lucifer.intercosmos.net/
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
I'm a PHP/MySQL junkie, and every time I see anything about PHP on
</rant>
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
...we all know the real reason a lot of people prefer PHP over Perl;o))))))
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
I actually bought a copy of this book, as well as the other one referenced in this review. I found them quite useful in learning PHP - the examples can be easily tweaked to create useful little applications. I haven't done very much with web programming except for few CGI-scripts and PHP definitely looks much easier way to create useful applications.
The examples of integrating to MySQL were especially useful as I have been playing with Microsoft Access using MySQL as server, and now I can easily create web views from the database!
What I want to know is if there's any way to do any sort of Reflection in PHP. I'd buy this book if it had anything on that subject. JSP, ASP.net, and ASP all have Reflection or at least some features similar to it, but PHP seems to have nothing of the type... and there are some types of code that are next to impossible to write without Reflection - things like XML serialization/deserialization in particular are a pain without it.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
JP
function usual_slashdot_activity () {
while ($phpzealots == "annoyed") {
utter($meaningless_nonsense);
}
}
That wasn't so hard, was it?
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
Speaking as someone who has worked with both, php2asp is about as useful as those "pascal2c" tools that were so common a decade ago. It works in only the simplest of cases, and rarely supports the internal objects supported by most ASP languages (ie vbscript and jscript).
PHP blows chunks. It's too bad such a shitty little "language" has taken on such proportion simply because it was, for a while, the only "better" alternative on linux/apache to perl (an even shittier, even more cryptic little language).
Since the "language of browsers" is ECMAscript it makes sense to use that on the server, too, so one doesn't have to constantly shift back and forth between languages. And one doesn't HAVE to use an MS product in order to do so. It's really too bad so many otherwise intelligent folk abide the braindead notion that ECMA(java)script = ASP = MS.
This book has been out for nearly a year. Is this news?
Because it's easy, fast, and 'real' enough for the vast majority of quick webpages.
just like PHP
if you want a big, complex, very scalable website; it might be better to go with java, for everything else (>90% of cases, i'm sure) it's easier to do it with PHP.
just the same; if you want a heavy duty database, with lots of concurrent updates, and/or triggers, stored procedures and so... well you can do it with Postgres or mortgage your house and use Oracle. for everything else, it's easier, quicker; and usually faster to use MySQL
-Kz-
Relevant, real-life useful examples are given and even a seasoned pro like me picked up a few gems like the example user authentication code that utilizes a hash instead of having to go back to the database on each page fetch.
My bookshelves are full of PHP books but most of them are inferior to the online documentation at php.net. They add nothing and are a true waste of trees. This one, however, does not fall into that category.
AZspot
No!No!No!.... :
;o))))))
One last time
*The* reason
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
*Obligatory PHP flame from the Perl Guy *
Of course unlike Perl there are no easy/good ways to create one in PHP
*/Obligatory PHP flame from the Perl Guy*
There are no good ways to create one in any language. Current solutions are either:
(1) A thin shell over text and graphics primitives
or (2) dependent on an external rendering engine which creates another format like Postscript.
I'd like a high-level PDF creation library that would let me, say, directly create a table that is sized to fit the contents like HTML, but unlike HTML, will split the table across multiple pages, repeating header and footer information. Sounds straightforward, right? Not possible now. I've checked with Adobe engineers, and it's not even possible with their $20K PDF generation toolkit.
I can just hear the XSL-FO people saying, "but it IS possible with XSL-FO." And it's also possible, given all the sand and steel you could possibly need, to build a window. Point is, it's currently way too much trouble. I'm sure it'll get there eventually, but PDF creation is really an idea in its infancy right now.
bp
Amen!
I did a lot of Perl development before switching to PHP, and some of the things you mention that are missing from Perl are readily available as modules from CPAN. But that just adds another point in PHP's favour -- the default install comes with all the stuff you mentioned.
Before anyone gets their Perl backs up, let me point out why a good default install is important for web development: you don't always have control over the server, so you can't always get the Perl modules you want. (But if you want to re-write your code, sometimes, you'll get what you need! (Couldn't resist.))
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
Because the poster is an M$ Troll, of course...
.NET other than to be qualified for "embracing" and "extending'"...
.NET is designed to get rid of...
There is no good reason for PHP to support
PHP/MySQL and Apache is what
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'm pretty sure this is a troll (I mean, .NET support?), but since it's had a large amount of "Insightful" mods, I figured I would point out at least one misconception.
The parent poster complains about "consistant (sp) database integration" as one of the main problems with PHP. This is usually a problem noted only by those who haven't used PHP in serious development. Sure, if you're writing a 20-line script that you know is only going to use MySQL, then who cares what database connection statements you're using. However, if you're writing anything that needs to be more serious and portable, check out one of PHP's database abstraction libraries: ADOdb or Pear DB. Both of these libraries will let you abstract out database functions so that they aren't tied to one specific database.
Personally, I prefer ADOdb. Not only is it faster than Pear DB, but there's also a C port to speed it up even more. ADOdb also has more capabilities, and its author hangs out in their forums and is extremely helpful with user questions.
You have to change your mindset a bit to code with ADOdb or Pear DB, but it's worth the bit of extra learning curve to gain portability. Since ADOdb can generate insert/update SQL and also generate HTML tables, I find that I'm faster coding with it than I ever was with mysql_query()... and I can switch to Postgres or Microsoft SQL Server at any time without really thinking about my database code.
I hope this helps those of you who are still stuck with mysql_query() or similar. <plug>Also, we're a web hosting company that supports PHP 4.3.x, ADOdb and Pear DB, and we will answer your PHP questions as part of your web hosting package.</plug>
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
to see a book that deals with advanced application design in PHP. The problem with PHP is that most PHP developers are amateurs who don't know the first thing about app design. At best, apps are written with objects used randomly to accomplish some tasks and mostly include files for 2 dozen reused functions (or functions that aren't even reused, but still included in every page).
At worst, every database connection is hard-coded in a different place and there are no comments anywhere.
In either case, my God help anyone who wants to add functionality. These same people need a good book on relational database design, or be subjected to 4 years of universigy RDBMS design courses like I was. IMO, if you aren't willing to slit your wrists to get out of an RDBMS design class, you haven't taken enough of them.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Original purpose of duck tape: sealing amo cases in WWII. Check out www.straightdope.com for the details.
Can I get an ECMA engine for it?
I think a large part of the problem is that PHP is illsuited for many of the larger web applications it is being used for. Traditional Application Server features such as tag libraries found in JSP, ColdFusion, etc. would be good for separating the 'coders' from the 'presentation designers' in large projects, but that's not pertinent to security.
What gets large PHP web applications like web based mail user agents, like Squirrelmail, and content management systems like PHPNuke is that they have to keep a lot of temporary resources between user actions in a single session. Resources such as open files, sockets, variables in memory, for instance.
PHP's simple engine, and its lack of language features to support these features forces PHP web application developers to build and destroy many of those resources in the life-cycle of the script instead of the life cycle of the application or the user session that is more appropriate.
The larger the application gets, the more difficult it gets to build using the simple 'web scripts' programming paradigm PHP and Perl pushes developers towards. This affects security and performance.
The end result is heavy dependence on databases for variable persistance and error-prone algorithm concoctions, a la PHPNuke et. al.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
Ok, so I guess you don't get the chance to recompile the php module either if you really need some extra fonctionnality your webhost doesn't provide on their default PHP install.
Fun fact, if the Perl modules I need aren't available, I can always upload them to my webspace as @INC points to ./ for modules. Something I can't do for PHP if I need the extra fonctionnality.
Nice one, trolling on top of a troll.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I expected somebody to come in and say, "PHP's object support is not very good and OO and GOF patterns are the savior of code management and mega-reuse and getting dates, etc. etc." But I have not seen that. What's an OO critic to do? :-)
Table-ized A.I.
PHP 5 will have much much better XML support.
There is a lot of work on a complete new DOM extension, which should clean up the mess done in domxml as of PHP 4. It will follow the W3C DOM API as much as possible and is completely rewritten from scratch.
Furthermore Sterling Hughes is working on SimpleXml. An extension which should make it much easier to access XML Documents with the usual PHP functions.
The SAX Parser in PHP 5 will also be based on libxml2 and not anymore on the aging expat library.
XML Validation, XPath and XSLT support are also currently revised and should be improved a lot in PHP5.
Seriously....from all the hype and noise, a non-php'er must think the only thing to do with php is use it w/ mySQL.... ..oh uh, don't get me wrong i love using php w/ mySQL and PostgreSQL ;-)
The OO of PHP is excellent.
What does OO mean to you? I could be wrong, but I really think it means Object Oriented. I think there's a P missing in your sentences, standing for Programming.
The OOP features of PHP are excellent.
Destructors, private namespaces, multiple heritage: these are features PHP is currently lacking (I don't know if PHP 5 will offer such features). How is it better than other languages, OOP-wise (honest question)?
I both agree and disagree...
I hate having every_goddamn_function() in the global namespace. I would much rather drag in what I need when I need it, a la perl. However, what drove me from mostly perl development to mostly PHP development is that you're pretty sure you'll have most everything you need built in with the latter. The simple fact of not necessasrily having perl's DBI module installed on a server you don't control (and have no access to gcc on) forced the decision to use PHP for most things over here.
Of course, PHP might not have everything you need built in, either. Need to generate images? If the server doesn't have PHP compiled with gd support, you're out of luck. It does happen less often, though.
The one thing I would love to see from perl is a standard web app bundle. Something that was a no brainer for admins to install when perl's installed. DBI, AxKit or Mason or similar...etc. Something you could count on being there. Then I could get back to a language that fits my brain better.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
I've been using this book for about 3 months, and I'm no Newbie to PHP programming but it's got some invaluable stuff in there.
For example,
php embeds code-like active statements in between static html. where as perl embeds HTML text in between perl commands. Each of them requires designated separators to keep the text and commands separated.
to be a little more specific, since perl had HERE statements one can have an entire perl cgi script that basically looks like a an html page:
sample perl cgi script:
print HERE1 # slashdot wont print the less than signs
this is a bunch of html here.....
HERE1
$d = 4.5 # some perl commands
print HERE2 # slashdot wont show the less than signs
more $d lines of perl
HERE2
I dont see how the separators in perl between HTML text and perl commands add any bulk or inconvnience. Yet perl can do so much more than PHP.
hence my orignal query. What am I missing here. why is there any preference for PHP? is i somehow faster or lighter weight on APACHE? (that say fastCGI is not). I'm stumped. someone please explain!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
(or $61.95 CAD)
6 811/7 02-9229668-4523225
It costs $43.37 CAD
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/156592
With Amazon.ca's FREE shipping and $18.58 in savings I was able to donate my extra $18.58 to the EFF which I think has gone further to battle crazy patents like Amazon.ca has and help support their various causes plus I still spent the same amount as I would at BN and just supported them instead with no donation to EFF. Using Amazon's low price against them. Gotta love it.
Including files is done via a function instead of the preprocessor. W00t!
("C" is a language which never dies!!)
And fortran is still kicking too, sonny.
>>Recently I've had a chance to do some web design with PHP.
/anypattern/; } while();" as beyond their comprehension, but it's not the language's fault if they don't wanna use some the languages builtin features for their great advantage...
:)
some (?) web design (??)... how much of it to begin with?
>>Previously I'd used Perl because I'd heard from many people that Perl was the end all and be all of scripting languages for the web. Imagine my suprise to discover that PHP was vastly superior!
Perhaps your surprise came from the fact that you were using CGI Perl and that PHP was a fast Apache module? You'd be surprised to learn, though, that today there's also a Perl Apache module as well which is as fast or faster than PHP's...
>>I know this is a bold statement, but I have solid arguements to support it.
You better have them as we'll see below...
>>I'm not arguing that PHP is better than Perl in all cases. There is certainly still a use for Perl.
Actually, it's the contrary: Perl is one of the most flexible and faster high level languages in existence. It is used for nearly any tasks imaginable dealing mostly with character string processing, that is, it's an overall great general purpose Turing machine. PHP for some misterious reason is used solely as a tool for building html pages, or perhaps PDF using some commercial library...
Besides, you're aware that php was born from Perl, aren't you? They just dumbed it down so as not to scare ex-M$ users away and because of this the language just lost much of its strengh and flexibility. Ever heard of Perl's motto: "There's more than one way to do it"? It means you can express the same computation many different ways. It means, for instance, that you may express in purely procedural fashion or object oriented, where you see fit. In php (and Python as well) you're trapped in OO craze. There's just one way to do things.
Also, Perl is one of the most compact (and therefore faster) languages in existence. Of course, people's unwillingness to learn the language make them look at features such as "do { print if
So, i say, i'm not saying Perl is better than php in all cases, there's certainly still a use for php...
>>Finally, I'm not the most talented Perl programmer out there.
That seems obvious!
>>I generally prefer to use the vastly superior Python, but can use Perl if I have to.
I like Python too and highly regard it to be Perl's spiritual brother. But i wouldn't say one or the other is better. Though i would take Perl's flexibility and compactness over Python's rigid OO syntax anyday. One thing is true: they both beat the crap out of php and its VB-like stand...
>>* Ease of use. I would definitely not recommend anyone new to programming begin with Perl.
I wouldn't say ease of use is one of Perl's deficiencies. But surely the learning curve for the language is kinda steep. Still, power comes at a price and if you are willing to use a powerful tool you'd better learn how to use it and use it well.
I can say once you learn Perl right, most other languages just feel like lacking in flexibility, expressiveness or compactness.
Yes, if you never used a katana, you'd better get to grips first with a bamboo stick or something.
>> * The OO of PHP is excellent. In my experience, it rivals Smalltalk.
Who do you think you're fooling? PHP's OO features are more like Javascript than Smalltalk, stop daydreaming. If you want high level OO stuff go with Python's multi-inheritance model.
>>Hopefully Perl will be patched up so it supports such must-have OO features like introspection, reflection, self-replication and ontological data-points.
When there's real need for such features, yes. Because Perl doesn't force you into OO syntax, many constructs which just make sense in a purely OO view of the world are not really need
I don't feel like it...
I spend too much of my job re-writing code for projects
that started small and then grew.
Surely its simply good practice to design and code with
scalability and performance built in? Postgresql is no
harder to use that MySQL is it?
...if php would just include one tiny bit of perl goodness: "~="
Instead, I've got to write ugly crap like "if (strpos($alltext, "This string") >-1)" in order to check if a variable contains a string.
In Perl? "if ($alltext ~= "This string")". Much nicer.
This is the comment, even though I wanted to just post a subject since it was sufficient to say all that was necessary, Slashdot (pbui) didn't let me do that - hence this self-referential paragraph.
1. Many fetures are not present in the distribution. For example, pdf creation. So, you have to run around and get code for pdf creation. Most of the code you will run accross will have a license fee associated with it or be sub par. Ohh, they will tell you it supports pdf creation out of the box but all the images are water marked. Yep, totally useless. Thus, you have to pay the license or find an alternative.
:)
2. They changed the names of the functions. I like the function naming in perl because it is similiar to c. This makes it easier for the programmer.
3. Everytime you want a new feature you have to totally recompile their apache module. ( or apache also if your dense ) With perl just goto cpan and install the new module and pod files.
4. Regular expressions and pattern matching are cleaner under perl. In java I have to call functions like php to do a regex.
5. There is no debugger. With perl there is a default real world debugger. Thank god for "perl -d". No, debugging is more than farting out an error to the page displayed. A debugger is more than echoing out to a terminal.
6. Yes, object oriented code under php is really lame. Honest.
7. The latest version of perl has a switch statement now.
8. php like perl is an interpreted language. Thus, it is slower. It is good for a service environment but not the vender environment. Ya, Java is interpreted also. But I can run the jgc compiler ( from the people who wrote gcc ) on it and get native code that is fast. Again, if your going to compile php then you have to pay a license again. ( see the pattern now! )
9. If you switch to php then you have to buy all those books.
I'd say php is good for basic web page database situations. But that is about it. But I can do the same thing in perl just as easy and have a more mature development environment.
Real men program in c anyways...if its good enough for the kernel its good enough for me.
I've used both MySQL and PostgreSQL. In my experience MySQL is not easier.
5) native MySQL transaction support
1. php + Smarty looks like cgi to me
2. who in their right mind would *want* to mix html with their code? When I was handed a vendor's solution with php + html mixed in a single file the first
thing I did was separate the two. How the hell can you see what is going on?
3. so much of php looks like it was lifted right from perl.
4. the real die hards are on a crusade to re-write the whole world in php. gotta laugh.
5. how come just about every site, every book on php is geared towards amatuers? I can never find any depth. Even the manual on php.net has big holes in it.
6. why are there 4 versions of the split function?
7. as for all options being compiled in, they aren't. Did you ever try to build php for the first time? You'll spend hours trying to figure out which options you should include.
1 - It lets you mix html and code in. Sure, it's not the only language that lets you do it, but it's still a strength.
I thought that PHP did a great job of mixing HTML and code until my PHP apps started reaching a certain size. Even using function calls and classes, templates started getting convoluted. Then I discovered Smarty and my whole way of working changed. Smarty is a template manager that allows for more precise separation of content and code. As a super-simple example, lines like become {$variable}. Over the course of a whole site, the savings from this syntax alone ease code readability (yes i care about such a thing). But there's a lot more to smarty than shorter variables, including shorthand for string modifiers and loops, as well as a nifty caching system that can speed up dynamically generated sites, and zillions of other really cool things for "lazy" programmers like me.
A lot of people on this thread have mentioned AdoDB (my other favorite PHP add-on), but I haven't seen anyone give a proper shout out to Smarty. It's made my life easier.
"Luck is the residue of design" --Branch Rickey
The world is using ASP.NET these days...
Much much better than PHP.
works better on ASP.NET
Take it from someone who has worked with real languages, and real application frameworks for HTTP, and is now desperately trying to get as far away from PHP as possible.
foreach ("string" as $char) {
echo ($char);
}
I find the documentation from php.net and mysql.org to be first class.
MySQL Reference Manuals:x .html
The Windows CHM manual for PHP is easy to navigate and search:
http://weblabor.hu/php-doc-chm/
PHP Documentation Downloads:
http://www.php.net/download-docs.php
http://www.mysql.com/documentation/inde
PDFs are ideal because you can search/print them easier than HTML. Plus they are free.
Well, I can do almost anything with a spork, too. The question is: Do I want to?
PHP == Poorly Hung Perl
*ducks and runs*
I've got a buncha linux machines here (in my home), too, but guess what I'm using to type this? I've yet to see a linux desktop environ that looks as slick and feels as cohesive as even my win2k desktop. It's been nearly ten years now - if what you say is true then it seems linux should be the most absolute kickass, user friendly desktop out there.. but it ain't, and not by a long shot. As convoluted and messy as win32 has become, the linux desktop STILL can't compete in overall "feel" with MS (much less Apple). Why is that?
it seems to me that most advocates of perl think perl is better than PHP, and vice-versa for PHP advocates.
:D
The stigma that is associated with perl is generally that "its harder, more lines of code, doesn't have the same functionality" because it takes a steeper learning curve. With PHP you can pretty much do anything right away: just search for the right function. I bet if most big PHP developers gave perl a chance, they'd be surprised.
Same goes for the other side, however. Since PHP is easy to get started on, there are a lot more PHP newbs than there are perl newbs. This reflects poorly on PHP developers as a whole, which there are obviously some very talented ones that don't deserve said reflection. I think the big thing in PHP is "controlling the beast." It can easily become insecure, inefficient, etc. if you don't know what you're doing..and the abundance of newbs make it appear like this happens all the time.
Anyway..I just ran outta pennies..
Perl to Java was a snap---the languages are so different. But moving from Perl to PHP is driving me insane. I'm guessing I'm not the only one, am I?
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Ignore what the other poster said about converting dvi. Use pdflatex to go straight from latex source to pdf. The supertabular package matches so perfectly what you asked for in your first post, that I thought you might be trolling for a pdflatex answer.
Unfortunately, as much as Perl users often enjoy faking it with multi-line regular expressions, XML is not text. What the web needs know is the successor to Perl: a language with the DOM integrated as well as Perl integrates regular expressions. And with output of structured documents as easy as printf.
I shouldn't have to be thinking about the fact that the data is marked up with tags when I'm parsing it. Instead, I should be able to concentrate on the fact that the data is a tree with subelements and attributes to each node. And I should never have to type angle-brackets when doing output.
I don't know whether XPath will be part of this language -- I haven't done enough real-world development with it to be sure. But I damn well know that the OO-structure of W3C's DOM is not the ultimate tool for the job.
I've got something WAY better than PHP, ASP, OR Pearl... ColdFusion (CF)!!! Yeah, yeah, it actually costs some $$$, but back when I was using version 1 or 1.5 is was very very cheap, around $300-$400 USD. Now it's in the 1 or 2 thousand USD range. But, the point is CF can do way more than any of the above is way less time. You can use any data type in any varaiable in any way and NOT have to cast the data type, use a integer in a string or vise-versa. Also, you don't have do declare a database connection every time, just do an entry in it's configuration using its administrative tools and you can just use the connection alias every where and even use multiple connection aliases in the same template and not worry about crossovers. CF also has open source add-ons to expand it's functionality. CF also works natively with Dreamweaver, Flash, and the new Flass connector. CF works on Solarix, Linux, & Windows. You name it, and it can be done with ColdFusion with less code in less time. No more C/C++ syntax. You can create your custome functions and even use it's cousing, CF Scripting. BTW, CF works great with Javascript. All the things you like about PHP is here, but better.
Go to www.Macromedia.com and take a look at the HUGE documentation and books. Large website use ColdFusion, even my bank, Bank Of America. VMWare uses CF also.
I cannot say enough good things about ColdFusion.
Forgot also, works with XML, SOAP, Corba, redeveloped in native Java so you can also create in JSP and it will work. Ummm, add-ons to create PDFs, built-in scheduler, built-in search engine for indexing and searching for online documents, session and client management. There are just too many things for me to list off of the top of my head.
It's true that PHP is the little brother of Perl and Python and certainly it shouldn't be taken too seriously for anything other than web development.
t ml) as well.
But PHP is perhaps the first truly accessible Open Source technology (mainly thanks to the manual and a well considered distribution). Yes you can do it all with mod_perl (or mod_python) but after restarting Apache for the nth time you realise PHP has a point.
Most important is PHP has captured a dominant position on the web (over the MS alternatives). With PHP5 and the overload extension it should be possible to execute Perl and Python from PHP (e.g http://pear.php.net/package-info.php?pacid=132 ). There's some convergance of Parrot (http://www.edwardbear.org/blog/archives/000156.h
If PHP got the backing of more Open Source developers (ideally with C experience, writing extensions) it could provide the "leg up" to the other two P's into mainstream adoption online. For starters cleaning up Swig (http://www.swig.org/) support for PHP...
ASP.NET with it's "control" library (or Sun's Java Server Faces) really do present the next generation of web development technology and PHP's playing catchup (hence "It needs you!").
Personally I prefer PHP Developer's Cookbook from SAMS, though it is in need of a third edition fairly soon (are you listening out there Mr Hughes). I thought it had a better organization and a wider selection of material. Just my personal preference.
Tony Williams
Have you never looked at PEAR? One class, 10 different databases supported. Just tell it which database you want to connect to, no changing of functions anywhere. I hand roll my own classes (change the included class and it's set for a different DB), probably not as elegant as PEAR's solution, though.
You didn't get too far with PHP's documentation, then. I can have PHP email me, too, with a complete vardump of every single variable within the page with set_error_handler() or log the error (or log things that technically aren't errors at all) however I want with error_log(). I can tell it exactly how to display the error, and even turn off emailing me and just printing the error out while I debug it so I don't receive 50,000 emails, and have it finish out the rest of the HTML on the page. I can use the trigger_error() to easily display an attractive "you forgot this field" type error message for the user.
Immature? I think not.