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Zend to Show PHP Tools In October

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the good-looking-tools dept.

Darren Rayes writes "Zend plans to release the first version of Zend Framework on Oct. 29 during the next PHP conference. The Zend Framework provides a standard as it facilitates rapid development to write applications that run on Web servers, and includes PHP software modules for tasks such as database access or Web services communications. The framework provides a clean separation of logic and presentation, along with easy maintenance and extensibility through a well-organized application structure."

41 comments

  1. Your CS 101 Lesson for the Day by neonprimetime · · Score: 1, Informative

    PHP, which originally stood for Personal Home Page, but in 1997 it was recoded & renamed to the recursive statement - PHP: Hypertext Processor

    1. Re:Your CS 101 Lesson for the Day by DarkJC · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I always thought it was Hypertext Preprocessor.

    2. Re:Your CS 101 Lesson for the Day by tcolvinMI · · Score: 1

      Thats because it does stand for Hypertext Preprocessor.

    3. Re:Your CS 101 Lesson for the Day by neonprimetime · · Score: 3, Informative

      So I failed CS101. Yes, from wiki, PHP: Hypertext PreProcessor. All hail the parent.

    4. Re:Your CS 101 Lesson for the Day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so all in all, you scored yourself 4 points informative. good game :P

    5. Re:Your CS 101 Lesson for the Day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      4 out of 5 ... 80% ... that's like an A+ in most curved college courses!!!

    6. Re:Your CS 101 Lesson for the Day by Ponkinator · · Score: 1

      PHP originally meant Personal Home Page Tools originally developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. Version 1.0 was announced on the Usenet newsgroup comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi on June 8, 1995.

  2. Dovetails with Eclipse? by telbij · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wish they said more about the tools themselves. Lack of standard tools is one of the biggest problems facing the language. Sure they exist, but the dichotomy between shared host PHP configurations and a 'professional' PHP installation compiled with appropriate modules (getting stack traces is like pulling teeth for crying out loud) is enough to make any serious developer look to the alternatives. ASP.NET, JSP, Ruby on Rails, even ColdFusion have better tools by default. Even using PHP 5 would be a huge improvement, but I'm very hesitant to write PHP 5 code for anything that may have to be reused on another server.

    Once PHP loses its ubiquity crown, it doesn't have much advantage left.

    1. Re:Dovetails with Eclipse? by Espectr0 · · Score: 1

      There is an upcoming fully supported php ide coming to the eclipse platform.

      There is also a eclipse plugin for php development, but i haven't tested it.

      I want a fast editor with basic project management, API integration and code completion.

      --
      Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
    2. Re:Dovetails with Eclipse? by RaisinBread · · Score: 1

      You've listed the drawbacks with out touching on any of the advantages, and I think they're the reason many people are looking into development with PHP.

      ASP & CF - Not free or open. The only reason I'd pick these is because I'm already locked in.

      Ruby - Paradigm changing ideas and awesome framework, it doesn't seem like people are using Ruby for anything but rails. Availability on shared hosts is a issue here as well. Ruby is losing its draw to developers as more mature MVC flavored rapid development frameworks break onto the PHP scene.

      JSP - Solid architecture, slooooow development cycle.

      There's more to PHP than just ubiquity.

    3. Re:Dovetails with Eclipse? by eddy+the+lip · · Score: 1
      Once PHP loses its ubiquity crown, it doesn't have much advantage left.

      Yeah, not really. Ubiquity and knowing that certain things (like database connectivity) come with a standard install are the only reasons I use it. I'm dying to move to another language for development, but at the moment PHP is king of the hill in Free-land on those two counts.

      I'm very hesitant to write PHP 5 code for anything that may have to be reused on another server

      Not quite sure what you mean by this, unless you mean the lack of an install base out there. I've been fortunate enough to be able to switch entirely to PHP5, and going back to 4 would be extremely painful.

      My current PHP gripe is the community itself - not to disparage the many fine folk in it, but among many there is a definite distrust (bordering on hostility) to good architecture. Browse through PEAR sometime to see what I mean. There are some good libraries there, but many of them are a huge PITA to shoe-horn into a decent architecture. There's a slow change working through it. People like Harry Fueks have been evangelizing things like patterns, and there seems to be some slow realization coming that there's more to putting together a decent web app than mixing random code into your HTML.

      What makes me despair is that I find myself drawn into too many arguments about whether MVC is "worth it", why patterns aren't "over-architecting" and on and on. I know that there are good, professional PHP developers out there (I work with some, thank god), but this alone* is making me consider a jump to another language. If I can figure out which it should be.

      * Not that I don't have other reasons as well, but one gripe at a time ;) )

      --

      This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.

    4. Re:Dovetails with Eclipse? by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 1

      There is very little running on PHP can be described as "mature". PHP itself certainly is not.

      --
      http://outcampaign.org/
    5. Re:Dovetails with Eclipse? by 2sheds · · Score: 1

      Have you tried jEdit?

      --

      Absit Invidia
    6. Re:Dovetails with Eclipse? by Espectr0 · · Score: 1

      Yes. Java flickers too much, and it doesn't have a decent php plugin. I tried to like it but it is too barebone. Are you using it? What plugins do you have installed?

      --
      Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
    7. Re:Dovetails with Eclipse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      ASP & CF - Not free or open. The only reason I'd pick these is because I'm already locked in.


      Religion aside, any competent and professional .NET engineer will leave you in the dirt if you're coding PHP versus say C# and ASP.NET 2.0. The event driven model alone makes it a moot point. I'm an open source enthusiast, but please limit your intake of the Kool Aid. I'll take RoR for an open source alternative.

      There's more to PHP than just ubiquity.


      Yeah, like shitloads of security holes and loads of so-called developers who don't practice defensive coding and design. Show me a nasty RoR, .NET, or J2EE app and I'll show you three in PHP.
  3. Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    After spending too much time trying out various PHP frameworks, which would eventually die or have a small amount of users, after spending too much time with Smarty, after working out an XML/XSL templating system of my own, I'm gone from PHP development. Currently, and concurrently, I'm learning ASP.NET and RoR. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so it's very likely I'll choose whatever fits my projects best in particular situations. And you know what? I can't believe how stupid I was to use PHP for all those years. It's almost as if I've jumped directly from stone age to the present day.

    1. Re:Too late by kat104 · · Score: 1

      Personnaly I believe more in PHP than anything.NET.

    2. Re:Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey cool, micros~1 released .NET for UNIX!

      What's that, they didn't? Why are you telling me about this then?

    3. Re:Too late by revlayle · · Score: 1

      geez, then get Mono then, they have an implementation of .NET and ASP.NET for many platforms

    4. Re:Too late by kestasjk · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Lots of people say they don't like PHP and say everyone should go with RoR, but no-one says why. Why is PHP so terrible? Is it the rich API, universal support, good development tools, good community, great documentation? What is it about PHP that some people don't like?

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    5. Re:Too late by togofspookware · · Score: 1

      C-like syntax (not that there's anything wrong with c cyntax, but Ruby does so much better in so many areas), inconsistent and confusing naming conventions, inconsistenies between versions, MAGIC QUOTES (that are on by default on most web hosts)... That's some of the stuff that made me dislike PHP.

      --
      Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
    6. Re:Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      You'll notice that everybody who has used multiple web development platforms will tell you that PHP sucks. People who have used PHP and Ruby will say Ruby is awesome. People who have used PHP and Python will say Python is awesome. People who have used PHP and any J2EE framework will say Java is awesome. The common thread is that PHP is worse than whatever other tool they've used.

    7. Re:Too late by bryguy5 · · Score: 1

      I must be an outlier. I did classic ASP and then ASP.NET development and have now switched to PHP. .NET while great forces you onto the Microsoft platform and ties you to expensive per processor SQL licenses.

      PHP is simplier, more like classic ASP only updated and supported by a huge community. Plus if you can live with the GPL there is an opensource project for every concievable thing you want to do that you can rip code off of.

      Tools like phpEclipse fill in the gap of the integrated IDE and find parsing and the bain of weak typing script languages - mis-typed variable names.

      Personally I prefer dynamic typed languages like classic ASP, PHP, and Ruby for web development vs. the strong typed JAVA and .NET (note if your development team gets over 12 you MUST have a strong typed language.)

      Ruby may be the next big thing but I'm going to wait to see if it survives.

      Bryan

    8. Re:Too late by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 1

      That must be why Yahoo evaluated all their options and went to PHP in 2002. Perhaps they hadn't heard of those other languages? I've used Java, ASP, Perl, and PHP. All I want to use now is PHP. It's the best for quick-and-dirty programs to get things done, and yet I can also do solid, OO, templated, well-structured projects when that is desired. PHP also has some of the best free public libraries available. (Perl may have more, but Perl is too much of a headache to use.)

    9. Re:Too late by eddy+the+lip · · Score: 1

      I've been developing nearly exclusively in PHP for somewhere around four years (just so you know, I'm not slagging the language for the hell of it. I've stored up a good dose of pain.)

      Why is PHP so terrible? Is it the rich API

      It's the 3000+ functions in the global (and only) namespace. It's the inconsistant function naming ('2' or 'to', underscores or not) and parameters (needle-haystack or haystack-needle.) It's the poor quality of much of PEAR (not that there aren't some fine packages there, but they are not the majority)

      universal support

      The sole reason I use it. This shouldn't be underestimated.

      good development tools

      No better than any other environment, and not as good as many. You can do things like step through code and set breakpoints, but the pain involved in getting that set up is huge.

      good community

      See my rant in this thread here

      great documentation

      PHP's documentation is one of my big complaints. I don't want to disparage the huge community effort in it, but it just doesn't compare favorably to that available for other languages. Read through the comment threads on php.net, and you'll find mistakes, clumsy workarounds and just general Bad Ideas all over the place. The documentation itself is frequently obtuse (see sprintf for a fine example. A great deal of time is spent on using it for argument swapping, something I've never had to do this way in PHP. It's actual purpose is too quickly passed over for someone new to programming.)

      Apparently none of these are enough to overcome the advantage of a large install base, but I am seriously looking at moving to a different language. It's just unfortunate I'll be leaving a lot of experience behind when I do.

      --

      This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.

    10. Re:Too late by stuuf · · Score: 1

      I don't like the way PHP handles libraries and extensions. Perl, and even Java, have much better systems. PHP's standard library is only distributed as one big chunk along with the php interpreter; adding and removing individual extensions requires recompiling the whole thing. There are no namespaces, so many functions have long or confusing names. And although PHP was born when OO programming was already quite mature, and the language has class-based OO, the standard library rarely uses objects. Instead of a high level easy to use structure present in most scripting languages, it looks more like a low level C library. The nice thing about Perl is that ALL of the libraries are available through CPAN, so you can even upgrade some of the "core" modules without reinstalling the interpreter. PHP seems like it was an attempt to be as powerful as perl (and the PHP language itself has all of Perl's important features) but corners were cut in other areas of the design.

      --

      Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it

    11. Re:Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Errr... what?

      If I want to add a library to PHP, all I do is download the source, cd to the library, and run phpize. Load the .so with php.ini and it's done. Sure, you can recompile the whole thing, but why?

    12. Re:Too late by ibbo · · Score: 1

      I'm happy with it.

      I dont go about using this library or that library if I can help it. I fully OO my code up and and I can pretty much do what others can do in other languages. (and yes code re-use is a default concept of mine so my classes can easily be shifted to another site and used with ease).

      Yes I have looked at other languages but when it comes down to it i recon php aint going no place so why would I choose to learn yet another damned language when the one I have does the job good enough.

      Days end have your ruby and your rails and dont forget to shake that snake if you must. I'm all for the evolution of languages but languages that are not 100% web based languages are popping up here and there and everywhere.

      Are we to learn them all before we can decide whats the best one to use?

      NOT ME. I can do it in PHP and I dont have any issues with its short comings (not that I have realy experienced any).

      PHP is evolving all the time. So what happens when python suddenly becomes not so good as the next language, are you all to drop that language and use the next one or revert to one you already know because it just improved.

      How would this benefit your existing clients. Do you think you can shift to say RoR and then expect your clients to re-pay you to re-code the sites you made for them in RoR too.

      Its not so straight forward just shifting languages as it would appear.

      I aint wishing to slate anyone or anything but there is a saying that goes "BAD WORKMEN BLAME THEIR TOOLS".

      Ibbo

      --
      Linux user #349545 (GNU/Linux)iD8DBQBAzWjX+MZAIjBWXGURAmflAKCntuBbuKC WenpmXoA7LNydllVQOwCfdjyzXscd
    13. Re:Too late by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1
      It's the 3000+ functions in the global (and only) namespace.

      Having many functions available is a good thing, no? Namespaces for standard libraries are a PITA that gains nothing in terms of encapsulation or abstraction.

      It's the inconsistant function naming ('2' or 'to', underscores or not) and parameters (needle-haystack or haystack-needle.)

      PHP functions are often drawn from other languages, such as C or Perl, and the naming and parameters in the PHP versions are consistant with these other languages.

      I don't see a significant problem here. If the function isn't familiar enough to you that you have its name and parameters memorized you need to look at its manual page before using it anyway - true for any language, to check for preconditions and limitations.

      It's the poor quality of much of PEAR (not that there aren't some fine packages there, but they are not the majority)

      Same can be said of CPAN.

      Read through the comment threads on php.net, and you'll find mistakes, clumsy workarounds and just general Bad Ideas all over the place.)

      You'll find the same in newsgroups and other forums for C++, Java, Perl, or any language.

      Does PHP have some misfeatures? Sure. Since the day in the early 1980s when I wrote my first program, I haven't yet met a language that didn't. But it's a pretty good tool for the job of creating web applications.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  4. How does it compare to Ruby on Rails? by voodoo_bluesman · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Anyone know how this framework matches up with Ruby on Rails in terms of development speed?

    1. Re:How does it compare to Ruby on Rails? by pestilence669 · · Score: 1

      The Zend Framework is only a framework. It's not bad, but it's a tad less comprehensive than Rails. It offers database abstraction, logging, and a gang of other features that don't particularly interest me. It's far from unified and resembles a 3rd party toolkit more than anything else. That said, it's still better than rolling your own solution(s).

      Speed wise, Ruby is faster than PHP development (even with the Zend Framework), but only for application types that it excels at. Otherwise, PHP is often faster. It's not so much, what's better or what's not... it's a matter of using the right tool for the job. If you're doing development that Rails is well suited, then the Zend Framework isn't going to get you excited.

  5. Your Grammar 101 Lesson for the Day by stuuf · · Score: 1

    PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, but in 1997 it was recoded & renamed to the recursive statement "PHP: Hypertext Processor."

    or

    PHP, which originally stood for Personal Home Page, was recoded & renamed to the recursive statement "PHP: Hypertext Processor" in 1997.

    --

    Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it

  6. PHP is just *GREAT* by mangu · · Score: 1
    What is it about PHP that some people don't like?


    The same thing that's wrong with so many other practical tools: it's not fancy enough, not enough bells and whistles, not nerdy enough, too practical. PHP has a simple C-like syntax that works well with most editors and developers utilities, it mingles better than any other language with HTML, it handles SQL very well, has good internationalization features. It's a perfect tool for simple tasks, the kind that's needed most often.


    Years ago I did a little bit of AI programming and I learned such languages as Prolog and Lisp. Falling in love with the advanced features of such languages is very dangerous, you get a tendency to try to make things in an apparently elegant way that hides an internal complexity which will come back to bite you later. I learned programming in FORTRAN in 1975 and in all those years there has been one important lesson that I never let myself forget: always use the simplest available tool for each task.

  7. You can have .NET Framework in PHP now! by ladaprosek · · Score: 1

    Check out Phalanger - PHP compiler for .NET and you can use the entire .NET Framework in your PHP apps right away. And even if you're not interested in .NET, it will significantly speed up your apps.

    There's really no point in waiting for Zend Framework or anything made by the PHP group ;)

    http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName =Phalanger

    1. Re:You can have .NET Framework in PHP now! by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      There's really no point in waiting for Zend Framework or anything made by the PHP group ;)

      What about the point of not having .net dependencies? That seems like a good one to me.

    2. Re:You can have .NET Framework in PHP now! by ladaprosek · · Score: 1

      OK, so if you were to choose either some "Zend Framework" which would probably be coded as poorly as PHP (have you ever seen PHP sources?), or .NET Framework, a seriously developed and supported product (and also free by the way), what would you choose? If you have issues with the fact that .NET is being developed by Microsoft, you can try Mono.

  8. PHP has its place.... by CopterHawk · · Score: 1
    I used PHP for the first couple years of my career and I honestly like the language. PHP has its place, and that is rapidly creating dynamic web sites and simple web apps. The company I worked for absolutely smoked the competition when it came to development time and therefore cost.

    If your project is complicated enough that you are thinking about paying for a framework that can provide a clean separation of logic and presentation, it's time to move on to bigger and better things. A Java/Tomcat/Struts solution using Eclipse for development is free. A .NET solution is not free but still a good choice also.

  9. 21 dog months by usidoesit · · Score: 0

    That's a long time...I'll be done with my own framework long before then. And I mean that. Zend need to have better imagination for controller than just copying Rails. That architecture doesn't score any maintenance points with me because a directory full of little controllers is no controller in my book.

  10. Re:RUBY ON RAILS SUCKS A FUCKING DICK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Ruby on Rails sucks a fucking dick

    You could break your nose doing that.