On DZone.com today Giorgio Sironi introduces you to Assetic, an asset management tool that helps you keep things organized and easily requested by your application.

Assetic is a PHP library for managing the deployment of your assets: JavaScript, CSS and other resources which will be requested by the browser. The library has been created by Kris Wallsmith from OpenSky, an e-shop where many of the active members of the PHP community work, or worked (see Jonathan Wage/Doctrine 1 and Bulat Shakirzyanov/Imagine.)

Giorgio compares it to the more traditional method (putting them in a public folder) and how Assetic gives you an advantage over this setup. The main feature of the tool is to bundle all of your assets into one file that is then sent to the browser and interpreted there reducing the need for HTTP calls to request multiple files. An example is included showing the creation of an asset collection and the output of the files all combined into one string.

Paul Reiheimer has set a goal for himself in light of some of the recent advancements that Microsoft has made on the PHP front - to create a successful PHP-driven, IIS served website.

In an effort to learn more about IIS (which a number of my students and contracting contacts seem to use), I have decided to challenge myself: To design, build, and launch a PHP based site, and receive at least 1,000 unique visitors a day by Feb 28, 2008, served from an IIS7 server.

Among his assets are a license to use the IIS software and a designer help with the look and feel. He also sets out requirements for the project including a local testing server, the public web host and that PHP has to be used (not something like phlanger).