In a new post on his Medium.com site Romans Malinovskis has posted an objective comparison of ORM/DBAL libraries based on his own list. It includes several different libraries from all around the community including Doctrine, Eloquent, Cake ORM and Agile Data.

For many of us, developers, pattern of accessing external data (SQL) is a thing of preference. We get used to different syntaxes and subjectively endorse it. By looking past the individual preferences, I wanted to create a “comparison criteria” that would help PHP community to objectively evaluate data persistence frameworks based on features. As I looked around I haven’t found anything, so I started to work on my own list:

https://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/php-data-access-libraries-orm-activerecord-persistence. I welcome my readers to help me populate and use the table. In this article I explain various features which I’ve used as comparison criteria.

The (lengthy) post is divided up into sections for each of the criteria including:

• Sections and Scope
• Support of Persistence Engines
• Criteria, Scope, Condition
• Query Building
• Single-record operations
• Relations and References

...just to name a few. Each section comes with an explanation of what it is in a library-agnostic way and code examples where relevant. Be sure to check out both the table and the rest of the post for the full details.

Mirza Pasic has posted a tutorial to the Bosnadev.com site introducing you to the repository design pattern and how to use it in a Laravel 5-based application.

These days there is a lot of buzz about software design patterns, and one of the most frequently asked questions is “How can I use some pattern with some technology“. In the case of Laravel and the Repository pattern, I see often questions like “How I can use repository pattern in Laravel 4″ or nowadays “..in Laravel 5″. Important thing you must remember is that design patterns do not depend on specific technology, framework or programming language.

He starts with a brief overview of the Repository pattern, just to catch everyone up to speed (complete with a diagram for extra effectiveness). He then talks about the role interfaces play in the structure and where in the Laravel directory structure he recommends placing them. He configures the "composer.json" file to autoload them correctly and gets into his actual implementation. He creates a system to work with the push and pull of movie/actor/rental data including the code to make not only the specific repository instances but the generic class they inherit from. Next he creates the "criteria" object type to help with searching the data and makes a few examples ("length over two hours", "rental below three"). Finally he shows how to use this criteria searching in a controller to create custom queries and result sets.

In a new post to his blog Chris Roane has a few suggestions about advanced programming and what it might take to be considered an advanced programmer in any language.

On a previous post I had someone comment that they did not agree that the code implementation that was presented in the article was advanced (which was described in the title). They also claimed that I was not an advanced PHP programmer. This made me think. Not because my programming skill or knowledge was challenged. But because I’m not sure what makes code or a programmer "advanced".

He asks a few questions about the criteria for considering someone an "advanced programmer" including things like how fast or efficient they are, how much they make or the conference(s) they've been to. He points out that, because "advanced" is such a relative term, it's hard to put a finger on it. Being this hard to define (and mostly worthless even if it is) he suggests an alternative to trying to figure it out:

Instead of throwing around general terms in labeling code or other programmers, let’s come together and figure out ways in improving code together. Practical applications.

On his MontanaProgrammer.com blog Chris Roane looks at the value of a PHP programmer and what you might look for when considering which developers could make the most difference.

Over the years I have come across PHP programmers from different backgrounds. I’ve seen some do very well, and others fall flat on their faces. One unique element about PHP programmers is that they vary in quality more than most other programming professions.

He mentions traits to consider like speed of coding, reliability, experience, humility and be able to accurately estimate time to finish work. He give the example of three different developers - each with their own skills and experience levels and asks which of these might be the best. The trick is, "best" is very subjective to the needs of the company that wants the code written.

On the Techfounder.net blog today Eran Galperin asks the question "what makes a good programmer?":

Some casual surfing led me to this article from a couple of years ago, titled "How to recognize a good programmer". [...] It got me thinking though, on what are the attributes I consider useful in fellow programmers. So what makes a good programmer?

Some of the key features he suggests looking for in a good programmer include:

• An analytical thinker
• Gets things done
• Does more than "just enough"
• Responsible
• Good human relations

In ths new post to his blog Brandon Savage asks the question "what constitutes a web service" and explains some of the things that he sees as defining characteristics of them.

The explosion of the concept of "web services" has generated a debate over what "web services" actually are. An article by Raj Mishra tries to limit the concept of "web service" to a strict ten-point list, insisting that a web service have a WSDL and uses SOAP. While this is a perfectly fine sentiment (even the one endorsed by WC3), it certainly is a limiting description.

Brandon notes that his definition as to what constitutes a "web service" has broadened from the strict "SOAP and a WSDL" the W3C implies. Instead he suggests three points that would help make a better definition of a service:

• Provides an endpoint or endpoints for the retrieval and/or addition of data through a standard format; and
• Contains one or more documented method(s) for retrieving or adding that data; and
• Allows access by users who are not operating from the same servers as the endpoint(s).

Notice the multiple "and" in there - his three criteria work together to define the service make for less ambiguity while still allowing for flexibility.

This new post from Jani Hartikainen talks about models and how you can use models together with others (in this case, for searching your application's data).

If you have written a model layer which separates database access from the rest of the code, you probably know that you may end up with lots of methods like findByName, findByTitle or such, for cases where you want to find records based on specific criterias. [...] You could also use your model objects as search “criterias” - A bit similar to how Propel handles criterias, but not as nearly as complex.

His simple example (making a user object, assigning a name to it and then passing it to a gateway to search on that name) illustrates one major benefit of using model objects in others - prevalidation. In this case, checking to see if the name passed in is even valid before continuing.

He also provides a bit more complex example - the contents of that user gateway model that can check to be sure that the user even exists.

From the Programming Resources, News and Ideas blog (plentyofcode.com), there's yet another comparison article, but between three different languages this time - J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP on multiple criteria.

In this article, I wanted to compare the web application development platforms which I have been using for recent years. My comparison has no aim to make one platform better than others, or vice versa. These are all my own thoughts and what I have experienced during the development of web applications using the three platforms. It is open to you to express your opinions and stands as a comment.

They rank them on a three-point scale from 8 (good) up to 10 (best) and look at things like:

• Syntax
• Easy to Learn
• Platform
• OOP – Object Oriented Support
• Performance
• Support and Community
• Cost

PHP scored relatively high (nines and tens) on most things with the exception of "Syntax" because of some of its "odd characters" to work with objects and classes.

From the Programming Resources, News and Ideas blog (plentyofcode.com), there's yet another comparison article, but between three different languages this time - J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP on multiple criteria.

In this article, I wanted to compare the web application development platforms which I have been using for recent years. My comparison has no aim to make one platform better than others, or vice versa. These are all my own thoughts and what I have experienced during the development of web applications using the three platforms. It is open to you to express your opinions and stands as a comment.

They rank them on a three-point scale from 8 (good) up to 10 (best) and look at things like:

• Syntax
• Easy to Learn
• Platform
• OOP – Object Oriented Support
• Performance
• Support and Community
• Cost

PHP scored relatively high (nines and tens) on most things with the exception of "Syntax" because of some of its "odd characters" to work with objects and classes.

The International PHP Magazine has posted the results of the question asked in their latest poll - "What is the Top Criterion for Scaling PHP?"

Of the six options they provided:

• Object code caching
• Template systems
• Distributed object-caching systems
• PHP variables that can be set
• Output Compression
• Other things that may help

one stood out as a clear winner - "Object code caching". Bringing up second place was "Distributed object-caching systems" and the other options coming in pretty close behind.

Be sure to cast your vote for their latest poll question - "Which is the Most Common Database Problem?"