In a new article from the Builder.com.au website, they give a walk through of how to use the new Delphi version (from CodeGear) in your PHP development.

I recently got the chance to actually try out the product. Here's a brief tour of Delphi for PHP, which I hope will help you bootstrap yourself into the environment. Because many regular readers are already familiar with Visual Studio, and because I am extremely familiar with it, I will be making many comparisons between Delphi for PHP and Visual Studio. Also, I won't spend time discussing the PHP language itself, but I will show how the work in the IDE affects the PHP code underneath.

He includes descriptions of some of the features included in the tool and sprinkles in a few screenshots to help give a better idea of how its all laid out. HE likes it overall but thinks that there might be some PHP developers out there that feel a bit constrained by it since it lacks some features that most editors come bundled with natively.

With a follow up to a previous post of his about Delphi's choice of VCL over Prado for the behind the scenes framework for their software, Eirik Hoem has posted this based on feedback from the original post.

What I miss in the feedback I got from my previous post was people acually using VCL/PHP for enterprise applications and how that is working. From what I can tell the usage of Exceptions is still limited to the 3rd party libs such as Zend Framework which are included with VCL/PHP. That's a bit interesting.

He mentions one big issue that several people pointed out with the VLC implementation - the class name prefixing (or lack there of) and the problems it could cause in the future. Prado uses naming conventions that keep its classes out of the move generally named realm. He also touches on the quality of the code behind the VLC implementation, noting that while it might work well for smaller projects, there's more of a potential for failure on enterprise-level usage.

The PHPClasses.org website has posted a new review of CodeGear's latest version of Delphi for PHP.

A new version of Delphi for PHP IDE was released this year. It is a follow-up of Delphi for PHP 1.0 released for the first time in 2007.

Manuel already reviewed a previous version of the software, so he only really focuses on the differences. He spends time reintroducing what Delphi is and how it plays a role in a PHP developers experience before getting into the new functionality. New features like third-party library support, how to run the software on other platforms (like Linux or OS X) and several of the updates to the user interface itself.

Want to try out the next major version of Delphi for PHP? Paul Gregg is looking for volunteers to be testers for the latest version of this CodeGear project.

CodeGear is looking for additional beta testers for the next major version of Delphi for PHP.

Those interested should check out this page and fill in the application to become a tester (just name, email address, experience using PHP tools and how much time you could devote to testing).

Want to try out the next major version of Delphi for PHP? Paul Gregg is looking for volunteers to be testers for the latest version of this CodeGear project.

CodeGear is looking for additional beta testers for the next major version of Delphi for PHP.

Those interested should check out this page and fill in the application to become a tester (just name, email address, experience using PHP tools and how much time you could devote to testing).

Eirik Hoem has posted some of his thoughts on why the CodeGear software package Delphi for PHP should have gone with the Prado framework instead of their current choice, VCL4PHP.

This kind of tool is something that ASP.net has had for a long time (ie Visual Studio.net). Not only does it make the development process easier when it comes to building applications, but it also handles setup of applications, default configs etc. [...] My impression is that most PHP developers (at least above hobby level) works on Linux based workstations, so I imagine getting a strong user base could prove to be difficult.

That said, he has his reasons for why Prado should have been the framework of choice including the exception handling gap between the two (Prado on top), validation controls, how they use global variables and the rendering of HTML/XHTML by each.

Eirik Hoem has posted some of his thoughts on why the CodeGear software package Delphi for PHP should have gone with the Prado framework instead of their current choice, VCL4PHP.

This kind of tool is something that ASP.net has had for a long time (ie Visual Studio.net). Not only does it make the development process easier when it comes to building applications, but it also handles setup of applications, default configs etc. [...] My impression is that most PHP developers (at least above hobby level) works on Linux based workstations, so I imagine getting a strong user base could prove to be difficult.

That said, he has his reasons for why Prado should have been the framework of choice including the exception handling gap between the two (Prado on top), validation controls, how they use global variables and the rendering of HTML/XHTML by each.

CodeGear (Borland) have release an update to their Delphi for PHP toolset - Update 2 for Windows (21.8MB).

According to the International PHP Magazine site:

The second Delphi update for PHP includes improved documentation, updated VCL for PHP, and fixes. [...] Delphi for PHP Update 2 includes an updated version on the VCL for PHP, updated InterBase client library, improved documentation, and many bug fixes. Update 2 includes new component packages, if you have a previously installed version of Delphi for PHP, those packages won't be installed automatically and you may want to use them.

You can find out more about this software package from its page over on the CodeGear.com website including a link to download a trial.

CodeGear (Borland) have release an update to their Delphi for PHP toolset - Update 2 for Windows (21.8MB).

According to the International PHP Magazine site:

The second Delphi update for PHP includes improved documentation, updated VCL for PHP, and fixes. [...] Delphi for PHP Update 2 includes an updated version on the VCL for PHP, updated InterBase client library, improved documentation, and many bug fixes. Update 2 includes new component packages, if you have a previously installed version of Delphi for PHP, those packages won't be installed automatically and you may want to use them.

You can find out more about this software package from its page over on the CodeGear.com website including a link to download a trial.

On his blog/forums today, Paul Gregg has a mini-review posted of the recently released Delphi for PHP:

D4PHP is CodeGear's first attempt at bringing visual rapid application development to PHP. To be honest my first impression was fear. Here I am, 10+ years into PHP and used to developing raw PHP in vi and Zend Studio, with a couple of forays into Eclipse, staring at a PHP RAD tool without the first clue where to begin.

His experience has been mostly with the usual crowd of PHP IDEs, so things were a bit foreign to him. Eventually, though, (after following the tutorial) he was able to make and compile a simple PHP script.

I have to confess that being a simple procedural kind of guy that thinks OO is mostly hype, D4PHP is a huge concept for me to grapple with. But I think I might just enjoy it.