Rob James has a new post looking at configuring Apache to run Tomcat and PHP together so you can have both Java and PHP apps running through the same Apache frontend.

Here is the scenario; you have a project that requires hosting a single website in a single web domain, but you have a mix of PHP applications and Java (or in my instance, GRAILS) applications that you need to run. [...] The problem is, that there is no good documentation to help you do this, so here I go!

His example sets up a site that will load static pages, run PHP applications, handle Java application requests without missing a beat. He starts from the very beginning - installing OpenSSH, vsftpd, MySQL, Apache, Java and Tomcat - all from packages on a Ubuntu linux installation. To connect Tomcat with Apache, you'll need to use the mod_proxy Apache module and configure the Tomcat server to listen on the right port.

On the Java section of the Sys-con.com site today there's an interesting perspective from the Java side of things as to why people (the "cool kids") choose Ruby or PHP over Java despite some of the things it has to offer.

Here is a question that I have been pondering on and off for quite a while: Why do "cool kids" choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java? I have to admit that I do not have an answer. Why do I even care? Because I am a Java developer.

He wonders why, when the Java community, toolset and user base seems so strong, would developers opt for PHP/Ruby to build their "middleware logic". He suggests that maybe Java is more difficult to use so developers shy away from it. He does mention one things that could cause a the sway more towards these simpler languages - that Java could be overkill for a good number of the smaller sites out there.

Check out the comments on the post for more thoughts and ideas from both the PHP/Ruby and Java sides of the discussion.

David Para has written up a tutorial for his blog today about working with Scala to create a build tool for his PHP repositories.

So what do I exactly need? I want to build multiple versions of PHP from the same branch without checking out the code twice. I also want to configure these builds somewhere without always typing in the parameter list or so. For further versions I want to be able to configure these in a file that can easily be distributed to other machines.

He includes the basic Scala script to make the build process work - defining the locations of the build tools, setting up a few parameters and define a few build parameters for his PHP6, PHP6-debug, PHP 5.3 and PHP 5.3-debug installations. An example of running the script is also given, passing in the name of the script along with the target to the java VM (or tell it to build all instances). You can download the jar file here.

Ladislav Prskavec has posted a step-by-step guide on getting Hudson (a Java-based continuous integration server) working with PHP.

Hudson is extensible continuous integration engine used for Java projects. It's architecture can be used for others languages as PHP too.

The guide links you to the files and packages you'll need to get PHP support installed (including a few different plugins), a sample build script for a build tool like Phing and an example Hudson configuration to tie them together. The Phing process is executed in a shell to run unit tests, build documentation and check the syntax on all files in the current repository.

If you're a Zend Studio IDE user and are having trouble on the latest release of Apple's operating system (Snow Leopard), Davey Shafik might be able to help. In these two posts he walks you through how you can fix a crashing issue and a problem that comes up when selecting text.

For the first problem:

OSX Leopard, it has seemed for a while, like the app was decaying - growing progressively crashier the more I used it. Literally, to the point where I could use it. I think, however, I have solved the issue. [...] This just explicitly makes it use JVM 1.5, which is, after all, what it was built for.

And for the second (text selection):

If you are still using Zend Studio 5.5, and recently upgrade to Snow Leopard, you will have spotted pretty quickly there is a pretty severe display bug when selecting text. The reason for this, is that Snow Leopard only ships with Java 1.6 and 1.3 (wtf?) [...] It essentially comes down to this: Grab the Java 1.5 JDK from Leopard (original) and then tell OSX to use the 32bit version by default.

You can find out more information on the cause of this problem here.

As a way of answering the common language comparison question (PHP vs Java/Perl), Stefan Mischook has posted these thoughts comparing the languages himself.

[For web development] PHP is the way to go. Perl is a good language but it was not designed initially for web development - that functionality was added later.

He talks about his experience using Perl in web-based environments and some of the issues he's seen around using it or Java for web applications...including a suggestion for Java's place in the world:

Java is great for the enterprise...that means, if you plan to be working for very large companies. But it takes a lot longer to create anything in Java vs PHP.

On the Zend Developer Zone today there's a new tutorial looking at combining the Zend Server (Community Edition) with the Java Print Service to make printing in your applications (something PHP's not very good at) simpler.

What if you still need to have printing support in your PHP application? With Zend Server, Zend's integrated PHP application stack, the answer might be not what you were expecting. Use the PHP Java Bridge, available in both the community and commercial editions of Zend Server.

Their method combines Java code with some native PHP code to create a "printer" and point your scripts to it. Various options and configuration file information are included as well as two scripts - one to make a simple "one image" document and another to make a more complex PDF containing an interactive form.

In this new article from Developer.com they take a look at some of the different web application stacks (including LAMP) and offer some advice as to which might be the right fit for you and your application.

Critically examining the underlying architecture for a web application is an important step in defining the end product. That explains why one of the first questions that developers ask each other is: "what stack are you using?"

They evaluate:

• LAMP Stack
• WISA Stack
• Java Web Stack
• SQL Anywhere for the Data Tier

They make recommendations for three kinds of users - start-up/hobbyist, SMB developers and enterprise-level developers.

In this new post to the Liip blog Tobias Ebnother looks at Jackalope that's looking to bring JCR functionality into the toolset offered to PHP developers.

We initiated a new open source project called Jackalope. Its purpose is to bring JCR via Jackrabbit to the PHP world. [...] JCR provides a great standardized storage for hierarchical content and supports some nice features like full text search, versioning, transactions, observation, and more. Our main goal is to create a PHP Connector for Jackrabbit without using any Java.

To accomplish this, they're doing things in two steps. First, they've created a setup with the Java bridge (from Zend Server) to make the connection back to the Jackrabbit server and making writing tests to that API. The second step is to swap out the Java bridge with the Jackalope connection piece. You can check out the current state of the project on its Github page or come and ask questions of the team on the Freenode IRC network (#jackalope).

On the PHP in Action blog today Dagfinn has pointed out a presentation that, while directed at Java developers, has some good suggestions for anyone working in software development - 10 Ways to Improve Your Code (from Neal Ford).

I discovered a video presentation available from QCon SF 2008 by Neal Ford called 10 Ways to Improve Your Code. Although the examples are in Java, most of the presentation is relevant to PHP. There are some ideas here that I've never heard of myself, such as "anti-objects". Some of the main headings are a bit cryptic, so you may have to see the video itself to have them explained.

The list of ten ways includes things like test-driven development, good citizenship, the "single level of abstraction principle and anti-objects.