A recent post from Francois Zaninotto has been getting a lot of attention recently. It's his look at what would be needed to design a complete CMS and the full architecture behind it.
When faced with the alternative between an off-the-shelf CMS or a custom development, many companies pick solutions like ezPublish or Drupal. In addition to being free, these CMS seem to fulfill all possible requirements. But while choosing an open-source solution is a great idea, going for a full-featured CMS may prove more expensive than designing and developing your own Custom Management System.
He breaks it up into sections that look at the hidden costs behind custom development, what components it takes, the environment to build in and some of the fundamental questions you need to ask before even getting started.
The latest episode of WebDevRadio has been posted (by Michael Kimsal) - some responses to listener questions that have been sent to him.
The latest webdevradio podcast is up. One of the topics is a question for listeners about PHP learning resources; specifically, what are some good resources to learn PHP OO? I also ask about what listeners would recommend to someone just getting in to the webdev field these days - .net, java, ruby, php, something else?
The symfony project asks the community on their blog what sorts of projects they're using the framework for:
We are trying to get a better view of the use of symfony, and of what people think are its strongest and weakest points.
If you have five minutes to spare, we'd love to have your feedback on the matter. There is a poll thread in the forum where you can express your opinion.
If you're a user of the symfony framework, be sure to head over to the post and grab the list of questions they'd like to hear about. Tons of developers have already responded, so add your answers today!
In his latest blog post, Jacob Santos takes a look at a common request PHP developers hit after a while - is it possible to multitask processes/actions in php?
The ability to run two or more commands in parallel is totally sexy, but the Web is a different playing field and it doesn't make complete sense.
PHP loses control, once the output is sent and the connection is closed. Multithreading would probably make sense in streaming, but PHP already handles that for you where it makes sense for the function. Furthermore, mulithreading has its purpose in applications that continue to run and not something that closes and cleans up everything after the last command is issued.
He continues talking more about what multitasking is, a more real life example, the goods, the bads, and some of the issues that can come along with it. Finally, he suggests a feature to be added to the core of PHP - an "internal multitasking mechanism" to help aid these kinds of processes.
Joshua Eichorn, being the generous soul that he is, is offering in his latest post to answer any Ajax questions his readers might want to know about.
Have you wondered whats the easiest way to submit a form using AJAX, what the status of HTML_AJAX development is, or what is covered in Understanding AJAX?
Well nows your chance.
To get your question(s) in, just submit them as a comment on this post and he'll come back in a few days with the answers.
With a "post-exam post" today, Jad has come back from the testing center fresh out of the new Zend PHP5 Certification exam with a few comments.
I just came back from the test centre; The exam was really great and joy to take, all topics were equally covered but if you are planning to book then I'd suggest not to make a general read but read in details about everything even stuff you aren't likely to use or you are not used to use in your daily dose of code.
He gives examples of questions of different types - syntax, general functionality differences, differences between PHP4 and PHP5, etc. He also specifically mentions some of the questions covering exceptions, SOAP, inferfaces, SimpleXML and more. He recommends reading up on pretty much every topic on their list.
On the KillerPHP.com website, there's a brief look at design patterns, specifically using them in PHP:
Since the release of PHP 5, the PHP world has slowly started to get into more advanced programming, things like object oriented concepts and the use of design patterns.
Stefan Mischookdescribes the patterns simply, as nothing more than standardized ways of solving common programming problems. He lists a few of the more well-known patterns and answers a few common questions developers have about them:
When should you start learning and using design patterns?
The dark side of design patterns (when should I use them?)
What can we learn from Java's bad experience?
I love his final comment - it sums the design pattern experience up well:
I am not saying that design patterns are bad, I just think they should be used only in the right context: you don't need an 18 wheeler truck to move a chair...
Whether you're just coming into the world of the web or you're an old hand just looking for something different - a different CMS, that is - this new article over on NewsForge today might help you sift out a few you might not want.
It seems as if everyone is a Web publisher today -- from the habitual bloggers and online diarists to the companies running major news outlets, portals, and magazines -- and they're all using some kind of database-backed content management system (CMS) to do it. There are a lot of CMS choices -- Drupal, Mambo, Bricolage, WordPress, and Plone are some of the most recognizable names. While they all perform the same basic functions, you have to pick only one. How do you do it?
He goes through two different questions to think about before you settle on the one you'd like to use:
What to look for - including the licensing, what language it's in, is the project active, is there support for it?
Which is the right one for me? - does it have the features you want, is it 'just a blog' when you need 'just a blog', how customizable is it?
Check out the comments too for some great opinions already voiced.
Lukas Smith, following up on a previous post on his perspectives on the openess of the Zend/Eclipse IDE development process. It seems that he's not the only one that's wondering - there've been other posts to the Eclipse boards that have been either ignored or treated with no respect.
After publishing my initial post where I question if the proposal process meets my definition of the open source process I had several people on IRC querying me and saying that they very much agree. However when I indicated that Zend needs to know about this too, so that they can better understand the importance to the community people did not seem to follow through. What exactly are people scared about?
While I may not agree with Zend on this, they have been receptive when people brought issues to their attention. Although it sometimes took a blog post (scroll down to "I'm Spartacus") with a number of comments to make them realize that they need to fix their priorities (scroll to "A Change in Policy").
It's a shame to see the people at Zend not taking notice of something like this until there's already a large amount of community involvement behind it. Sure, it's worked alright so far, ususally with the wanted changes being made, but if they keep that up, it's going to come back around and get them in the end.
