In response to a recent post from Anthony Ferrara about MVC Paul Jones suggests that Anthony's view that it and related structures "all pretend to be application architectures" is false.

The central mistake I think Anthony makes is near the end of this post, where he states (in talking about MVC, ADR, et al.) that “All Pretend To Be Application Architectures.” That assertion strikes me as incorrect. While it may be that developers using MVC may mistakenly think of MVC as an application architecture, the pattern description itself makes no such claim. Indeed, Fowler categorizes MVC as a “Web Presentation Pattern” and not as an “Application Architecture” per se. [...] Fowler’s categorization and description of MVC define it pretty clearly as a user interface pattern. ADR, as a refinement of MVC, is likewise a user interface pattern.

He goes on to talk more about the ADR (Action-Domain-Responder) pattern, how it's more of a user interface pattern as well and how that relates to using it for HTTP requests. He suggests that the definition from Anthony may be a bit too broad and proposes the alternative "All Are User Interface Patterns, Not Entire Application Architectures" to be a bit more specific.

On the Agile Toolkit News site today there's a recent post looking at a specific part of several of the different PHP-based frameworks out there - the UI or view layer. He wonders why, with UI-specific PHP frameworks out there, why the two can't just play nice together.

I came over this old question on StackOverflow: "Which PHP Framework will get me to a usable UI the fastest?" I couldn't help but wonder, why people are not aware of all those other PHP UI frameworks? There are few, right? If you google for "php ui" you can find them. Those are more generally referred to as UI toolkits. But why those toolkits are not known in the mainstream?

He notes that most of the major frameworks leave you out to dry when it comes to presentation. They don't include much in the way of interface helpers in the name of modularity and backend focus. He suggests a few reasons why this happens and why the UI frameworks out there haven't made it to the mainstream. He gives three rules that could help this situation: view and object handling, giving developers a way to extend things easily and knowing the limitations of what the framework can do.

Justin Ireland has posted an article to his blog about creating real-time interfaces for your sites using the combination of HTML, CSS and Javascript to connect to a physical interface on the backend.

Physical interfaces such as button panels or remote controls have many disadvantages. Panel controls require a dedicated display for feedback and physical access to a fixed location. IR remote controls offer only one-way communication with limited feedback and can become difficult to manage for multiple devices. [...] We propose a new type of solution to address these issues and bring simplified management and control to a broader market through embedded virtual interfaces.

He lays out the structure of the application, some of the issues that could come up in the connection (using COMET and Websockets). His proof of concept is a connection to a HDMI switch that can be talked to through an embedded controller via a simple interface.

Raphael Stolt has posted a book review of one of Manning Publishing's PHP-related books, "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP".

Over the last few days I got the chance to skim through the upcoming Manning release "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP" by Dagfinn Reiersøl et al. The reviewed book is seperated into four main parts, covering lots of interesting topics in a good and fluent writing style.

Raphael outlines the book, mentioning the four parts the book is divided up into:

• Basic PHP tools and concepts
• Developing applications via Test Driven Development
• Web presentation and user interfaces
• Object-oriented development including things like database abstraction

Raphael gives the book a positive rating and recommends it for anyone that has the basics down and is looking to extend their knowledge that much more.

Raphael Stolt has posted a book review of one of Manning Publishing's PHP-related books, "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP".

Over the last few days I got the chance to skim through the upcoming Manning release "PHP in Action: Modern Software Practices for PHP" by Dagfinn Reiersøl et al. The reviewed book is seperated into four main parts, covering lots of interesting topics in a good and fluent writing style.

Raphael outlines the book, mentioning the four parts the book is divided up into:

• Basic PHP tools and concepts
• Developing applications via Test Driven Development
• Web presentation and user interfaces
• Object-oriented development including things like database abstraction

Raphael gives the book a positive rating and recommends it for anyone that has the basics down and is looking to extend their knowledge that much more.