|
Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
|
PHP as Visual Basic of the Web
PHP is dominant language for web applications and system administrators need
to know a little bit about it although is comparison with Perl it might look like
a disappointment.
Linux comes with PHP usually preinstalled as default. While Sun does not directly
support PHP as part of Solaris PHP 5 now can be obtained prepackaged in
Cooltools with Apache and MySQL.
PHP was a real break-through in WEB site scripting. But the type of break-through
was different then break-through that Perl made. PHP is a Visual Basic of the WEB.
Simpler and in many respects uglier language then Perl (similar to Basic vs. Algol
story), it outpaced Perl in WEB pages scripting because it pioneered higher level
of integration with web server (Apache) and database (MySQL). Life is too short
and it's silly to spend it on solving configuration problems ;-). Higher level tools
for Web environment that are more productive than classic Unix scripting languages,
were long overdue. Like Basic, PHP does not break any new ground in language design
and its success might be more due to allergy to the overcomplexity of Perl that
its own merits.
VBscript did a decent job in Windows environment but was not an answer for Unix.
Java was (and still is despite popularity of JavaServer Pages (JSP) a low level
language, technology that for the Web development is more the part of the problem,
then part of the solution :-) The appeal of PHP is its specialization for Web-server-database
environment (typically in Apache+MySQL combination). It is this combination that
gave PHP its momentum as its proved to be a very powerful and versatile platform
form wide class of applications.
Like Basic was severely simplified Algol, PHP is severely simplified (or if you
wish dampened down) Perl. The absence of language design skills was
evident in the first versions of the language so the success was not due to design
but despite of it. PHP4 was one of the ugliest, brain-dead designs of any popular
language I encountered.
PHP's simplicity makes it suitable for entry-level programmers, such as WEB developers
moving up from a pure HTML. But the simplicity is a double edge sword. For more
experienced developers it might slow down the development process. I saw many applications
written in PHP (Acid/Base
is one such example) in which the author definitely outgrow the level of the language
and PHP4 became more of a liability then help. In this sense, PHP might be one of
the few languages were "familiarity breeds contempt". PHP has an advantage
that you can slowly add in some PHP code to existing html page, and just change
the file extension from .html to .PHP. You can do the same with server side includes
and Perl but this requires slightly higher qualification. PHP's great advantage
is that it does so much out of the box. You want sessions, you've got it. It's built
right in. You want to send mail and you have mail function. Most programmers wants
to get on with creating the site not with installing modules ;-).
That why PHP proved to be an indispensable part of a very troika of application,
essentially a new platform for application development. It is often called LAMP
with P standing for Perl Python or PHP, but in reality PHP is the most popular among
all three "P" languages mentioned above). This platform proved to be suitable for
solving an extremely wide range of tasks in a WEB-enabled environment, far beyond
home pages for which PHP was initially designed. That's why PHP managed to
successfully depose already entrenched Perl in this particular area. It is
seamless integration with MySQL database and Apache WEB-server that really made
PHP an important pioneer in the scripting language world.
PHP is still evolving and PHP 5 looks more satisfactory that previous versions
form the programmer point of view. It is also moving into more advanced services
like remote procedure calls (see
an XML-RPC client
and server).
To say the truth in earlier versions (before version 5) PHP has a junk implementation:
no support for pipes, no support for exceptions, no standard debugger, bad control
of namespace, zillion built-in functions with some that have extremely
unprofessional, amateurish semantic, no good integration with regular expressions,
etc.
See
Zend
in the clowns kuro5hin.org
But nothing succeed like success and PHP 5 partially overcame those deficiencies,
but there is no free lunch and the cost is breaking compatibility wit PHP 4.
The key difference is the semantic of the assignment statement.
Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov
Notes:
- Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a
native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors
should be expected.
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It
cannot replace the best teachers and
the
best books.
- The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a
living tree... Some links on older pages
are broken. Please
try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link
(see
HOWTO search the WEB for details).
We would appreciate if you can
mail us a correct link.
|
|
Note: "IBM developerWorks has put together a
PHP recommended reading list. It provides resources for developers and admins
adopting PHP and tackling advanced topics such as building extensions and writing
secure code. There's also a list of books and blogs for keeping up with changes
to the language itself."
Oracle PHP page
is also quite useful.
The PHP Development Tools (PDT) plug-in, when installed with Eclipse Europa,
gives you that ability to quickly write and debug PHP scripts and pages. PDT
supports two debugging tools: XDebug and the Zend Debugger. Learn how to configure
PDT for debugging PHP scripts and discover which perspectives you use when taking
closer looks at your scripts.
In this tutorial
This tutorial demonstrates how to configure the PHP Development Tools (PDT)
plug-in for Eclipse to debug your PHP scripts. It also introduces the perspectives
you'll use (namely, PHP Debug) when taking closer looks at your PHP scripts.
After completing this tutorial, you'll be able to set up either XDebug —
an open source project that allows you to debug executable scripts and scripts
running on a Web server — or the Zend Debugger in Eclipse using the PDT project
to develop PHP applications. You'll understand the various parts of the PDT
project's PHP Debug perspective and learn how to set up, view, and work with
breakpoints. You also learn how to inspect the values of variables as you are
stepping through the code, as well as how to debug PHP Web applications on your
local server so you can run through your PHP Web application with the debugger.
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this tutorial, you should have done a bit of PHP development.
But what matters more is that you've done software development in general. You'll
understand the debugging concepts better if you're familiar with debugging any
other language. I wrote this to be helpful to those who are fairly new to Eclipse,
rather than to those who have been using Eclipse for a while.
System requirements
To complete this tutorial, you need:
- Computer running Microsoft® Windows®, Mac OS X, or Linux®
- The examples of the php.ini file shown in this tutorial are for Mac
OS X and Linux. Because both debuggers require a configuration that tells
PHP where the debugger extensions are located, the only noticeable difference
— if you're looking for Windows examples — is the path to the debugger extension.
Library names end in .so. for Mac OS X and Linux and .dll
for Windows; also, paths use a forward slash (
/) instead of
a backslash (\) as a directory-separator character.
- PHP V5.x
- Linux users can install PHP using the software package system included
in their distribution. OS X, and Windows users can find
PHP V5.x
at PHP.net.
Note: The examples in this tutorial were written using PHP V5.2.5.
- Eclipse V3.3
- Again, Linux users have it easy: Eclipse is usually available through
the package system included in their distribution. Everyone else can find
the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) at the
Eclipse
downloads.
- Apache or Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) for serving
Web applications
- You need a Web server installed to run the examples that demonstrate
how to debug PHP Web pages on the server. However, if you're interested
only in debugging PHP scripts that aren't Web pages, you won't need a Web
server. For this tutorial, we have Apache V2 set up as the Web server. If
you're using Windows and would rather use IIS, that works, too. This tutorial
assumes you have the proper access to write to directories inside the document
root of the Web server.
- Eclipse PHP Development Tools framework
- If you don't already have
PHP Development
Tools (PDT) installed, you may want to read ahead to the "Overview of
the PDT project" section so you can decide whether you want to download
and install PDT already bundled with the Zend Debugger. The Eclipse Foundation
PDT/Installation wiki is brief, but helpful.
- Zend Studio Web Debugger
- Download a 30-day trial version of the
Zend Studio
Web Debugger.
BitRock Web Stacks provide you with the easiest way to install and run the
LAMP platform in a variety of Linux distributions. BitRock Web Stacks are free
to download and use under the terms of the Apache License 2.0. To learn more
about our licensing policies, click
here.
You can find up-to-date WAMP,
LAMP and
MAMP stacks at the
BitNami open source website. In addition
to those, you will find freely available application stacks for popular open
source software such as Joomla!,
Drupal,
Mediawiki and
Roller. Just like BitRock Web
Stacks, they include everything you need to run the software and come packaged
in a fast, easy to use installer.
BitRock Web Stacks contain several open source tools and libraries. Please
be sure that you read and comply with all of the applicable
licenses.
If you are a MySQL Network subscriber (or would like to purchase a subscription)
and want to use a version of LAMPStack that contains the MySQL Certified binaries,
please send an email to sales@bitrock.com.
For further information, including supported platforms, component versions,
documentation, and support, please visit our
solutions
section.
PHP based
About: Ortro is a framework for enterprise scheduling and monitoring.
It allows you to easily assemble jobs to perform workflows and run existing
scripts on remote hosts in a secure way using ssh. It also tests your Web applications,
creates simple reports using queries from databases (in HTML, text, CSV, or
XLS), emails them, and sends notifications of job results using email, SMS,
Tibco Rvd, Tivoli postemsg, or Jabber.
Changes: Key features such as auto-discovery of hosts and import/export
tools are now available. The telnet plugin was improved and the mail plugin
was updated. The PEAR libraries were updated.
Installation Guides
Installing Oracle Database 10g Express Edition and Zend Core for Oracle
Installing Apache, PHP, JDeveloper, and the PHP Extension on Linux
Installing PHP and the Oracle 10g Instant Client for Linux and Windows
Installing Oracle, PHP, and Apache on Linux
Installing Oracle, PHP, and Apache on Windows 2000/XP
Set Up Oracle Database 10g and PHP on Mac OS X OTN Installfest
Scripts (.txt format):
·Zend
Core for Oracle, Apache, PHP5, Oracle JDeveloper 10.1.2, and JDeveloper PHP
Extension on RHEL4
·
Oracle 10g Release 2, Apache, and PHP5 on RHEL4
·
Oracle 10g, Apache, PHP4, and Oracle JDeveloper/PHP Extension on RHEL4
·
Oracle 10g, Apache, PHP5, and Oracle JDeveloper/PHP Extension on RHEL4
·
Oracle 10g, Apache, PHP4, and Oracle JDeveloper/PHP Extension on SLES9
·
Oracle 10g, Apache, PHP5, and Oracle JDeveloper/PHP Extension on SLES9
29 January 2003 | IBM
Programming with PHP on the iSeries server
Prerequisites
Installation instructions
Compiling (make)
Testing PHP
Configuring HTTP Server (powered by Apache) to use PHP
Creating a sample database
Limitations
PHP 4.2.2 errata
Chapter 1. Technology overview
Chapter 2. Sample scenario description
Chapter 3. Zend installation and configuration
Chapter 4. PHP application development with DB2
Chapter 5. PHP applications with Informix database servers
Chapter 6. Port PHP applications from MySQL V5 to DB2 UDB V8.2
Appendix A. An introduction to Service Data Objects for PHP
About: Tiny Eclipse is distribution of Eclipse for development with dynamic
languages for the Web, such as JSP, PHP, Ruby, TCL, and Web Services. It features
a small download size, the ability to choose the features you want to install,
and GUI installers for Win32 and Linux GTK x86.
PHD Help Desk is software conceived for the registry and follow-up of help desks
incidents. Registry of incidents allows classification in two levels (type and
subtype), the state of the incident, a description, ticket assignment and priority,
historical registry, and an audit. Information can be reported in consultation
format, to give reports or export the information for later processing in a
database or spreadsheet.
Release focus: Minor feature enhancements
Changes:
Now it's possible attach a file in the users support request web form. Minors
changes were made. In the code for modifying a ticket, an SQL statement that
was incompatible with MySQL 3.23 was fixed. When you had one ticket opened for
modification in one window and then you modified another ticket in another window,
the change would incorrectly modify the first ticket although it would show
information about the second ticket. PHD now warns you about this situation
and prevents the change. All scripts now correctly start with "<?PHP".
PHP 101 (part 1):
Down the Rabbit Hole [July 17, 2004]
An introduction to PHP’s variables and operators.
PHP
101 (part 2):
Calling All Operators [July 18, 2004]
The rest of the PHP operators (there are many), and simple form
processing.
PHP 101 (PART 3):
Looping the Loop [July 19, 2004]
Basic control structures explained.
PHP 101 (PART 4):
The Food Factor [July 20, 2004]
Arrays, PHP array functions, and what it all means.
PHP 101 (PART 5):
Rank and File [July 21, 2004]
Everything you’re ever likely to need to know about dealing with
external files from a PHP script.
PHP 101 (PART 6):
Functionally Yours [July 28, 2004]
All about functions, arguments, passing by reference, globals and
scope.
PHP 101 (PART 7):
The Bear Necessities [August 07, 2004]
A gentle introduction to object oriented programming in PHP 4 and
PHP 5.
PHP 101 (PART 8):
Databases and Other Animals [August 31, 2004]
All about connecting to a MySQL database from PHP, using the mysql
or mysqli extensions.
PHP 101 (PART 9):
SQLite My Fire! [September 16, 2004]
Introducing another database: SQLite.
PHP 101 (part 10):
A Session In The Cookie Jar [October 3, 2004]
Sessions and cookies – how to keep track of visitors to your site.
I'm just a few days away from launching a comprehensive support website for
my book, "Beginning
PHP and MySQL 5, Second Edition", and among other features, have built a
search engine for sifting through the more than 500 code snippets found throughout
the book. This was an interesting exercise because it involves a number of storing
a fairly significant amount of text within a MySQL database, using MySQL's full-text
search facility, and devising an effective way to extract and display the code
in the browser.
In this article I'll offer a simplified version of this search engine, introducing
you to some compelling PHP and MySQL features along the way. You might adopt
what you learn towards building your own search engine, or towards other applications.
The Database Schema
Just a single table is required for the engine's operation. The table,
code, serves as the code repository. Each example is stored along with a
suitable title and the chapter number in which it appears. Because the search
engine should retrieve examples based on keywords found in the example title
or in the code itself, a FULLTEXT index has been added for these columns. Because
the table contents will rarely change beyond the occasional bug fix, its backed
by the read-optimized MyISAM storage engine. The table follows:
CREATE TABLE code (
id SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
title VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
chapter TINYINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
code TEXT NOT NULL,
FULLTEXT (title,code)
) TYPE = MYISAM;
Feb. 22, 2006 (Linux-watch.com).
Do you want to use PHP-based programs on a hosted Web server, but you
don't want to go through the hassle of setting up MySQL, PHP, and Apache so
that they're in perfect alignment to run your blog, CMS (content management
system), or photo gallery? If that's you, you need to find a Web host that uses
Netenberg's
Fantastico De Luxe.
This Linux-based program enables Web host companies to offer you a menu of popular
PHP-based programs for near-instant installation.
For example, with CMSs alone, Fantastico will let you install the latest editions
of:
Drupal (4.6.5)
Geeklog (1.3.11sr1)
Joomla! (1.0.7)
Mambo Open Source
PHP-Nuke (7.8)
phpWCMS (1.1-RC4 Rev. A)
phpWebSite (0.10.2)
Post-Nuke (0.760)
Siteframe (3.1.9)
Typo3 (3.8.0)
Xoops (2.0.13.1)
If it's a PHP-based, open-source Web application, chances are Fantastico can
install it for you. It's not just for PHP programs, though.
Fantastico can also install such programs as
PerlDesk,
the Web-based commercial help desk program.
Many Web host companies offer Fantastico as a service. I haven't had enough
time or experience with them to recommend one over the other. Hosting Review,
however, does a decent job of evaluating Web hosting companies and its list
of the top eight, because they couldn't find ten,
Web hosting businesses that deploy Fantastico is a useful place to
start.
When choosing a Fantastico-enabled host, you should make sure the company is
using a current version of Fantastico. Older versions abound, and they do not
install the latest PHP programs.
You should also keep in mind that Fantastico is not going to get you any kind
of fine control over your installation. What it will do, though, is set up the
basic LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) framework for your particular application
to work.
This, as any of you who've followed my adventures in
setting up Drupal by hand, is not insignificant.
Now, some might say, "Real men do it all by hand." To which, I can only say,
"Real men don't have time to do it all by hand sometimes."
That's the situation I faced once I finally got Drupal and my test Web site
up and running on my local SUSE 10 system. I decided that I shouldn't tempt
BellSouth into shutting down my consumer DSL connection by running a Web site
off it. So, my next step was to look for a Web hosting site where I could clone
over my test site without having to go through the hassle of reintegrating yet
another LAMP stack to work with Drupal.
It was during that search that I ran into Fantastico. And, it was fantastic.
Instead of spending hours working out how to get
Drupal running with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, as opposed to SUSE Linux 10,
MySQL 4.0.25 instead of MySQL 4.1.13, Apache 1.3.34 in place of Apache 2.0.54,
and never least, PHP 4.4.1 in place of PHP 4.4.0-6, my system was set up in
less than a minute.
Now, you may think that all those slightly different versions really wouldn't
have made much of a difference, but you'd be wrong. Those seemingly subtle
differences can make your development life miserable.
If I can have a script do all the pain-in-the-rump tweaking work for me, that's
just fine in my book.
After all, even after Fantastico does its work, I still have to face such amusements
as restoring a MySQL 4.1.13-based database schema to a MySQL 4.0.25 DBMS. They
are not, in case you didn't know, automatically compatible.
Make no mistake about it, though. Although Fantastico makes setting up a LAMP
application a lot easier, it doesn't completely spare you from all the hard
work of getting your LAMP program working properly.
Still, in a hosted environment where your access to system resources are far
more limited than they are on your own system, anything that makes the initial
setup easier is likely to save you many hours of work. For that reason alone,
whenever I set up a Web site on a hosted system in the future, the first thing
I'm going to look for is a hosting company that includes Fantastico in its offerings.
It's that important.
With the new language features of PHP V5, you can significantly improve
your code's maintainability and stability. Learn how to migrate code developed
in PHP V4 to V5 while taking advantage of these new features.
PHP V5 is a quantum step up from V4. The new language features make building
reliable and maintaining class libraries much easier. In addition, the reworking
of the standard libraries helped bring PHP more in line with its cousin Web
languages, such as the Java™ programming language. Take a tour through some
of PHP's new object-oriented features and learn how to migrate existing PHP
V4 code into V5.
First, a bit about the new language features and how PHP's creators have
changed the approach to objects from PHP V4. The idea with V5 was to create
an industrial-strength language for Web application development. That meant
understanding the limitations of PHP V4, then pulling known good language constructs
from other languages (such as the Java, C#, C++, Ruby,
and Perl languages) and incorporating them into PHP.
The first and most important addition was access protection for methods and
instance variables on classes -- the public, protected,
and private keywords. This addition allows class designers to retain
control over the internals of their classes while expressing to the client of
the class what he should or should not touch.
In PHP V4, everything was public. In PHP V5, class designers
can say what is externally visible (public) and what is visible
only internally to the class (private) or to descendants of the
class (protected). Without these access controls, working on code
in large groups or distributing code as libraries was hindered because consumers
of those classes could easily use the wrong methods or access what should have
been private member variables.
Another big addition were the keywords interface and abstract,
which allow for contract programming. Contract programming means that
one class provides a contract to another -- in other words: "Here is what I
will do, and you don't need to know how it's done." Any class that implements
that interface agrees to the contract. Any consumer of the interface agrees
to use only the methods specified in the interface. The abstract keyword makes
using interfaces a lot easier, as I show later.
These primary two features -- access control and contract programming --
allow for much larger teams of coders to work on much larger code bases more
smoothly. They also allow IDEs to provide a much richer set of language intelligence
features. Although this article covers several migration issues, I also spend
a lot of time showing how to use these new key language features.
doxygen 1.5.1
by
Dimitri van Heesch - Sun, Oct 29th 2006 11:00 PDT
|
About: Doxygen
is a cross-platform, JavaDoc-like documentation system for C++, C, Objective-C,
C#, Java, IDL, Python, and PHP. Doxygen can be used to generate an on-line class
browser (in HTML) and/or an off-line reference manual (in LaTeX or RTF) from
a set of source files. Doxygen can also be configured to extract the code-structure
from undocumented source files. This includes dependency graphs, class diagrams
and hyperlinked source code. This type of information can be very useful to
quickly find your way in large source distributions.
Changes: This release fixes a
number of bugs that could cause it to crash under certain conditions or produce
invalid output.
PHP is slow unless you buy an accelerator. Microsoft might change that
Extending its support for scripting and dynamic languages, Microsoft is hosting
a project on its CodePlex site to deliver a PHP language compiler for the .Net
Framework.
Known as Phalanger, the project reached Version 2.0 Beta 2 on July 30.
The primary goal of the project, released under Microsoft Shared Source Permissive
License, is to enable full functionality of existing PHP scripts on .Net without
any modification, Microsoft said.
Unlike the original PHP interpreter, Phalanger compiles scripts into MSIL
(Microsoft Intermediate Language).
Phalanger offers Web application developers the ability to leverage both
the ease-of-use and effectiveness of the PHP language and the power and richness
of the .Net platform, the company said.
And the compiler developers can deploy and run existing PHP code on an ASP.Net
Web server and develop cross-platform extensions to that code.
Meanwhile, the object model in Phalanger is compatible with PHP 5.0, and
it lets developers combine PHP objects with .Net ones.
At the Microsoft Web Developer's Summit, held in Redmond, Wash., last week,
Microsoft announced their efforts to improve PHP's stability and performance
on the Windows platform.
During a session wherein key Microsoft developers met with a group of PHP-minded
Web developers, IIS product unit manager Bill Staples and program manager Mike
Volodarsky discussed IIS 7
and their efforts to improve PHP's performance on the Windows platform.
Staples recapped the numerous security-related enhancements poured into IIS
6 in light of the server's notorious track record of high-profile security gaffes,
including the likes of Nimda and Code Red. Then, he underscored the effort's
success, noting that there has been no need for any critical IIS security patches
in more than three years.
The discussion soon moved on to PHP's relationship with the Windows platform.
Staples and Volodarsky acknowledged that many PHP developers build applications
on Windows -- generally running
Apache's Windows port -- but deploy on Linux. They said new features will
support developers who wish to take this path. This means inclusion of features
long available to Apache, such as URL rewriting, and an open extensibility model
to encourage community-driven development.
Staples and Volodarsky also addressed the historical stability issues surrounding
running PHP on IIS, due to incompability issues pertinent to IIS' multithreaded
environment. Using CGI improves stability, but comes at a cost of significant
performance degradation. Volodarsky noted the team's interest in improving on
both fronts, mentioning they were exploring a FastCGI-based solution, but nothing
concrete has yet come of it.
While it's clear much work remains before IIS and PHP will work efficiently
in a production environment, those wishing to simply experiment with running
PHP on IIS will be pleased to know the ISAPI configuration process has been
greatly simplified. Staples recently published a
blog entry highlighting the required steps.
Yahoo! have been testing
PHPA for some months whilst exploring PHP caching solutions, and have
selected
PHPA as a caching solution for PHP projects.
At the Microsoft Web Developer's Summit, held in Redmond, Wash., last week,
Microsoft announced their efforts to improve PHP's stability and performance
on the Windows platform.
During a session wherein key Microsoft developers met with a group of PHP-minded
Web developers, IIS product unit manager Bill Staples and program manager Mike
Volodarsky discussed IIS 7
and their efforts to improve PHP's performance on the Windows platform.
Staples recapped the numerous security-related enhancements poured into IIS
6 in light of the server's notorious track record of high-profile security gaffes,
including the likes of Nimda and Code Red. Then, he underscored the effort's
success, noting that there has been no need for any critical IIS security patches
in more than three years.
The discussion soon moved on to PHP's relationship with the Windows platform.
Staples and Volodarsky acknowledged that many PHP developers build applications
on Windows -- generally running
Apache's Windows port -- but deploy on Linux. They said new features will
support developers who wish to take this path. This means inclusion of features
long available to Apache, such as URL rewriting, and an open extensibility model
to encourage community-driven development.
Staples and Volodarsky also addressed the historical stability issues surrounding
running PHP on IIS, due to incompability issues pertinent to IIS' multithreaded
environment. Using CGI improves stability, but comes at a cost of significant
performance degradation. Volodarsky noted the team's interest in improving on
both fronts, mentioning they were exploring a FastCGI-based solution, but nothing
concrete has yet come of it.
While it's clear much work remains before IIS and PHP will work efficiently
in a production environment, those wishing to simply experiment with running
PHP on IIS will be pleased to know the ISAPI configuration process has been
greatly simplified. Staples recently published a
blog entry highlighting the required steps.
The
latest stats for PHP market share are in from Nexen.net, and (assuming they’re
reasonably accurate) this does not bode well for PHP 5. After nearly two years
since PHP 5.0 was released (back in July of 2004), the PHP 5.x series commands
a whopping…7.2% of the PHP market. That means that PHP 4.x is still at 92.8%
marketshare! Furthermore, according to the Nexen.net survey, only 34.5% of PHP
5 servers are running PHP 5.1.x which contains crucial new features and is a
far more solid platform than any of the 5.0.x builds.
Interview Question:
If PHP could PHP a PHP page,
how much PHP would a PHP page take to PHP a PHP
page?
[Feb 1, 2006]
AMPS for Solaris 10 AMPS (Apache MySQL PHP SSL) for Solaris 10 by Mel Lester
Jr. (meljr@meljr.com)
Version: 1.01 January 25, 2006
The strategy is to utilize as much
of the Open Source and other free software bundled with Solaris 10 as possible
and integrate Apache2, MySQL, PHP and SSL in a environment that can take full
advantage of Solaris 10 zones, resource management and highly scaleable, secure
System Administration.
-
A Configure and
Test Start
Apache2:
-
M Configure and
Start
MySQL:
-
P Download and
Configure
PHP:
-
bfioca writes "Where
are the all-in-one PHP frameworks that make building well-factored and maintainable
applications as easy as building simple sites? O'Reilly ONLamp's recent article
Simplify PHP Development with WASP shows how to make a simple database-backed
site with WASP in
just a few lines of code. Other PHP 5 frameworks such as
symfony and
PRADO have been getting a
lot of recent attention as well."
You are either ignorant to what a real open source framework
would represent (limit code reinvention, benefit from community
effort, etc) or are not in the target group of such a framework
(maybe you work for a big company that has a large programming
team, who knows).
Either way, I can tell you that, from my personal experience,
learning and adopting a framework in your work can have
a lot of benefits, for me, as a small custom business solutions
provider.
Missing the point!
by Anonymous Coward on
Sunday January 22, @07:12PM (#14534936)
By demonstrating that it is possible to create
and use complicated, "enterprise-class"
frameworks effectively in PHP 5, WASP will help
more developers make the switch.
Complicated? I didn't realize that complicated frameworks
were the pinnacle of modern software development. Here's
a newsflash: PHP is popular
not because of its rigid structure, nor the availability
of misguided "frameworks", but because it allows people
to solve problems in a flexible way with little overhead.
Yes, a lot of people take it too far
in this direction and turn their code into a disaster
area, but others manage to build maintainable, useful
apps without obsessing over whether or not their program
fits into a particular "model". In addition, future
maintainers of these apps won't have to read manuals
about how to use the framework of the day to make changes.
Strict interpretations of pseudo-standards or the use
of mind-bending frameworks do not help to develop applications
faster, or even better.
I wonder how many "enterprise-class" applications
fall flat on their faces because the frameworks on which
they are built are not flexible enough to support what
their users really need. I know it's happened where
I work, and the answer "oh, the framework doesn't support
that" led to the success of other projects that came
out of nowhere and took hold because they met the demands
of users as opposed to the technical demands of project
managers. In the real world, a simple PHP app may very
well push an "enterprise-class" and "three-tier" monolith
out of its way if it does what the users want.
I have my own framework I've used
for several years now and slowly
upgraded. I enjoyed writing it because
it forced me to learn the principles
of what all the other frameworks
were doing. I couldn't understand
why people wrote frameworks the
way they did until I ran into the
same situation. However, I made
some significant apps with my framework
that companies are using and I found
myself writing lots of documentation
on them and brushing up the comments...
It would have been great if I used
published and documented framework
just so I wouldn't have to do the
tedious stuff for other people to
ever maintain it.
I tear my eyes out everytime someone
calls a framework a "shortcut".
Usually they follow it by "There's
no substitute for good coders writing
good code." The business reality
is that most coders are not exceptional,
and some are pretty lousy. You can
spend all of your budget on human
resources finding epic-quality coders
(and then scratch some more to come
up with their epic-salaries) or
you can do what the rest of the
world does-- get the best programmers
they can find and afford. A framework
helps un-exceptional coders write
better (and more consistent/maintainable)
code. This arguments seems akin
to saying "forget word processors!
Just get someone who can make Vi
or Emacs dance and turn 'em loose."
It seems to me that the evolution
of software is pretty much the act
of layering increasingly-smart frameworks
on top of machine language to allow
high quality results more accessible
to more people.
This article appears to be written
for fools. One of the author's examples
of WASP's superiority is that this:
<li flexy:foreach="arTasks,key,task">{task[Name]}
- <i>{task[Due]}</i></li>
is better than this:
<?php
$arTasks = array();
foreach ($arTasks as $key => $task)
{
?>
<li><?php echo $task['Name']; ?>
- <i><?php echo $task['Due']; ?></i></li>
<?php
}
?>
Because "Already you can see one
of the biggest benefits of working
with WASP: no need for embedded
PHP code."
Well, it might look that way, because
he deliberately coded the PHP version
in the messiest way possible. He
could have simply done this:
<? foreach ($arTasks as $key=>$task)
{ echo '<li>' . $task['Name'] .
'-<i>' . $task['Due'] . '</i></li>';
} ?>
The WASP sample doesn't look so
much better now, does it? Not so
much so that it's worth downloading
some unknown framework and inheriting
someone else's bugs and execution
overhead and security holes?
PHP coders really needs some framework.
Because I don't realize how else
they can work with the "technology"-like
thingy which has bad recursion,
lots of not-thread-safe stuff, poor
OO, hell slow interpreter, no namespaces,
non-standard date format, 4x more
built-in functions than Perl (however
the functionality of them just same),
inconsequent function naming convention
and no unicode so far. For those
who dislikes Python and likes PHP,
I would like to offer one experiment.
Please do the simple task: make
array of arrays of dict of dict
of array of dicts structure (you
may feel free to make it slightly
other) and then try to change/replace/remove/add
and compare each element of any
place. Afterall compare perfomance
and readability of the code.
Currently I'd
discount Ruby
from any sizable
web development
as it's still
very much a
minority language
and it'd be
practically
impossible,
or outragously
expensive, to
hire a Ruby
developer. If
your development
team or company
vanish (run
over by a bus,
move to Australia,
whatever) you
need to be able
to get someone
else who can
come in and
maintain the
code quickly.
That just wouldn't
happen for a
site written
in Ruby. Of
course, it'd
be fine for
any small development
like a homepage
or a blog
.. but PHP would
be equally fine
for such an
unimportant
venture despite
it's shortcomings.
To a lesser
extent the same
can be said
for Python.
There's a lot
fewer Python
developers about
than PHP, but
there are some.
Caveat: IAAPD
(I Am A PHP
Developer),
so perhaps I'm
horribly biased.
At first glance, the obvious changes to PHP
are a result of the success of the Java platform
and the weaknesses of PHP revealed in comparison.
With the release of PHP 5, it's apparent that
the developers of PHP and the Zend Engine (essentially
a single group) felt compelled to make PHP much
more like Java with respect to object-oriented
programming. Zend, the Israeli company backing
the development of PHP, promises on their web
site that "full integration with Java will be
closer than ever before." Hmmm, full integration
with Java, huh?
On November 4th, 2003, Zend
announced a strategic partnership with Sun.
This deal also included advisors from Borland,
Macromedia, MySQL and others. The purported
purpose of this deal was to make PHP part of
Sun's web server and bring it to the corporate
world of development that previously had been
dominated by ASP and ColdFusion. Now with the
release of PHP 5, it's far more apparent which
path PHP is taking.
PHP's object model was re-written from the
ground up and mimics the abstract properties
of Java's object method. There are private and
protected members and methods, abstract classes
and interfaces, in practice, identical to Java's
object model. The extent of the influence that
Sun has on PHP today is clear. If you have experience
with Java and PHP, reading the
details of the object model reveals the
absolute cloning of the Java object model within
PHP 5. From throwing exceptions to static variables,
PHP 5's object model mimics Java in concept
all the way to the syntactical level.
This is great for enterprise developers using
Sun products, but with the release of PHP 5,
what does this mean for the half-million PHP
developers worldwide who have depended on PHP
for open-source development, or for the developers
whose ideas and efforts have brought PHP up
through the ranks from its inception in 1995?
When PHP goodies were bundled with Sun's web
server on November 4th, 2003, with a $775 price
tag, PHP began down the path of corporate ownership.
For years developers have eagerly contributed
their ideas and efforts to be a part of the
success of PHP. Now that all the hard work and
volunteering has paid off and PHP is a worldwide
success, it appears that PHP could soon be another
corporate shill owned by Sun, MySQL, Borland
and Macromedia, if not on paper, then by direct
influence on the people at Zend. Of course it
will remain open source so that those half-million
developers can continue to contribute their
time and genius to its success, but if those
thousands of contributions lead to direct financial
gain for companies whose coffers are already
overflowing and are simultaneously using those
contributions to manufacture software with price
tags out of reach to anyone but corporations,
is PHP still the language developers should
be focusing on for use in the open-source community?
On the positive side, this edition of PHP
does bring improved performance and a new suite
of MySQL functions. Backward incompatibility
is
limited to a list of ten issues. Additionally,
there are
only minor configuration file changes that
need to be made to the web server. Several directives
have been introduced for
configuring php.ini files, mainly dealing
with hashes for encryption.
Some very
useful functions have been added to PHP5.
It's been nine years in the making, but PHP5
now includes two functions to uuencode and uudecode.
Combining those functions with the new socket
and stream functions, developers can create
a lots of "kewl" applications. An application
to automatically encode and decode files to
and from news servers comes to mind as an example
of how to incorporate these new functions. At
that point of course, a developer could use
any of PHP's existing functions to continue
to manipulate the files, store the contents
in databases, and so on.
An addition to error reporting aids developers
in keeping their code up-to-date. The E_STRICT
message tells developers when their code is
using deprecated functions or is in danger of
not being forward compatible. However, don't
assume that E_STRICT will be output if using
E_ALL, because it won't. E_STRICT must be explicitly
declared to output its suggestions to PHP 5
code.
While the rewriting of PHP's object model
to essentially that of the Java object model
does raise flags about the direction of PHP,
it is still a powerful addition to the PHP5
release. Java became successful for a reason:
it's intelligently designed and facilitates
code reuse. By borrowing the best features of
Java's object model, PHP has leveraged itself
with far more credibility as a programming language
that can stand on its own two feet (even if
Sun, Borland and Macromedia are holding it by
its arms).
Some vital re-workings in the PHP object
model lie in how objects are treated in low-level
fashion. Instead of passing the actual object
itself, PHP's object model passes by reference.
Now when operating on objects, developers can
pass around multiple handles to the actual object
allowing for more powerful and efficient applications.
Existing PHP objects do not need to be re-written
to take advantage of this change in PHP 5.
In general, developers who have experience
with Java will easily adapt to PHP 5's object
model. On the downside, if PHP is a developer's
primary language and he or she hasn't been introduced
to the world of static variables, public and
private methods and the host of aspects included
with this new model, they may have a bit of
a learning curve adopting the higher-level format
of object-oriented programming in this release.
Overall, though, this change will be a plus
for creating large-scale, object-oriented applications
with PHP.
Keeping pace with the developments in MySQL
and PHP's tight relationship, PHP5 has added
a new
suite of MySQL functions relating to the
new features added since MySQL 4.1. Denoted
as Improved MySQL Extension, its purpose is
to allow developers to take advantage of prepared
statements and the other additions to MySQL
4.1 and above.
Something very interesting to note with the
addition on the Improved MySQL Extension is
the absence of bundled MySQL client libraries
with PHP5. There are numerous reasons given
for this, including the different licenses that
PHP and MySQL are under (PHP is under a BSD/Apache
type license and MySQL is under a GPL license).
The PHP5 documentation also assures developers
that "there will always be MySQL support in
PHP of one kind or another," but doesn't go
into details as to the future of MySQL support.
This perhaps is further evidence that the long-lasting
popularity of LAMP environments (Linux, Apache,
MySQL, PHP) will soon be replaced by SLOP environments
(Sun, Linux, Oracle, PHP). If Zend continues
to shy away from MySQL and completely joins
forces with Sun, MySQL may soon no longer be
part of the picture, and cheap, fast development
may no longer be possible for PHP developers
in the same capacity as it is today.
Zend clearly has underplayed the extent of
the shift that has taken place concerning the
future of PHP. While this version of PHP does
provide a much better object model and added
features, is this the beginning of the end of
PHP as the choice of web scripting language
for the open-source community and developers
not under the employ of corporations? Will the
average developer still be using PHP five years
from now, or will the usefulness of PHP be limited
to companies who can afford to shell out thousands
of dollars for all of the necessary software
that may be required to make PHP a viable option
for development (along with the purchase of
products from Sun, Macromedia, Oracle, Borland
and others)?
While today this is still speculation, the
evidence and tone lends credence to the thought
that with the success of PHP, built on the backs
of developers worldwide, the near future of
it may include an alienation of it from those
who energized it at its genesis, propelling
it to the corporate enterprise status that those
in control of PHP are seeking today. No matter
what actually happens, developers should be
aware of the major developments with PHP beyond
the surface level function additions and new
object model. Companies and developers who are
employing PHP 5 for large-scale applications
today at a reasonably low price may be in for
a surprise in the next few years, if operating
PHP at full capacity involves the purchase of
additional, expensive software.
Touts SOA-friendly PHP Integration KitAlso last week, IBM
announced a new PHP integration kit for its WebSphere Application Server (WAS)
Community Edition (CE). IBM officials say the new kit—which is available as
a free download on its AlphaWorks Web site—will help customers build PHP-based
application front-ends using Big Blue’s Apache-based application server, WAS
CE.
IBM representatives took pains to spin the PHP kit as an SOA-friendly offering,
but the reality, officials acknowledge, is that customers can and will tap the
kit in a huge variety of different scenarios.
“What it’ll allow a developer to do is basically build a J2EE application
that includes PHP, so that introduces the opportunity to use PHP for what it’s
good for, for building Web front ends and simple logic. By making the integration
kit available, we’re presenting that as an alternative for people building J2EE
applications with WAS CE,” says Paul Buck, director of gluecode development
with IBM.
Buck says PHP is an open-source scripting language that’s ideal for building
lightweight applications, particularly as front-ends for J2EE app servers. The
new kit helps improve the interoperability between the open source PHP runtime
and the WAS CE app server: “The PHP run-time that’s generally used is what’s
picked up at php.net—it’s all open-source technology, but with the integration
into WebSphere, you can actually use WebSphere to serve up the PHP requests,
so with the integration kit, as the requests come in to WebSphere, it will know
exactly what to do with it and will dispatch it off to the PHP runtime.”
As far as service-enablement is concerned, Buck alludes to skyrocketing
PHP usage—some estimates put the number of PHP-enabled Web sites at 20 million—and
suggests the technology provides a fast and extensible way to expose data sources.
“PHP is really good for Web front-ends. That’s really where it
cut its teeth on the Web, with building Web front-ends to access data, to collect
data, to present user interfaces to update back end systems.”
It’s likely IBM will provide PHP integration for the pay-for-use version
of WebSphere, too, Buck says.
WAS CE is a lightweight J2EE application server that’s based on the Apache
Software Foundation’s Geronimo technology. “You can download it, it’s free,
[and] the license you get allows you to use it as a commercial application server,
but there’s no support. If you want support, then we sell three levels of service
agreements,” he notes. “The service agreements are per-server, and for server
that’s a system that includes up to four CPUs.”
Explore various methods for debugging PHP applications, including turning
on error reporting in Apache and PHP, and by placing strategic print statements
to locate the source of more difficult bugs through a simple example PHP script.
The PHPeclipse plug-in for Eclipse, a slick development environment with real-time
syntax parsing abilities, will also be covered, as well as the DBG debugger
extension for PHPeclipse.
[Aug 26, 2006]
Cooltools Cool Tools at OpenSPARC T1 Better late then never: Sun started to
provides precompiled (with Sun Studio) OSS packages:
- CSQamp. This package includes Apache HTTP Server 2.0.58, MySQL 5.0.22
and PHP 5.1.4 built to work together. Apache httpd is built with MPM pre-fork
and modules to support PHP, SSL and Perl. PHP has support for MySQL. Note,
to work with PHP, MySQL included in this package is a 32-bit version.
For the database server, we recommend you install the CSQmysql package which
is a 64-bit version, allowing the use of larger caches to deliver improved performance
for large databases. Note that the CSQamp package will work with the CSQmysql
database server.
- CSQmysql. This package includes a 64bit version of MySQL 5.0.22
and is built with innodb. See the README file in /usr/local/mysql
for details.
- CSQperl. This package includes Perl 5.8.8. Note that Solaris 10 ships
with the same version of Perl. However, CSQperl is compiled with optimization
and the Sun Studio compiler and will provide better performance. To use this
version of perl, rather than the default one, include /usr/local/bin in your
PATH before /usr/bin.
- CSQphp. This package provides a stand-alone installation of PHP 5.1.4
and installs in /usr/local/php_fastcgi. This PHP can also be used via FastCGI
from any other web server. This package should not be confused with the version
of PHP in CSQamp - that version installs in /usr/local/php and is only for use
with Apache HTTP Server. For instance, there is no 'php' executable in CSQamp.
- CSQsquid. This package includes Squid 2.5.STABLE14 Web Proxy Cache.
Squid is a single-threaded application and as such does not scale well on SMP
platforms. You may need to run multiple instances to achieve scalability.
- CSQtomcat. This package includes Apache Tomcat 5.5.17 which is a
pure Java application. It is provided for convenience as it is no different
from the one on tomcat.apache.org.
Whether you're a PHP newbie or a wizard, your programs are going to have
bugs in them. Nobody's perfect. This article gives you some techniques for finding
and fixing the problems in your programs. It covers three topics:
- How to get the PHP interpreter to report the errors that interest
you.
- How to locate basic syntax errors in your program.
- How to check the values of variables as your program is running.
Configuring Error Reporting
First of all, you need to configure the PHP interpreter so that when
an error happens, you can see information about it. The error info can be sent
along with program output to the web browser. It can also be included in the
web
server error log. A common way to set things up is to have error output
go to the web browser when you're debugging your program, and then to the web
server error log once the program is finished and (supposedly) working properly.
That way, web site users can't see any potentially sensitive data included with
error output.
To make error messages display in the browser, set the display_errors
configuration directive to On. To send errors to the
web server error log, set log_errors to On. You
can set them both to On if you want error messages in both places.
An error message that the PHP interpreter generates falls into one
of five different categories:
- Parse error: A problem with the syntax of your
program, such as leaving a semicolon off of the end of a statement. The
interpreter stops running your program when it encounters a parse error.
- Fatal error: A severe problem with the content
of your program, such as calling a function that hasn't been defined. The
interpreter stops running your program when it encounters a fatal error.
- Warning: An advisory from the interpreter that
something is fishy in your program, but the interpreter can keep going.
Using the wrong number of arguments when you call a function causes a warning.
- Notice: A tip from the PHP interpreter, playing
the role of Miss Manners. For example,
printing a variable without first initializing it to some value generates
a notice.
- Strict notice: An admonishment from the PHP interpreter
about your coding style. Most of these have to do with esoteric features
that changed between PHP 4 and PHP 5, so you're not likely to run into them
too much.
You don't have to be notified about all of the different error categories.
The error_reporting configuration directive controls which kinds
of errors the PHP interpreter reports. The default value for error_reporting
is E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_STRICT, which tells the interpreter to
report all errors except notices and strict notices.
PHP defines some constants you can use to set the value of
error_reporting so that only errors of certain types get reported:
E_ALL (for all errors except strict notices), E_PARSE
(parse errors), E_ERROR (fatal errors), E_WARNING
(warnings), E_NOTICE (notices), and E_STRICT (strict
notices).
Because strict notices are rare (and new to PHP 5), they are not
included in E_ALL. To tell the PHP interpreter that you want to
hear about everything that could possibly be an error, set error_reporting
to E_ALL | E_STRICT.
LinuxPlanet - Interviews - Interview--Core Web Application Development with PHP
and MySQL - Getting to the Core
LinuxPlanet: Why did you set out to write this book?
Marc Wandschneider: Over the years, I've put together a number of small web
applications or web sites for various small businesses and charities. Despite
being a very accomplished programmer with over a decade's worth of experience,
I always found myself floundering and making a lot of mistakes as I adapted
to a completely new way of writing "programs." At the same time, I was shocked
at how unbelievably productive PHP was as a language. I was able to crank out
large amounts of code in short order.
I would periodically look for books or other resources, but find they weren't
answering the questions I was asking: how do I design a web application for
security? What is the best way to address globalization issues in my application?
How do i design a database for efficient access? I also found that, coming from
a background mostly in C/C++, Java, and .NET, there were a number of mistakes
I was making time and time again when learning the new environment that were
tricky and time consuming to figure out.
After writing a number of web applications and slowly learning the answers
to the questions I had been asking, I decided to sit down and write a book about
my experiences. Instead of just being a tutorial into a number of topics like
such as PHP, MySQL, and relevant technologies such as sessions and cookies,
I decided to write a book that worked the developer through the questions and
processes required to write robust web applications.
LP: There are a good two-dozen or more other books on the same subject
matter. Why is yours special?
Wandschneider: There are a number of good PHP books available today for purchase,
but the one thing I found lacking in most of them is a systematic approach to
some of the more fundamental concerns in writing a web application. Many will
merely present security as a single chapter with a list of things to "check"
to make sure your site is properly protected. Others will have a chapter covering
strings, but not really address how you deal with people writing in foreign
languages.
Core Web Application Development with PHP and MySQL doesn't just tell
you how to use a particular technology such as sessions, XML, or file uploading--it
discusses how they fit into the rest of your application, how they interact
with other features, and how you use them in a safe and effective manner.
The other big problem I had were samples that seemed kind of contrived--e-commerce
applications that left out key portions of the process or samples that were
simply not something you're going to buy a book to help write at all. To solve
this, I developed three full samples--an appointment/calendaring system, a blogging
engine, and a poster store e-commerce system. With the full code included on
a CD ROM (and updates available from the author's web site), you can actually
play with completely working and usable web applications, debugging through
them and fiddling with various features.
LP: What would you say sets this book apart from others?
Wandschneider: In addition to the samples and systematic approaches to topics
critical to writing effective web applications, this book also shows programmers
a lot of the tricks and traps hiding in the PHP language. I'm the kind of person
who makes every single mistake possible, so I had a lot of experience in doing
stupid things and was able to put a lot of that into this book, to hopefully
help the reader avoid making those same mistakes.
I am also the kind of person who likes to understand how things work and
why things are done. Without bogging down in pedantic details, I tried to justify
and explain topics and technologies as I worked through them. Later on, you
might not remember the exact details of the PHP function call or SQL Statement,
but you might recall that this was something important enough to worry about
and look it up again.
LP: Why do other books neglect these topics, do you think?
Wandschneider: I actually think that most other
books do address these topics, but often in a disorganized way that gives them
the feel of being tutorials crammed together into one big binding.
A chapter on security that merely offers a simple list of things to check
in your web server or php.ini don't adequately address the problem, nor does
discussing programming without discussing all the ways in which things can (and
inevitably do) go wrong.
LP: Why MySQL?
Wandschneider: I actually didn't want to write this book for only MySQL.
While it is the database I use most frequently (strictly because it's the first
I picked up and learned), the concepts in this book are not unique to that package.
I had originally hoped to keep the book database server agnostic, but as I wrote
more and more, I came to discover this was not possible, so I decided to focus
on MySQL, and provide hints and tips to users of other DBMSes whenever possible
(such as Appendix II: "Database Function Equivalents").
There is nothing in this book that should prevent the user from being able
to develop web applications with other servers.
LP: Marc, what is your background?
Wandschneider: I got my degree in Computer Science from McGill University
in Canada and moved to the United States to work for Microsoft in the mid-1990s.
I spent most of my time there working on Visual Basic and various component
technologies associated with it. In the end, I was the manager of the WinForms
team for the .NET platform. I left in 1998
after increasing dissatisfaction with my job and the direction the company was
going led to me to explore other opportunities.
Amusingly enough, in my early days at Microsoft, I found databases quite
frustrating and aggravating to work with, and it wasn't until I began working
with MySQL that I began to truly enjoy working with them again.
I have spent the last six years traveling the world, helping companies with
various software development problems, and writing open source software in my
spare time. I have lived in various countries such as Italy, Germany, and Japan,
and have seen how mono-lingual web applications can be problematic for users.
LP: Microsoft? Aren't you worried that will reduce your credibility in
the open source community?
Wandschneider: I've met some people who figure that since I worked for Microsoft,
I must eat babies or something in my spare time. And yet, I maintain that my
years at Microsoft were very valuable and rewarding.
The company was still very much a fun place to work
in the mid 1990s and I learned innumerable things about robust programming and
truly testing and shipping effective software.
It is these good habits that I have tried to carry forward with me in my
web application development. Everybody benefits when software is written well,
and I hope to contribute more written open source.
LP: How long did it take to write the book?
Wandschneider: I went to a local café and started writing this book. Six
months and many, many, many double espressos later, I had written the first
draft of it, and it was off to editing (which took a few more months). I wasn't
working at the time, so I was basically spending 40-50 hours a week writing
it. I would spend a few days writing code and samples for a particular chapter
or group of chapters, plan strategy for what I was going to write, and then
I would actually begin typing it all up.
LP: Did you enjoy writing this book?
Wandschneider: There is nothing like trying to explain a particular concept
or technology others to make sure you really understand how it works. I spent
a lot of time writing little scripts and samples, and would sometimes sit there
scratching my head, while at other times I would learn something completely
new and interesting I had never known before. After a while you start dreaming
in SQL and PHP. That's probably not the best thing to admit!
LP: What experience will readers of this book be expected to have?
Wandschneider: I wrote this book for people who have "programmed" before.
I make no stronger requirement than that. If they have written a number of VB
scripts or programs, written Perl for a while, or indeed written large applications
in Java or C/C++, this book was designed to be accessible to the reader.
Since I knew next to nothing about databases before beginning to write web
applications, I likewise assumed the reader would know little about those as
well. With that in mind, the book sets out to teach the reader not only the
syntax of PHP and SQL, but also the problems they will encounter, and how to
use them most effectively in their applications.
LP: What platform do you think readers of this book should be using?
Wandschneider: There are absolutely no requirements on what the reader uses.
I myself, to make sure that there was nothing too restrictive in what I was
writing, developed, tested, and ran all samples on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD,
and Mac OS X. I used PHP versions from PHP 5.0 to 5.0.4, as well as MySQL Versions
from 4.1.7 and on (including the newest 5.0 releases).
I have recently worked on commercial PHP/MySQL web applications where development
has occurred on Windows, Mac OS X, and servers running multiple flavors of Linux.
In only the most extreme cases did we ever even
notice that the versions were running on different platforms.
LP: What are the major features of PHP5 about which you're excited? What
about MySQL?
Wandschneider: The object oriented features in PHP 5 are a very welcome addition
to the language. I've found that it massively helps design of application and
encourages clean organization of your code. The strict syntax checking has also
proved helpful to avoid undefined variable errors, as well as numerous other
little coding issues that have been hiding in my code. Add to that the new MySQLi
(Improved MySQL) extension, and I've found programming PHP 5 to be a true joy.
MySQL has grown to be a truly interesting and robust database system. Versions
greater than 4.1.7 have massively improved Unicode support, which has allowed
me to develop applications that are completely ignorant of what language the
user sends us data in. The database just stores them all as UTF-8 strings, and
the application shuttles these data to the client. With a robust set of data
types and the choice between MyISAM and InnoDB tables, there is a real sense
of control when using this server.
LP: Where can users go for more help with this book?
Wandschneider: I maintain a blog at http://www.chipmunkninja.com, where I
post not only updates and notes on this book, but also other tutorials and other
things that developers might find useful.
Conclusion
Core Web Application Development with PHP and MySQL is organized into
five core parts:
- learning PHP
- learning Databases
- designing your web applications
- implementing your web applications
- complete web application samples
With this progression through the topics, and systematic approach to design
and security, the reader, whether they be inexperienced or advanced, will find
this a valuable tool to have around as they explore the world of writing web
applications. With a remarkable attention to detail, a light and easy writing
style, and a complete explanation for how things work, you will absolutely love
working through this text.
Book Information
Title: Core Web Application Development with PHP and MySQL (Core)
(Paperback)
Author: Marc Wandschneider
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; Bk&CD-Rom edition (September 26, 2005)
ISBN: 0131867164
Price: $49.99
Software Engineering
for Internet Applications
Slashdot Recommended Reading List for PHP
Conary is a distributed software management system
for Linux distributions. It replaces traditional package management solutions
(such as RPM and dpkg) with one designed to enable loose collaboration across
the Internet. It enables sets of distributed and loosely connected repositories
to define the components which are installed on a Linux system. Rather than
having a full distribution come from a single vendor, it allows administrators
and developers to branch a distribution, keeping the pieces which fit their
environment while grabbing components from other repositories across the Internet.
Andy's PHP Knowledgebase is a database-driven
knowledge base management system. It features bookmark friendly URLs, easy search
with browsing by category, article submission, and a professional and attractive
interface. It is intended to be used to store, manage, and update article content
for a knowledge base, but is very customizable and enables any number of creative
uses.
SQLiteManager is a multilingual
Web-based tool to manage SQLite databases. It features multiple database management,
creation, and connectivity, property and options management, table, data, and
index manipulation, the ability to import data from a file, conversion from
MySQL queries, view, trigger, and custom function management, and exporting
of database structure and data.
In case of broken links
please try to use Google search. If you find the page please notify
us about new location
AMPS for Solaris 10 AMPS (Apache MySQL PHP SSL) for Solaris 10 by Mel Lester
Jr. (meljr@meljr.com)
Version: 1.01 January 25, 2006
The strategy is to utilize as much
of the Open Source and other free software bundled with Solaris 10 as possible
and integrate Apache2, MySQL, PHP and SSL in a environment that can take full
advantage of Solaris 10 zones, resource management and highly scaleable, secure
System Administration.
-
A Configure and
Test Start
Apache2:
-
M Configure and
Start
MySQL:
-
P Download and
Configure
PHP:
-
Cooltools
Cool Tools at OpenSPARC T1 Better late then never: Sun started to provides
precompiled (with Sun Studio) OSS packages:
- CSQamp. This package includes Apache HTTP Server 2.0.58, MySQL 5.0.22
and PHP 5.1.4 built to work together. Apache httpd is built with MPM pre-fork
and modules to support PHP, SSL and Perl. PHP has support for MySQL. Note,
to work with PHP, MySQL included in this package is a 32-bit version.
For the database server, we recommend you install the CSQmysql package which
is a 64-bit version, allowing the use of larger caches to deliver improved performance
for large databases. Note that the CSQamp package will work with the CSQmysql
database server.
- CSQmysql. This package includes a 64bit version of MySQL 5.0.22
and is built with innodb. See the README file in /usr/local/mysql
for details.
- CSQperl. This package includes Perl 5.8.8. Note that Solaris 10 ships
with the same version of Perl. However, CSQperl is compiled with optimization
and the Sun Studio compiler and will provide better performance. To use this
version of perl, rather than the default one, include /usr/local/bin in your
PATH before /usr/bin.
- CSQphp. This package provides a stand-alone installation of PHP 5.1.4
and installs in /usr/local/php_fastcgi. This PHP can also be used via FastCGI
from any other web server. This package should not be confused with the version
of PHP in CSQamp - that version installs in /usr/local/php and is only for use
with Apache HTTP Server. For instance, there is no 'php' executable in CSQamp.
- CSQsquid. This package includes Squid 2.5.STABLE14 Web Proxy Cache.
Squid is a single-threaded application and as such does not scale well on SMP
platforms. You may need to run multiple instances to achieve scalability.
- CSQtomcat. This package includes Apache Tomcat 5.5.17 which is a
pure Java application. It is provided for convenience as it is no different
from the one on tomcat.apache.org.
"IBM developerWorks has put together a
PHP recommended reading list. It provides resources for developers and admins
adopting PHP and tackling advanced topics such as building extensions and writing
secure code. There's also a list of books and blogs for keeping up with changes
to the language itself."
by Archi87 (946032) on Sunday January 22, @06:42PM (#14534794)
If you want to create anything else (like a corporate site with support system [ticketbased], shop [enduser and reseller], productinfo,... or a browserbased) do it yourself or have a company done it
And if you really want to stick to a framework - create your own framework
Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22, @05:59PM (#14534612)