I just ran across an overview that covers quite a few MVC frameworks for PHP. It’s basically a list of the frameworks with a few sentences to give you a general idea of each framework’s focus and a link to its website. If you haven’t started working with a framework yet, this might point you in the right direction.

Full article on Onextrapixel: An Overview of PHP Framework Guides for Developers via Hacker News

This week’s links:
PHP Library Interoperability Standards

PHP Founder Rasmus Lerdorf leaves Yahoo

Managing File Uploads with Zend Framework

Teach yourself how to code (not PHP specific)

A simple PHP Database class

Helicon Ape: an Apache emulator for ISS. Why?!

PHP 5.3 was released 6/30/09. It brings some big changes to PHP — among them: namespaces, closures, a few shortcuts, nowdoc, and changes to heredoc and PHP.ini.

Be sure to read the Migration Guide before upgrading to the latest and greatest.

CakePHP Application Development is a new book announced by Packt, which is designed as a step-by-step introduction to rapid web development using the CakePHP Framework. Written by Anupom Syam and Ahsanul Bari, the book aims to assist PHP programmers to develop and deploy well-crafted and robust web-based applications with the open source MVC CakePHP framework.

CakePHP is an open source web application framework written in PHP. It uses well-known design patterns and provides a structured framework that enables PHP users to develop robust web applications, without any loss of flexibility. The user can code faster, better, and it makes writing Web 2.0-style applications easier.

The book introduces the user to installing the MVC Framework and building his first application, and follows with looking at each main component of a CakePHP application in detail. The book also teaches how to build Web 2.0 style applications using a case study application.

This book walks the PHP developer through setting up a CakePHP environment, and develops an example application to illustrate all of the techniques the user needs to write a complete, non-trivial application in PHP. The user will also learn about the MVC pattern and coding styles through practical examples.

PHP developers wanting to develop cutting-edge Web 2.0 applications, or see how to write code in a faster, more productive way will find this book useful.

For more details on the book, please visit http://www.packtpub.com/cakephp-application-development/book

In July, I am planning to do a presentation on some ways to time and profile your code. Rather than this being a “what Dan found on Google” talk, what are some of the tools or techniques you use to find the trouble spots in your code?

Add your ideas to the comments and I’ll do what I can to fold them into the presentation.

I was at training this week, and got into a discussion with an ASP developer in the break room. He ended up asking me: “Does anyone really use PHP anymore?” Naturally, I have him a resounding “Of Course!” But, other than some local sites I couldn’t tell him for sure who anymore.

Then today, my inbox had a little gift from Zend. They have provided a list of case studies, including one on Fox Interactive’s IGN sites who have recently rolled out Grand Theft Auto ‘Hood, Super Smash Bros World, and Voodoo Extreme–all of which are using the Zend Framework and PHP 5.

You can read more about it (including the full whitepaper) and other case studies at: http://framework.zend.com/whyzf/casestudies#fox

Joel hooked us up with a fantastic list of 40 tips to overly optimize your PHP code. If you are all about squeezing out every last microsecond…this list is for you.

And, it is just kind of fun reading.

40 Tips for optimizing your php Code

Thanks Joel!

IBM DeveloperWorks has posted the first part of a five-part series on three PHP frameworks: Zend Framework, symfony, and CakePHP. In this series, the author will build a web application using each of the three frameworks.

Part I: Getting Started
Part II: Building the application in each of the frameworks – compare and contrast.
Part III: Weaknesses in each of the frameworks when extending the application
Part IV: AJAX support
Part V: Working outside of the frameworks

Spend 2 minutes on Google, and I’m sure you can have a bunch of PHP is better than Ruby and visa-versa. That’s not why I’m posting this. This article doesn’t interest me because it is Ruby vs. PHP, nor does his use of cursing appeal to me all that much. What I like about it are the lessons the author provides.

Look at that old cruddy PHP code you worked on two years ago. You know what I’m talking about. Seriously, it’s only cruddy because you are two years wiser–two years more experienced. The site is still up–still maintainible.

Now, go learn Ruby and Rails…go learn .NET, J2EE or who knows what else. When you come back to PHP (and you will ) you are going to crank out the meanest, slickest, hottest code you ever wrote.

That’s the lesson I liked so much: Never stop learning new ways to make the best tool for the job even better.

http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html

OK. I have finally taken the time to hack together a block for automatically stating the Next PHP Meeting date. What I needed was a way to get the third Saturday of the current month unless it has already past. Then it would get the third Saturday of next month.

If you want to have some fun with a nice academic exercise, read the article and start hacking!

The “algorithm” I hacked together was:
[code]
$t=getdate();
$today = mktime(0,0,0,$t['mon'],$t['mday'],$t['year']);

$this_month_start = mktime(0,0,0,$t['mon'],1,$t['year']);
$next_month_start = mktime(0,0,0,$t['mon']+1,1,$t['year']);

$this_month_date = strtotime("Third Saturday",$this_month_start);
$next_month_date = strtotime("Third Saturday",$next_month_start);

if($today <= $this_month_date) {
$event_date = $this_month_date;
} else {
$event_date = $next_month_date;
}
print "Saturday, ".date('F dS, Y',$event_date)." 2:30pm";
?>[/code]

Now make me proud and post your improvements.

Happy Hacking!!