Translating Geek Into English
, I made note of the new config bootstrap files for testing purposes, as well as the changes in the auto-generated Views. Here I’m going to look at the Models, Views, and Controllers in more detail.
Yesterday, InfoWorld posted an in-depth review of eight PHP-capable IDE’s. Eclipse with PDT, Netbeans, Zend Studio, NuSphere PhpED, and ActiveState Komodo all get “very good” marks. Of these, Eclipse and Netbeans are free, which is always a bonus. If you’re looking for a new IDE for your PHP development, do read this article.
Personally, I use a text editor for my PHP development ( TextMate for Mac OS X). But I have used Eclipse quite a bit, just not for PHP. Eclipse is a standard foundation for lots of IDEs, like Flex Builder/Flash Builder and Aptana Studio. I’ve used Netbeans for Ruby development. Both Netbeans and Eclipse are quite good and extremely extendable, but not as user-friendly as some commercial products, in my opinion. I never really took to Zend Studio, for no particular reason. Maybe the price! I did use NuSphere PhpEd for a while (I did some consulting work for that company) and it seemed to be a very likable solution, but it only runs on Windows, which rules it out for me.
…In this edition…
Not much to say as an introduction: it’s another newsletter, without a cohesive plan. Although it did cross my mind that I could come up with a more clever title than “Larry Ullman’s Newsletter” (or my blog, “Larry Ullman’s Blog”). My thanks to everyone for their nice words on these newsletters and please keep those comments and questions coming!
A couple of weeks back I completed a three-part series on authentication and authorization using the Yii framework. If you’re curious about this aspect of the framework, start with the first post on Simple Authentication. Also, it looks like the blog is on a restricted diet (fewer posts) while I continue working on my next book.
…I’ve just started writing my forthcoming Flex 4 book, tentatively titled Effortless Flex 4 Development. I’m happy to say that the first chapter is in the can, which is always a big hurdle to overcome. The book will be around 400 pages, released by New Riders, with an expected publication date later this Spring. I may post a more detailed table of contents in time, but the rough outline consists of three parts:
Each part will be roughly a third of the book. As no previous Flex knowledge is assumed, the first part covers the basics of Flex development. This includes the tools you’ll use, the user interface elements, an introduction to ActionScript, and a discussion of event handling. The second part of the book is especially important, I believe, as working with data and client-server communications are what give Rich Internet Applications their true power. Unlike the other Flex books that I’ve seen, I’ll be exclusively using PHP for my server-side code. This is in part because I’m a PHP guy at heart, in part because increased PHP support is a key addition to Flex 4, and in part because I want to present Flex development in a way that doesn’t require a huge amount of cash or server requirements. The last section of the book adds more advanced concepts, ties together what had been discussed to that point, and has more complete examples.
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