Posted by geetarista January 22, 2008
I guess Zend isn’t the only one releasing new products today. Aptana has just announced a couple of new releases on their website. They released a new version of Aptana Studio, which has a nice list of new features that make it even better all around.
Aptana also released a new product called Jaxer, which is “the world’s first true Ajax server.” Features include:
- Write entire applications or presentation layers in Ajax
- Share validation code on the browser and server
- Full DOM and JavaScript on the server
- Database, file, and socket access from JavaScript
- Seamless communications between browser and server
- Access existing pages written in other languages like PHP, Java, or Ruby on Rails
- Open-source, standards-based, and uses the APIs you already know
Jaxer is free and is included in Aptana Studio, or it can be downloaded and implemented separately. This is an exciting update for the Ajax world, so it will definitely be interesting to see how it is received by the community. I am going to start playing around with Jaxer and see how much of a benefit it can be.
Posted by geetarista January 22, 2008
Well, today is the official release for Zend Studio for Eclipse. I was hoping that another beta would be released or that the beta period would be extended, but no luck there. They are having a sale until March where you can get the new version for $299, which includes support and upgrades for one year. I honestly think that the product is well worth it, but I will not be buying it right away. From the testing that I have done with the beta, I think that the new Zend Studio is a must for PHP developers because it is extremely powerful. I’m going to wait a little while and try to earn some money so I can justify such a big expense. It is just a little too much right now since I am still starting out with my web development. I’m going to stick with Aptana/PDT for now until that time.
However, if you have the means and want the best all-around IDE, especially for PHP, the new Zend Studio for Eclipse is definitely the way to go.
Posted by geetarista January 16, 2008
As I mentioned previously, I have been playing around with the new Zend Studio for Eclipse, codenamed Neon. I have mainly used Aptana for most of my development for the past year or so, and I have some projects that I wanted to import into Neon to see how well it worked. Unfortunately when I imported these projects, they did not demonstrate any of the benefits that attracted me to using Zend Studio. I could not set many of the preferences, such as the include path for the Zend Framework, and I could not use some of the cool views that show your MVC structure, etc. I also noticed that my project folder was missing a little “P” that what I assume is an indicator of a PHP project.
I searched the web high and low for an answer, but alas I did not find one. Other people had voiced similar concerns in several forums, but no answer or solution was given. The solution was staring me in the face, but I thought that it was too obvious and that it just would not work. I took a look at my “.project” file in my project folder and noticed that it was just a simple XML file that looked like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projectDescription>
<name>My Project</name>
<comment></comment>
<projects>
</projects>
<buildSpec>
</buildSpec>
<natures>
</natures>
</projectDescription>
I wondered what the same file would look like for the example Zend Framework Project that comes with Zend Studio and this is what I found:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projectDescription>
<name>ZendFrameworkExample</name>
<comment></comment>
<projects>
</projects>
<buildSpec>
<buildCommand>
<name>org.eclipse.php.core.PhpIncrementalProjectBuilder</name>
<arguments>
</arguments>
</buildCommand>
<buildCommand>
<name>org.eclipse.wst.validation.validationbuilder</name>
<arguments>
</arguments>
</buildCommand>
</buildSpec>
<natures>
<nature>org.eclipse.php.core.PHPNature</nature>
</natures>
</projectDescription>
It’s easy to see that my file was basically empty, missing what looks like some important stuff. I was very determined by this point so just copied all the code from <buildSpec> to </natures> (inclusive) and started Zend Studio again. Lo and behold: I saw a little “P” on the icon of my project folder and all the features seemed to be working fine. I could not believe that it worked, so I tried restarting again to make sure it was not too good to be true. When Neon was closing and saving my workspace, it also ran a script for PHP Project Builder (notice the code in <buildCommand above) and finished without error. Once Neon was up and running again, I still had a fully-functioning Zend Studio/Zend Framework project in all its glory from before. Hopefully this will help out those that may be trying to import a project into Neon after using Eclipse or Aptana in the past.
Important note: I am by no means an expert and I only figured this out by playing around with things (the way I usually learn stuff!). If this messes up your project in any way, I do not take any responsibility. This worked for me but I do not know what surprise consequences may show up as a result. It would be a good idea to backup your project before trying this.
Posted by geetarista January 15, 2008
In my adventurous quest to search for PHP knowledge and resources, I’ve been looking for PHP podcasts that can help me out. If you do a Google search for “PHP podcast”, there are not many quality results that come up. As always, I also got a lot of results with pages that just had the extension “.php” and were not even matches. Enter the PHP Abstract Podcast. I have listened to a couple of episodes in the past, but that was pretty much it. I thought the episodes I listened to were great, but I just never made my way back. Once again I found myself on the PHP Abstract home page today and decided I would take a closer look. Since today was a slower day for me at work, I actually listened to every episode of the show while I was working. Yes, all 30 of them–even the ones I already listened to.
I was really happy with all I heard and my impression was that it was a very well-developed podcast. Some of the shows were a review for me, some were answers to questions I have had, and some were honestly still over my head. I really liked that they were all very informative but also clean and to the point. After listening to them all, my favorites so far were the ones that dealt with frameworks and web services, since those are topics that I am researching and interested in right now. I will continue to follow PHP Abstract and I hope the caliber of topics and speakers continues to please.
Posted by geetarista January 03, 2008
For the last couple of weeks, I have been playing around with the new Zend Studio for Eclipse, codenamed Neon. It is just a beta version of the program, but I have actually been very impressed with what I have seen so far. I have been using Aptana Studio quite a lot for most of my web development lately and I love it. Aptana built on top of Eclipse and can actually be used as a plug-in for Eclipse if necessary. Zend Studio for Eclipse has all the benefits of the previous versions of Zend Studio but also includes the advantages of Eclipse as well. I installed Aptana Studio as a plug-in on top of Neon and I have been very impressed with the combination. It is the ultimate web development platform that includes pretty much everything that I’m looking for in an IDE. I also really love the fact that they have integration for Zend Framework which I am also growing very fond of.
The only sad part is that once the final version is released, there will also be a hefty price tag attached to it. However, if I continue to work on web applications, I think that the price will be well worth the ability to use such a great tool. I will continue to use the beta version as long as possible with my development and see how well it will work in the long run. However, I am quite confident that it will continue to deliver and that I have found what I need. Check out the Zend Studio for Eclipse website for more details–it is well worth a try!
Posted by geetarista January 01, 2008
I love web design and development–I really do. I spend a lot of my spare time doing it and I love doing it as my career. One of the struggles that I have is trying to find out which direction that I want to take as my main specialty or focus. Should I develop personal websites, business websites, blogs, or public applications? It is a tough decision for me since I really love doing all of it! However, something that I have consistently thought about lately is the development of web applications for businesses. There can be many difficulties in pursuing this field of development, but I also like the many advantages that it has.
What I really like is that you know exactly what your audience will be and how to design accordingly. There are many problems and annoying issues when developing web sites for public use that can be disregarded in a business application. When you design for a public application or website, you have to try to accommodate every browser (including plug-ins, etc.), screen size, accessibility concern, etc. Though when developing for a business, you know all of these details and you do not have to worry about covering all your bases just in case one of your visitors is different from the rest. For example, most companies use the same browser, so worrying about compatibility issues between browsers will be minimal or (hopefully) a non-issue. Most companies buy their computers in bulk, so you will most likely be dealing with the same sized monitors. Any accessibility concerns will be very specific and you will know precisely what you need to do to accommodate those concerns. All of these issues may seem minor, but they really add up on top of trying to design a complex application. Most of these issues are very time-consuming and can be very frustrating which can take away the fun sometimes.
I am also really drawn to the challenge of application design and the complexity of it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I am interested more in actual development/programming than I am in just the design of a website. I really like both, but I feel that development is more of what I really want do.
