Matt Croydon::Postneo

Category: PHP

  • Freshmeat: Databases, RSS for Java, and a Web Services-enabled CMS

    Several releases worth mentioning on Freshmeat today:

    SAP DB 7.4.03.10 (Development) was released:

    This release marks the end of the beta phase. It contains bugfixes, new capabilities for the SERIAL datatype, and a new WebDAV server.

    See Kenneth Hunt’s entry for more info.

    RSSLibJ:

    RSSLibJ is a Java class library designed primarily to generate RSS data in various formats, based on a simple object model. Either RSS or RDF can be generated, and custom generators can be supplied as well.

    I’ve checked out the online example.  It looks really easy to generate a valid RSS feed in Java.  Here’s what’s new in 0.1.4:

    This release generates validatable RSS 0.92, RDF, and RSS 2.0, as tested by http://feeds.archive.org/validator.

    Ampoliros 3.2.1 looks interesting:

    Ampoliros is an advanced and easy to use distributed PHP Web applications platform, featuring a powerful XML-RPC and SOAP interface. It is suitable as an Internet/Intranet development and deployment system. It has a very strong modular architecture and allows very fast deployment of Web solutions.

    I like the XML-RPC and SOAP part.  It looks like mostly a bugfix release, though I haven’t stumbled across it before:

    PHP 4.3.0 and Windows related bugs have been fixed. Various other code improvements and fixes have been made.

    It looks like a solid *nuke-like (but unique) CMS in PHP.  Screenshots look extremely clean and useful.  This looks like a CMS to keep your eyes on.

  • PHP in 2002

    Derick Rethans has an excellent year in review for PHP.

  • KeithDevens.php

    Keith Devens has been playing with PHP 4.3.0.  At first he had to squash some quirky behavior that the upgrade caused, but now he’s exploring new undocumented stuff like debug_backtrace().

  • Zen and the Art of Comprehensive Archive Networks

    This is a great article for many audiences.  Anyone from geeks and programmers to sysadmins or architects of distributed storage systems would get a kick out of this article:

    It seems that there is a lot of interest in having similar archives for other languages like CPAN [1] is for Perl. I should know; over the years people from at least Python, Ruby, and Java communities have approached me or other core CPAN people to ask basically “How did we do it?”. Very recently I’ve seen even more interest from some people in the Perl community wanting to actively reach out a helping hand to other communities. This ‘missive’ tries to describe my thinking and help people wanting to build their own CANs. Since I hope this message will somehow end up reaching the other language communities I will explicitly include URLs that are (hopefully) obvious to Perl people. Note that I’m going to describe what things worked for Perl, translate appropriately for other languages.

    [via Use Perl;]

  • PHP 4.3.0

    PHP 4.30 has been released:

    This release contains a multitude of changes, bug fixes and improvements over the previous one, PHP 4.2.3. It further elevates PHP’s standing as a serious contender in the general purpose scripting language arena.

  • PEAR Primer

    PHP Builder goes over PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) basics.

  • phpEclipse

    Josh Cooper seems to like Eclipse 2.0.2 with phpEclipse so far.

  • Cafe log and Fugly Code

    Reverand Jim looks into Cafelog:

    If you program in PHP (or any language, really), and are developing something that you intend to release to the public, please, please, please spend the little bit of extra time it takes to develop your application properly. This means using function or classes to help break down and simplify the logic in your application, using meaningful variable names, and a directory structure that makes sense. When you do, you encourage other developers to improve your product, you encourage the use of your product in ways that you never intended, and you obtain a following from developers and users alike.

  • If You Point to It…

    Well, if I point to enough stuff, I’m bound to help somebody.  I’ve managed to point to two projects that might help Rick (the techno weenie) open source his homebrew RSS aggregator.  Good luck, Rick.

  • PHP Eclipse Plugin

    Scott Johnson points to a PHP Eclipse plugin.  File this under look into it later.

  • PHPLog 0.3

    PHPLog is not a weblog app like I thought it was when I first clicked on it.  It is, however, a cool looking log monitor:

    PHPLog is intended to become a lightweight log monitoring solution for home users, as well as a candidate for being distributed on larger networks and report to a central console.

    It is currently in an alpha stage, though the author states that the parts that are implemented should be beta-level stable.  Here’s the freshmeat page if you want to keep tabs on it.

  • Tiki 1.4 (Mira) Released

    Tiki 1.4 (Mira) has been released.  Changes:

    Lot of new features added like quizzes, HTML pages with a dynamic option, a Shoutbox, improved spellchecking content templates, integrated search feature and many minor enhancements and additions.

    There’s also an impressive bulleted list of other major and minor changes and tweaks.

  • Morning Links

    Keith Devens points out PHP from the Command Line.

    Clemens Vasters debunks JVM vs. CLR myths.

    Russ links to Servlet Best Practices.

    DJ Adams raises concerns over some rather “duh” patents that Strangeberry owns.

    Carlos Perez (who happens to blog just a few metro stops away from me) notes that AspectJ will be rolled into an eclipse project.

    Slashdot notes that a new satellite will be controlled via FTP over TCP/IP.  Don’t bother to read the comments, stories like this bring out the stupidest comments.

    And that’s all I’ve got.  I’m out the door.  Frag out!

  • Class.Jabber.PHP

    Class.Jabber.PHP is today’s Freshmeat Gem of the Day (fmGoTD):

    Class.Jabber.PHP is a class which you can use to connect to the Jabber network. It allows you to easily connect to a server and interact with it. It supports all packet types (message, iq, and presence), is very flexible, and offers both high-level methods (registration, message sending, etc.) and low-level methods (packet sending, etc.).

  • PHP CMSen: X-oops, E-Xoops, PHP-Nuke, and PostNuke

    RootPrompt.Org points to a LinuxWorld article about X-oops and E-Xoops, two PHP-based object-oriented portal packages.  It looks like both of their websites try really hard to look like *Nukes, which is unfortunate, but varlinux uses E-Xoops to look a little more unique.

    Back in June I installed both PHP-Nuke and PostNuke on my Westhost (I’m quite happy with them) account while trying to find my geekblog voice.  I liked the administration interface and it was set up great for a community weblog/news site, but it was missing something.  Perhaps it was because it looked like every other *Nuke site out there.  I tried a few non-default themes, as I was too lazy to create my own from scratch, but it still looked stock *Nuke to me.  I downloaded Radio Userland in early July and fell in love with Aggregation and the more personal approach that the software allowed me to take to geekblogging.

  • Why Do PHP Tutorials Suck?

    Reverend Jim:

    I love PHP. I really do. I swear. I just really get tired of seeing so many “articles” and “tutorials” and “code examples” that are complete and utter shit written by people who claim to be “experts”. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh.

    Can I add that I strongly dislike looking for a tutorial on a particular php/perl/whatever topic and finding the SAME EFFING TUTORIAL on five different sites.  Thanks for the tutorial, it’s great, really.  But I’d really like to see something that isn’t that exact situation, I’m looking for the big picture, and it just ain’t in those same 15 lines of code.

  • BrainSplatPHP

    BrainSplatPHP 0.7.1:

    BrainSplat was originally conceived to scratch my itch for a journal program that I could use to replace LiveJournal.It is a simple blogging program that has support for comments. The recent additions is a client interface and a forum like code for formatting BSPHPCode. The reason I made my own was simply because all the scripts I found were generally made for multiple users. And thus, I made my own. I started originally in Perl, but I found that PHP makes a much better interface for these type of programs.

    Changes:

    Some more themes were added to the distribution, and the BSThemes Web site was created.

  • PHPTalk 0.9.4

    PHPTalk 0.9.4 has been released:

    PHPTalk aims to be the fastest and most configurable multithreaded message board system available. It has the usual features like multithreading, auto indexing of messages (for searching), customizable colors, etc. However, PHPTalk differs in that it allows you to easily integrate it into existing sites. It does this by not relying on specific display files, allowing you to template most of the frontend, and allowing you to specify an already existing user table. It uses PEAR’s DBI for portability, ANSI SQL for portability, an advanced and documented API, full multilingual support, and full i18n support for date functions.

    I can’t say that I’ve used it, but it looks clean and different from the other multitudes of php bulletin board systems.

  • Traffic

    Whoa.  This weblog has generated over a gigabyte of traffic so far this week, and it’s not over yet.  I’ll try to post some stats tomorrow, and if this keeps up I’ll probably have to start paying more a month for web hosting.  Dave’s link and my javablog channel have both contributed to the rise in traffic.

    Welcome to my weblog if you’ve just started reading.

  • Compressed Content

    0xDECAFBAD reminds us that decompressed content is longer than compressed content.  It’s these little gotchas that I stumble with moreso than the hard stuff, and it looks like I’m not alone.