Byte PHP framework

[Markus]

Thanks to markus for making this thread as a sticky. if not for sure I'll never find it. I'm really less active these days on Bytes. But hopefully I can find more time withing next couple of months. It's a pleasure to here about the framework and I'd like to put some inputs from my end too.

SF is great system to host the projects but I do recommend Google project hosting for this.
http://code.google.com/hosting/ its not because of SF is bad, but its only because may be I'm a google lover.

Anyway have a look on this comparison chart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_hosting_facilities

Also I'd like join with you guys with the development if there is a space for me, but never ask me to write those documentations.

Good Luck with your project !!

EDIT!!
Also there is no other IDE like Netbeans

I think google code is good, but compared to the possible features you can have on sourceforge, it's nothing. You have CVS, SVN, Git, phpBB, TaskFreak, Project website (<projname>.sou rceforge.net), FTP access to that site, MySQL databases for that site, Shell access, Wordpress, Tracker, and loads more. :D

It'd be awesome if you could be a part of the project, ak1dnar. :)

NetBeans is pretty awesome, it just takes forever to load. Whereas Eclipse loaded almost instantaneously , but then Eclipse was pretty crappy feature-wise (lots of plugins available, just not so easy to install and configure them.)

I love the UML plugin for NetBeans. Truly awesome.

[ak1dnar]

That's true Markus. SF provides a great system for project tracking. But most of those features may not require for small projects.

With my understanding we need (for now);

1. Source Control system
2. Issue/Bug Tracking system
3. System for setting up Milestones
4. Documentation System
5. And a web Site to spread the word about the framework.

Point number 3 and 5 is not available on Google project hosting as I know. correct me if I'm wrong here. so SF is good because may be we have everything we need.

I just recovered my SF account password (Didn't use it after creating the account :D )
username: randika

Hope to see you guys there.

[dlite922]

Guys,

I added Mahcuz and randika as users and both of you should have SVN access.

I checked in (most of the) code from the last project I used my framework for: zankobooks.com to show you the code from a working site.

The code as it sits is, of course, very dirty compared to our final goal but it's definitely a start.

My plan was to "sit down" with you all weekend long and get the project underway, but unfortunately (?) I'll be with family on a little get-away in Colorado.

So I know tomorrow night I'll leave and won't have time to write this so I'll give you guys a brief description in the developer forum of what you're looking at so far but I know all of you can figure my simple code out easily, there's nothing special about it....yet.

Looking forward to a swarm of replies and ideas when I get back next week. Let's discuss everything so we can plan it out and avoid conflicts.

Thanks!

PS: Mahcuz (Markus), I've given you as much access as I could fine because...well frankly you've got a lot more time on your hands...and I trust you :)

May the Forge be with you!

(too corny?)



Dan

[dlite922]

...a little more about my feelings on this...(sorry)

I could see this as a gateway framework. One that is inspirational and makes every PHP lover take it and run with it to create they're own "unique" code they feel confident and secure with to do their applications with. What I have today was inspired by someone else that I improved upon and I want every soul that has fallen in love with PHP like me to take it and spread their wings with.

/okay, that's enough vodka for me

Good Night!



Dan

[Markus]

:D

Right, a couple of things:

• Inline documentation should be done with either /* .. */, //, or #, not /** **/
• PHPDoc should be:
  

  /**
   * title,
   *
   * description,
   *
   * @access, etc..
   */

  notice the spacing before and after the asterisks.

That is all for now :)

PS. Thanks for the trust ;)

Also, I will return that passing insult you made, however true it may be. ;)

[hoopy]

Hi,

Would I be able to get involved in this in some capacity? Not so much on the development side as you seem to have enough people on that front but perhaps on the end user side?

I have always stayed away from frameworks in the past due to them appearing very bloated, instead writing my own libraries so if you are creating a very lightweight framework I would like to help test it.

Cheers.

[Markus]

Hi,

Would I be able to get involved in this in some capacity? Not so much on the development side as you seem to have enough people on that front but perhaps on the end user side?

I have always stayed away from frameworks in the past due to them appearing very bloated, instead writing my own libraries so if you are creating a very lightweight framework I would like to help test it.

Cheers.

Of course you can help out, but you do not have to just stick to testing.

Do you have a SourceForge.net account? If not, go make one, and I will add you to the member list of the project (PM me with your account name).

You should then go and check out (using an SVN tool, or by downloading a tarball). Give the code a look-see, run it and report any errors using the mantis bug-tracking tool.

:)

[dlite922]

Of course you can help out, but you do not have to just stick to testing.

Do you have a SourceForge.net account? If not, go make one, and I will add you to the member list of the project (PM me with your account name).

You should then go and check out (using an SVN tool, or by downloading a tarball). Give the code a look-see, run it and report any errors using the mantis bug-tracking tool.

:)

You ARE our target audience. A perfect tester indeed, but like Markus said you can give us your input since over the years of PHP development we may skip steps here and there.

The code is no shape to be downloaded and used (although it's copied from one of my working projects), but you'll know when the first version comes out if you participate with us.

Thanks!

(My last minute post before total silence of the weekends)




Dan

[Markus]

Have a good weekend, Dan.

Mark.

[Slapo]

I've been following this thread for a while.
I might give this one a go too once you manage to get something like a pre-release together (i.e. when it starts looking like what you want to achieve) - 60% complete might still be a bit too early.

There are a few things that seem to be too optimistic about this one, but I presume only time will show whether I was right thinking what I was thinking ;)

What size of projects do you reckon this framework will be usable for?

Lots of people only want to use a framework if they want to avoid writing more or less the same code, such as displaying tabular data, manage caching, users (logins and general security), forms, image manipulation, web services and so on.
Almost any decent framework allows you to strip it of classes you won't need for that particular project, making it rather lean.

By the way, I think you'll want to have something like ActiveRecord or ORM implemented eventually. Not because you'd be bored of writing the same SQL again, but because it might be faster to write, you won't have to bother with string escaping and, last but not least, if you'd have to migrate a project to a different database, you'd be thanking yourself.

I'm currently working on an e-shop, using CodeIgniter and so far the experience with it was very pleasant. Documentation is crucial - the one CodeIgniter has is excellent.
There are a few other frameworks that are appealing to me, but I haven't got to trying them out myself. They'd be Yii, Jelix and Seagull. I'm giving Yii a go today (or maybe tomorrow - I'll have to shut down the computer until my room gets painted).

I'm not sure I've actually written anything helpful, but I hope to stir a discussion with that.

[dlite922]

Slap,

You have great suggestions, but it's plugins like that, that scare many beginners away. To me it's easier to code than learn how to use -- or worse trouble shoot -- the framework code I'm using. I found myself doing this with the two most popular frameworks praised a year ago.

This framework still expects you to write most of the logic, you may ask well what's the point?

The point is to get people familiar with a "structured " PHP design to help them create secure, portable, and robust PHP apps and have PHP clear of some of the bad rep it's been getting due to beginners not using it write.

This framework will be a gateway to show how you can "lightly" use classes, an object, controller and a data access model to your benefit when developing apps.

These apps, while they may not be enterprise, can be as large as your typical blog, forum, eCommerce web apps.

I believe most frameworks lose their head in trying to code as much possible for the programmer that the programmer ends up trying to figure out just how much, and how it is implemented. Agility, Flexibility, and Usability suffers greatly resulting in a very steep learning curve.

In conclusion, while an expert can easily sit down and learn codeIgniter in one day and start developing, a beginner will be overwhelmed and result to coding scripts and not implementing any form of OOP.

We welcome any feedback or criticism and would love for you to be part of it, this goes for all byte members at any expert or beginner level.

(Yes I'm back in town! :D)



Dan

[Slapo]

Thanks for the response, dlite :)

How do you plan on routing URI parameters? I think that could influence a lot.
I see two sensible approaches at the moment:
1. use the usual form of parameters, e. g. index.php?c=mai n&amp;f=index
2. pseudo seo style, e. g. index.php/main/index or index/main/index (where there's only index, .htaccess or something similar would have to be used to force the webserver to feed it to the PHP interpreter; a question mark after index.php would probably be needed on IIS)

Both of these enforce using classes, although not lightly, but rather heavily, as the first two parameters (or segments in the second case) would be mapped to a class (parameter c) and a function (parameter f), with the rest of the parameters available freely to the programmer.

It's the way CodeIgniter does it (the second case) and it works very well in most cases. It's light on resources, unlike e. g. mod_rewrite.

[Markus]

I like the way codeigniter routes it's URIs. index.php/controller/method/other/stuff.

However, I think we need to determine whether this will be a 'glue' framework, or a 'full stack' framework (definition).

I'm too tired to say anything constructive right now.

Where's my coffee?

[Slapo]

...
However, I think we need to determine whether this will be a 'glue' framework, or a 'full stack' framework (definition).

I'm too tired to say anything constructive right now.

Where's my coffee?

I'd suggest 'glue', as it gives flexibility both newbies and advanced users might like.
'Full stack' might feel more consistent, but if it would make integration of 3rd party classes difficult, it would become time consuming and there would be little point in using it further for many.

EDIT: ditch coffee, try mint tea ;)

[dlite922]

I think the conversation is going to where I thought it would, which is:

Define what the capabilities, usage, target audience, etc. To start coding anything, we must have a base line goal of what we're trying to achieve.

So maybe when I said 60% done, I got excited and way ahead of myself.

Which brings us to the next question: where are we going to have this "chat" since writing post replies could take forever on a conversation like this.

Google Chat? some other chat client and set up a time to discuss all of this.



Thanks,



Dan