Comments on: What’s In Chris’ Brain, July 2008 Edition

By: Carlton Dickson

Carlton Dickson — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:09:58 +0000

I wasted a lot of time with layouts and weren’t even sure how they would work across browsers so gave blueprint css a try and would highly recommend it, it’s pretty easy to use and utilises a grid layout system which could be perfect for replacing your current table HTML…I’ve been meaning to write a tutorial on using blueprint and a random css template to show how simple it is.

As for the framework argument I have been learning how to use the Zend Framework and so far I love it….admitedly I was a bit worried about the associated performance issues after reading this article…http://www.avnetlabs.com/php/php-framework-comparison-benchmarks…but you raised a good point “If I get to the point where I have to worry about scaling, then I have done very well indeed”.

The reason I picked up a PHP framework is so that I can hopefully increase my productivity and so far I believe I have…for example the MVC nature of a project and the Zend_Layout component make maintenance so much easier IMO

By: rtconner

rtconner — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:56:38 +0000

I’m still all pissed off at php for crossing off named params on the todo list.

ya I agree on the scaling point

By: derek martin

derek martin — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:27:30 +0000

I hate to say it, but “dreamweaver” or “indesign” will make your layout issues disappear. They’re both much better than they used to be.

By: Brendon Kozlowski

Brendon Kozlowski — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:39:57 +0000

What’s this about a “Framework Jihad!” t-shirt? Hmmm…?

By: Mark Story

Mark Story — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:11:32 +0000

I for one am really excited about lambdas. Closures are also neat, but I find they create a lot of confusion in javascript as scoping can get lost if you are not familiar with them.

I think it strange that late static binding, closures, and lambda’s are being introduced in what is marked as a minor version of the language. What will they have left for PHP6?

By: David Dashifen Kees

David Dashifen Kees — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:37:40 +0000

I, for one, am looking forward to closures in PHP. You’re right, they are a dangerous and oft-abused part of programming (when they’re available) and I’ve met many a coder who accidentally operated on a variable as a result of a closure when they hadn’t intended to, but they do provide a great deal of flexibility.

Besides, the “global” keyword provided something similar to closures anyway. Not quite the same thing, but near enough that you could use it to produce similar results.

By: leo

leo — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:48:19 +0000

“I use frameworks because so much of the infrastructure code is stuff I DO NOT WANT TO WRITE ANY MORE. After 10 years of doing this, it’s time I stopped reinventing things.”

I’m with you 100%. I’ve spent my life believing that I should do things the ‘pure’ way, building from the ground up – okay to copy and paste earlier code, so long as I had written it in the first place. Now I’m just too old and tired. If I can build a website with, for example, CakePHP in two weeks that would normally take 3 months, I see that as a result. If you give a shit about purity, don’t look under the bonnet. Unfortunately, this can invite some dodgy coding practices on the basis that “if it works who cares what it looks like?”. Well, if it works, who cares what it looks like?

Now I have to read up on lambdas and closures. I always thought lambdas were some sort of curry and closures were something Americans did at the end of relationships.

By: nate

nate — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:33:27 +0000

Yeah man, looks like the lambdas/closures patch just barely snuck in there. Here’s the deal on that: yes, many PHP developers horribly abuse OO concepts, and the same is likely to happen to this, but I think what it’ll take is some framework or library that forces you to interact with it in a certain way, using these features. Hopefully that’ll be instructive enough to keep people on the straight and narrow.

By: Matthew Weier O'Phinney

Matthew Weier O'Phinney — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:32:34 +0000

“I’ll worry about scaling when I, you know, have something to worry about. If I get to the point where I have to worry about scaling, then I have done very well indeed. Despite our desires, not everyone can create a Flickr or Twitter. They are the lucky ones. The rest of us should shut up and just build something.”

Hear, hear!

I’m largely ignoring complaints about performance and benchmarks, because most of those complaining and running the benchmarks aren’t building anything that actually _needs_ to scale. And if you’re a competent developer, you probably already know a few easy tricks that you can put in place immediately to help (can you say op-code cache plus database and/or content caching?) — and can strip out and refactor as needed to really rein those cycles in. In the meantime, it should be about getting something coded and out the door — and a framework is going to help you do that faster.

Nice post, Chris.