Bitwise Magazine

PHP, MySQL, Apache and Vista Woes

When Setting Up is the Hardest Thing To Do...

Monday 6 August 2007

This is a day I’ve been putting off for the last month. I knew it was going to be traumatic – and, by heck, I was right!

Having bought a new PC a month or so ago, I have gradually been transferring my work and my applications from my old PC to the new one. Transferring word processed documents and databases is bad enough – but transferring offline interactive web sites is a whole lot worse. I've mentioned before the problems I had getting the Apache web server up and running under Vista. Today I set myself the task of installing PHP, MySQL and SPIP (my favoured CMS – ‘Content management System'). At first (and with some help from an old article of mine which explains how to set the doc_root and extension directories for PHP) the installation of PHP and MySQL seemed to go OK. But when I then installed SPIP and tried to log onto the local site (the one on my PC), I kept seeing (...)

more...

Zend Framework - Power PHP

Zend Interview...

Wednesday 1 August 2007

In July, Zend Technologies released version 1.0 of the Zend Framework, an open source application framework for PHP. Here, Huw Collingbourne talks to Mark de Visser, Zend’s Chief Marketing Officer, about Zend Framework, the future of PHP and the challenges of Ruby On Rails, Flex and Silverlight...

So What Is ‘Zend Framework', Anyhow...? We asked Mark de Visser to give us an overview of the main features of the Zend Framework and what they offer to developers. This is what he told us... Zend Framework (ZF) is completely free for development and distribution, that is, is open-source and free to download & use and features the following: New BSD license: business-friendly – it's easy to build your own commercial intellectual property on top of ZF An Apache-like Contributor License Agreement (CLA) process assures that the code is free of legal issues – important protection and peace-of-mind Fully object-oriented PHP 5 class library, with attention to best design practices Tested thoroughly with about 90,000 lines of test code for 140,000 lines of (...)

more...

Turbo PHP Goes Open Source

News of Drag and Drop PHP IDE

Thursday 26 July 2007

Not sure when this happened as I’ve only just noticed The source code files are all dated May 11th, so maybe that’s a clue...

Anyhow, for the record Turbo PHP is a drag-and-drop PHP application design tool that looks (at first sight, anyhow) very similar to Code Gear's Delphi For PHP. It was, in fact, written in Delphi. Apparently several commercial components were used, however, and these will have to be replaced by anyone doing further open source development. Nice at it looks, I'm not entirely sure if Turbo PHP is going anywhere. I'm not sure if Code Gear's Delphi For PHP is either - which seems a shame as a truly visual designer for PHP web applications sounds as though it should be a winner. But there are few signs that the PHP community is rushing to embrace these products... Anyhow, if you are interested, Turbo PHP can be found here: (...)

more...

Ball Screws, Dog Poo and Google...

The simple fun of Google Ads

Tuesday 24 July 2007

As a developer of a Ruby On Rails IDE, I necessarily spend a lot of my time reading Blogs about Rails . For the uninitiated, I should explain that Ruby is an object oriented language and Rails is the name of a web development framework. It has, as far as I am aware, no obvious connection with ball screws (whatever they are - I almost dread to ask...) so why did I only this morning see the following advertisement on a Rails Blog....?

all screws for all applications. Nuts, Bearings, Guides... Aha, I think I've spotted the reason.... ...and Rails. Google Ads strike again! Google adverts try to provide ‘relevant' content to the subject of the Blog in which they appear. Often they do a good job. But not always! Rails (and Ruby) blogs can throw up some particularly inappropriate examples. However, there are even funnier possibilities. A couple of years ago, I wrote most of a column about Google Ads. My favourites were the ones that offered ”Dog Poo for sale. Check out the deals now!” and “Great deals on Body Odor. Shop on eBay and Save!” I haven't noticed anything quite that good in recent times. Has Google sharpened up its Ad-guessing technology to avoid the really gross stuff? Or am (...)

more...

Installing Apache on Vista

Grrrrrr.....

Friday 20 July 2007

I’ve been putting this off for a long time. And with good cause! I administer a number of database-driven Web applications such as the Bitwise site itself and the site of my software company (both of which use the excellent SPIP CMS) plus a few other applications to manage newsletters and the like. Each of these requires an installation of MySQL, PHP and an Apache server. While these are all pre-installed on the online server, my local copies - used for development on my PC - have to be installed be me...

Up to now, my local installation has run on Windows XP. But I am gradually moving everything across to a new PC running Vista. I always suspected this would cause me problems. And I was right. The good news is that the installation of MySQL was trouble-free. The bad new is that the installation of Apache just didn't work. I haven't yet got around to trying to install PHP (I need a rest after battling against Apache), but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be reasonably painless... I've installed Apache several times in the past and I even wrote a tutorial on how to do it. But Vista proved bothersome. In the end, I gave up trying to figure out how to get Apache working on Vista and resorted, instead, to some creative Googling. Luckily, this turned up exactly what I needed (...)

more...

Ruby On Rails Tutorial: The Model

How To Create a Database Application in one line of code!

Wednesday 18 July 2007

Here a simple Rails application (running in the web browser window at the top-left) is seen in the Ruby In Steel IDE. The Ruby code which we’ve entered to define the entire application is shown in the window beneath this. You can use an editor or IDE of your choice for this tutorial.

In a previous article, I explained how to create a very simple Ruby On Rails application without using a database. This sort of Rails application is very much the exception to the rule. In almost all ‘real world' Rails applications, you will need some way of storing and retrieving data. For example, you may need to save the product details in an online store, the articles in a Wiki or the posts and comments in a Blog. The database part of a Rails application is called the Model - and that's what I'll be looking at in this article. Note: This article assumes that you already have Ruby and Rails installed. This is explained in the previous article: Ruby On Rails Tutorial: The Basics MySQL is one of the most widely used (and freely available) database programs which can be used (...)

more...

Morfik - Web Applications Without Tears

From Pascal to AJAX in a matter of moments...

Monday 16 July 2007

It takes a lot to make this crusty old reviewer go “Wow!” but Morfik’s remarkable WebOS AppsBuilder has done just that. I’m only going on first impressions at the moment, which are dangerous things to go on, so please assume all the usual caveats and get-out clauses in the wildly uncritical gushing that follows...

Morfik - AJAX apps written in Pascal, Basic, C# or Java...

OK, here goes. This damn' thing is stunning. Over the past few months I've been trying to work up some enthusiasm for CodeGear's Delphi For PHP, a visual design tool for creating web applications. As a long-time Delphi user (I wrote the monthly Delphi column for PC Plus magazine for over ten years) I was expecting to get up, running and enthusiastic about Delphi For PHP (DPHP) in next to no time. So far that still hasn't happened. The fact that the DPHP editor is pretty poor (not even any code collapsing) and that there is next to no documentation or help system worthy of the name hasn't exactly helped. Overall, I have ended up with the feeling that Delphi For PHP is a rushed release - acquired from its original developers, Qadram (who had previously announced that they would release (...)

more...

Flex - the road to Web 3...?

Adobe Interview

Saturday 30 June 2007

Currently Adobe’s Flex - the application development system which proves that Flash is more than just a pretty face - sets the standard for Rich Internet Applications. Here Huw Collingbourne talks to Dave Gruber, Adobe Systems Group Product Manager for Flex, to find out how Flex may change the way we create applications in future...

Adobe Flex is a cross-platform development framework for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs). Earlier this year, On April 26, Adobe announced plans to move the development of Flex to open source. HC: Recently Adobe decided to release the Flex SDK to open source. Why did you decide to do that? Dave Gruber: Adobe believes that Flex can grow faster, as well as better meet the needs of the Flex development community by making it available under an open source license. HC: Does this mean that Adobe will no longer be in control of the future development of Flex? Dave Gruber: Adobe will continue to be the primary contributors and leaders for the ongoing evolution of Flex, with members of the current Flex SDK development, QA, and product teams continuing as full-time contributors (...)

more...

Silverlight On Linux?

Microsoft’s new web/graphics/programming thing - now on Mono

Thursday 21 June 2007

Those chaps have been working rapidly...

...and already Silverlight is migrating into Moonlight! It looks as though these Rich Internet Application thingummies are finally starting to make a breakthrough....

more...

Silverlight, Flex and the Future of Web Applications

Interview

Tuesday 19 June 2007

Huw Collingbourne talks to Jaspal Sohal, CEO of Multidmedia Ltd, about Flex, Flash, Silveright and the future of Rich Internet Applications...

HC: What's all the fuss about RIA (Rich Internet Technology) all of a sudden? We now have three major companies all announcing new developments in this area - Adobe has open sourced Flex, Sun has released Java FX and Microsoft has launched Silverlight. Are these three technologies just different flavours of the same thing or are they fundamentally different? Jaspal Sohal: Silverlight has certainly been developed as Microsoft's answer to the growing popularity of Flash, based around Microsoft's own XAML and .NET framework. One of Silverlight's strongest points is its video streaming capability; much has been made of this in the media and will undoubtedly attract developers because of this tentative lead. The problem that Microsoft has yet to overcome with this new technology is an (...)

more...

Ruby by Example: Concepts and Code

Book Review

Wednesday 13 June 2007

Ruby by Example: Concepts and Code - $29.95
by Kevin C. Baird
No Starch Press http://www.nostarch.com/
312 pp.
ISBN-10 1-59327-148-4
ISBN-13 978-1-59327-148-0

I am all in favour of learning a language by hands-on coding - so, if I were on the upward slope of learning Ruby, Ruby By Example is exactly the kind of book that would appeal to me. In 13 chapters (plus an introductory section and appendix), Kevin C. Baird moves rapidly through a broad range of topics ranging from the very fundamentals of Ruby to specific areas of interest such as CGI, RubyGems and a gentle introduction to developing web apps with Ruby On Rails. In the early chapters, the author assumes no (or, anyway, very little) prior programming knowledge). So if you don't know what a variable or constant is, all will be revealed. In spite of this, the book is not intended solely for programming novices. On the contrary, it rather rapidly gets down to the nitty-gritty details (...)

more...

Delphi For Visual Studio (again)

Sounds familiar...?

Tuesday 12 June 2007

Yet more confusing messages from CodeGear. You might recall a bit of brouhaha last year when the French technology magazine, Le Monde Informatique, stated that CodeGear planned to bring to an end the life of its Object Pascal IDE, Delphi, as a standalone product and move the language into Microsoft’s Visual Studio.

No sooner had I reported that here on the blog than the Delphi Product Manager, Nick Hodges, left a comment categorically denying this: "The French article is totally false. We have no such plans." Nick went on to issue a denial at greater length on his own blog. "Apparently this article in a French technical magazine has caused a bit of a stir. I can't read French but I am told that it says that we are going to move Delphi to be a plugin to Visual Studio. Okay, I'll be clear. This is not true. We have no such plans. We are not even contemplating such a thing. We aren't doing it. It's not happening. Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent." As later reported here on the Blog, the French magazine initially stood by its story. The Editor expressed full confidence that the journalist (...)

more...

The Mac Browser Comes To Windows

Hurrah! (maybe...)

Monday 11 June 2007

I am in two minds about Apple’s forthcoming Windows version of its Safari browser (now available in beta). On the one hand, I, in common with many Windows users, secretly lust for hardware and software that looks as nice as that Mac stuff.

Microsoft has had a good go at giving Vista an Apple-like makeover but, somehow, it still looks gaudy rather than elegant. So a real, genuine, snazzy-looking Apple browser on Windows is good news... ...up to a point. The point at which it becomes bad news is the point at which I have to start testing all my web pages to find out if they display properly in yet another darn' browser. Currently I test in IE, Firefox and Opera. Each browser has its quirks. And while some people say that IE is the quirkiest of the lot, it's also the most widely used so I can't just ignore any web pages that don't display properly and pass the blame onto Microsoft. I am quite sure that Safari will have quirks all of its own which means that, if it manages to expand its user base from around the 5% mark (...)

more...

Microsoft Silverlight for Rich Internet Applications

Dynamic Languages On The Web...

Friday 1 June 2007

Recently Microsoft launched its Silverlight browser plugin for ‘rich internet applications’ and announced its Dynamic Language Runtime for programming Silverlight and other types of application using languages ranging from VB to Ruby. Here Huw Collingbourne asks John Allwright (Expression Product Manager, Microsoft UK) to explain what all the fuss is about...

HC: Can you explain what the dynamic language runtime is? And what special features will it provide for developers? John Allwright: The Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) is a set of technologies in the .NET Framework that allow dynamic language interoperability. DLR provides interoperability by providing common infrastructure such as Common Hosting Mechanisms, Common Type System and Dynamic Method dispatch. DLR also makes language implementation on CLR much easier by providing the above common compiler infrastructure and allowing languages to focus on user needs. HC: Microsoft has announced four languages that will ship with the DLR - Python, JavaScript, VB and Ruby. I gather only IronPython and JavaScript will be available initially. Can you give me any idea when the others will (...)

more...

Komodo 4.1 Released

The dynamic language IDE takes on Rails

Monday 21 May 2007

ActiveState has just released an update to their Komodo IDE for dynamic languages (see my review of Komodo 4.0).

The principal new feature is better support for Ruby On Rails. I'd like to say more about this, I really would, but as regular readers know I have decided to avoid critical comment of Ruby development tools for the simple reason that, when not editing Bitwise, I am one of the developers of the Ruby In Steel IDE for Visual Studio - a fact which inevitably calls into question any claim to impartiality... Suffice to say, I think Komodo is a fine IDE. While I don't accept some of the claims ActiveState are making for the superiority of its Ruby On Rails tools, I will at least say that if I had to use somebody else's IDE, then Komodo is the one I'd choose. In short, in my highly biased opinion, if you want to develop Ruby (with or without Rails) in Visual Studio, you should use ours; if (...)

more...

Allen Bauer on CodeGear, Dynamic Languages and Delphi

Interview

Monday 14 May 2007

Recently, the Borland developer tool company, CodeGear, launched its first dynamic language IDE, Delphi For PHP. Next on their agenda is a Ruby IDE. So what’s the big deal with dynamic languages? And what implications does this have for their flagship product, Delphi? Here Huw Collingbourne puts these questions to CodeGear chief scientist, Allen Bauer...

Background... In February 2006, Borland CodeGear “announced plans to seek a buyer for the portion of its business associated with the Integrated Development Environment (IDE), including the award-winning Borland Developer Studio (Delphi®, C++Builder® and C#Builder®) and JBuilder® product lines.” (see Borland Breakup). In November 2006, Borland decided to keep its IDE business after all: “After much consideration, we made the decision to establish CodeGear as a separate subsidiary,” said Tod Nielsen, Borland president and chief executive officer. “We have always stated our intention to find the right buyer for this business – one who was committed to our developer community, who would continue innovation in our products and who would offer a sum (...)

more...

In Search Of Stupidity

Book Review

Thursday 10 May 2007

In Search Of Stupidity $24.99
(Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters) / 2nd Edition
by Merrill R. Chapman
APress: http://www.apress.com
ISBN: 1590597214

There is a cruel and guilty pleasure to be had watching people slipping on banana skins. I must confess, though, I don't feel quite so guilty for chuckling at people who slip on banana skins which they themselves have thrown down in their own paths! In Search Of Stupidity is choc full of corporate banana skins which companies ranging from Ashton-Tate and Borland to IBM and Novell have carefully placed onto the sidewalk (often with much pomp, circumstance and huge marketing budgets) and then, in the full glare of their self-made publicity, have gone right ahead and trodden on them - often taking the companies involved to the brink, and not infrequently, right over the edge, of disaster... There are stories of famous high-flying companies and products which, through their own (...)

more...

OOP Then and Now

The Start of the End for Borland?

Monday 7 May 2007

People have been saying that Borland is "on the way out" for almost as long as I can recall - in fact, in spite of some notable ups and downs, the company has proven, time and again, to be one of the great survivors in the software industry, so I wouldn’t wager on their immediate demise...

All the same, I have to say that there are some comments that seem to me depressingly close to the truth in this rather cataclysmic appraisal of Borland/CodeGear over on TechRepublic. You know the whole rubbernecking thing, where people slow down near an accident so they can take a moment to look at the carnage? I kinda feel like I'm rubbernecking whenever I read about the slow decline of Borland... Because everything that company has done lately seems to be a wreck, and like a spectacular car crash, I cannot turn away. I can only look and wonder how on earth the accident happened. Personally, I'm still rooting for CodeGear. I have no views one way or the other about the 'parent' company, Borland. I don't even understand what they do for a living (ALM? Means nothing to me...). But I (...)

more...

IronRuby != IronRuby

Name games...

Monday 7 May 2007

If you Google for IronRuby you will find two lots of links - some will take you to Microsoft, others will take you to the web site of Wilco Bauwer.

Just to clarify, Wilco was the chap who, in 2006, worked on a project called IronRuby which aimed at implementing a Ruby interpreter for the .NET CLR. Recently Microsoft announced its own version of Ruby for .NET (not yet released but under development) which is also called IronRuby and which will run on a new ‘Dynamic language Runtime' (DLR). In spite of their names and ‘job descriptions', the two projects are unconnected. In a recent Blog entry, Wilco explains: As part of the DLR, Microsoft is offering a bunch of dynamic languages, including Ruby. They've asked me if they could use the name IronRuby and I didn't have any problems with that. This does not mean they are actually using the prototype I implemented about a year ago. The prototype I worked on is completely (...)

more...

More..

... | 260 | 280 | 300 | 320 | 340 | 360 | 380 | 400 | 420 |...