If you haven't already, you may want to start with Part 1 of this topic. Part 2 of my discussion on booting begins with a digression.

Frameworks and libraries

Some time ago, I read an article by Rasmus Lerdorf titled The no-framework PHP MVC framework. It got me thinking about my framework, which at the time I was converting from PHP4 to PHP5.

In the good old days, if you wanted to create re-usable code, you would create a library of related functions or objects. Now, the excitement is all around frameworks. Everyone has one. What is the difference between the two?

Having covered downloading and installing PHP and setting up a development environment, I'm now actually going to talk about writing PHP code! Specifically, I will describe how I boot my PHP scripts and why I boot them the way I do. Part 1 shows how my requirements for code portability and maintainability influence the boot process. Part 2 will go into more detail about the specific steps executed by the boot code.

In my last article, I talked about installing PHP. With PHP installed, you will want to start writing code, so today's article is about developing PHP using the open source Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE).

Eclipse started as a Java IDE and evolved into a generic IDE with a strong Java bias. If you start out with a standard Eclipse installation and without any Eclipse experience, it may take you a while to figure out the best way to set it up for use with PHP. This article will make the PHP setup fast and easy.

Originally, I planned to write about how to configure the Apache server to run both PHP4 and PHP5. With the push toward PHP5 (see Go PHP5), there are now hundreds of articles covering that topic. Instead, I will talk about two IT patterns I use for PHP development on Windows. The patterns are ancient and familiar to most Unix developers, but little used in the Windows world.

In this article, I will show you how to use PHP 5 input filters to support debug, trace and assert statements so that a one-line change disables these statements and restores your script to full production performance.

Welcome to the first of a series of PHP articles. I hope to present you with useful tips, novel ideas, and code you can use or adapt. My reward will be learning more about PHP, both from researching the articles and from the suggestions and criticism you offer.