High Scalability – High Scalability – Is it time to get rid of the Linux OS model in the cloud?. I’ve sometimes thought about where we are and where we come from in terms of programming.  Programmers have this habit of falling for new and shiny things.  So I read this article with some interest as [...]

Build Business-Critical PHP Applications on Mac OS X for Seamless Deployment into Enterprise Linux and Windows Production Environments

CUPERTINO, Calif., January 19, 2012 —Zend, the PHP Company, today announced the general availability of Zend Server 5.6, the latest version of its industry leading PHP web app server, which includes new support for Mac developers. The new version of Zend Server makes it possible for developers on the Mac OS X platform to quickly develop or modernize web-based applications that are targeted for deployment to Linux and Windows production environments. For the growing numbers of IT organizations using PHP and bringing Macs into the development environment, Zend Server 5.6 offers important advantages for both app performance and quality, and productive collaboration on the web and in the cloud.

Rapid Development of High Quality Web Apps

• Zend Server 5.6 provides a complete, fully integrated PHP stack including the latest PHP runtime and Zend Framework, the leading PHP application framework. Rather than spend time installing, configuring and tracking PHP libraries and drives, developers can focus on coding.
• Proactive application monitoring and alerts keep developers informed of potential errors or bottlenecks in real-time. Zend Server’s Code Tracing provides a detailed execution history to help developers pinpoint and resolve root cause issues quickly and eliminate ‘trial and error’ troubleshooting.
• Mac developers can also leverage Zend Server capabilities such as Job Queue and other performance optimizations including code acceleration, full page caching and data caching to help developers improve application response times, reduce server load, and improve the end-user experience (with Zend Server 5.6, Job Queue is also fault-tolerant). Many customers report performance boosts of 200% and more for typical PHP applications, coupled with reduced resource utilization.
• Developers using Zend Server 5.6 can extend its benefits for large-scale PHP deployments by using Zend Server Cluster Manager, with the ability to centrally monitor and manage multiple Zend Server instances and ensure HA and scalability of PHP apps.
• Zend Server supports the industry’s most robust PHP/Java Bridge. This allows enterprises to adopt a PHP standard while leveraging their Java infrastructure, or specific Java apps such as SIP signaling in the communications industry or JDBC for creating connectivity to SQL databases.
• Customers using Zend Server receive proactive notifications of and fixes for PHP issues. For example, Zend Server 5.6 includes a fix for a denial-of-service vulnerability recently found in a number of major computer languages. This makes the Zend PHP runtime one of the first environments to release a version with this vulnerability resolved.
• Developers can also enjoy the benefits of Zend Server in the Zend Developer Cloud (available at phpcloud.com), which provides a free developer sandbox designed for fast, efficient coding. It’s only a few clicks away, requires no installation, offers the flexibility to use a variety of tools, and facilitates collaboration.

Customer Quotes:

Nicolas Fabre, CTO, Emakina France
 “The release of Zend Server for Mac is great news for our development teams, who want to use Zend Server’s Job Queue without having to run it in a virtual machine using a different OS. Now they can use Zend Server natively on their Macs to optimize application page load times, delivering an improved end-user experience for our websites.”  Emakina is a full-service interactive agency with a portfolio of top-flight global brands including Belgacom, Coca-Cola, L’Oreal, KLM and many others.

Frederic Glücks, Geschäftsführer / Managing Director, CONFTEC GmbH
 “Conftec provides a unique and user-friendly online experience for buyers of fine jewelry, so the performance and reliability of our websites is vital to our success. With Zend Server 5.6, we can now provide our Mac developers with the same enterprise-class PHP monitoring, troubleshooting and optimization tools that we’ve come to rely on in our Linux development environment.” Conftec’s web-based approach to jewelry acquisition allows customers to self-design wedding rings and other jewelry, which is then created to the customer’s specifications by professional jewelry designers.

Zend Training, Certification and Consulting

• Zend offers training for developers at all skill levels via live instruction online, in class, or onsite for developer teams.
• For career development, Zend is known worldwide for its courses and exams to attain Zend Certified Engineer Certifications for PHP and for Zend Framework.
• Zend Global Consulting provides a variety of packaged and customized services including application audits (architecture, performance and security audits), PHP migrations, and other services

Product Information
Zend Server 5.6 (http://www.zend.com/en/products/server)
Zend Server video (http://static.zend.com/topics/videos/zend-server-introduction/)

About Zend Technologies
Zend is the leading provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical applications in PHP, which runs more than one-third of the world’s Web sites. Zend’s industry-leading PHP solutions, including Zend Server and Zend Studio, are deployed at more than 40,000 companies worldwide, including eBay, Best Buy, Cisco Webex, Fiat, France Telecom/Orange, NYSE Euronext, UBM, Villeroy & Boch and other renowned brands. To learn more about Zend solutions for the entire application lifecycle, visit www.zend.com.

Long gone are the good old days of web development: Single developer & server and no problems. Today we have to deal with the deployment challenges of server clusters, distributed development teams and complex code. This session will demonstrate how to harness Zend Studio and Server to easily manage the development of version controlled projects and their deployment to various environments. As a bonus, the Web API of Zend Server will be used to demonstrate a way of scripting application deployment.

Presenter: Eric Ritchie

    Tweet    

I don’t often get political on my blog, or over social media. But those of
you who follow me on twitter
lately have been treated to a number of tweets and retweets from me about
some bills before the US legislative bodies called “SOPA” and “PIPA”. Over
the last couple days, I realized exactly why I disagree with them, and
felt 140 characters is not enough.

Just wrapped up a call working on our webinar schedule for the year.  We’ve got a bunch of ideas but we’d like to also get your input as well.  Yes, I know y’all want ZF2 webinars.  We have that down.  I would also like to do an HTML5 and mobile webinar but I need an [...]

I’m going to be doing a video critique of some source code later on today and the people being critiqued wanted to have my mug showing so they could see the looks of incredulity (I am kidding, of course).  So I did some looking around to find something that would keep the webcam software on [...]

This webinar will provide an introduction to Zen Coding, an editor plugin for high-speed HTML, XML, XSL coding and editing. The presenter will discuss moving from an HTML generator to advanced snippet system, how Zen Coding can be used with PHP, how to add your own snippets and advanced concepts such as how Zen Coding can be extended.

When I started teaching myself scripting languages, I started with Perl. One
Perl motto is “TMTOWTDI”
— “There’s More Than One Way To Do It,” and pronounced “tim-toady.” The
idea is that there’s likely multiple ways to accomplish the very same thing,
and the culture of the language encourages finding novel ways to do things.

I’ve seen this principle used everywhere and in just about every programming
situation possible, applied to logical operations, naming conventions,
formatting, and even project structure. Everyone has an opinion on these
topics, and given free rein to implement as they see fit, it’s rare that two
developers will come up with the same conventions.

TMTOWTDI is an incredibly freeing and egalitarian principle.

Over the years, however, my love for TMTOWTDI has diminished some. Freeing
as it is, is also a driving force behind having coding standards and
conventions — because when everyone does it their own way, projects become
quickly hard to maintain. Each person finds themselves reformatting code to
their own standards, simply so they can read it and follow its flow.

Additionally, TMTOWTDI can actually be a foe of simple, elegant solutions.

Why do I claim this?

Right prior to ZendCon 2010 I released an album called Coronal Loop Safari.  It was a decent album, but not one that really “fit” well with the style that I find most compelling.  The album was a little “rock-y” but mostly dance-like.  Given that I’ve been a metalhead since the day of my birth the [...]

New ‘Zend Developer Pulse™’ surveys developers on technology and career perspectives for 2012 – looks at social, mobile, cloud topics and more

CUPERTINO, Calif. – January 11, 2012 – Lingering recession, fierce global competition and the internet’s pervasiveness have created a perfect storm for tech innovation. To compete and win, today’s businesses must be more powerfully and productively engaged with customer, partner, supplier and employee communities, anytime and anywhere. The battle for market leadership is being waged on the web, and in the cloud, driven by mobile and social technologies. All this has sparked demand for a new generation of apps that can fuel business growth. The question is: how will this demand be met?

Zend Technologies addresses this question in Zend Developer Pulse™, a new survey series that takes the pulse of a vibrant community of developers from around the world. The company’s first developer survey conducted in late November 2011 offers insights on emerging technology and career trends captured from 3,335 respondents. The findings are summarized in a report now available at [http://www.zend.com/topics/zend-developer-pulse-survey-report-0112-EN.pdf].  Zend, the PHP Company, is the leading provider of solutions to build and deploy web apps using PHP, which powers more than one-third of the web and provides foundational technology for Drupal, Facebook, Magento, Wikipedia, WordPress, Zynga, and other highly popular brands.

Key Survey Findings:

Technology investment and developer areas of focus for 2012
Key areas of technology investment are revealed by the types of projects that developers expect to tackle as well as their priorities for career and skills development in the new year.
Key project focus areas:

• 66 percent of developers will be engaged in mobile app development projects
• For each of these four key technology areas —cloud, social media integration, big data/analytics, and producing APIs — between 40-50 percent of developers said they will have projects underway in 2012

Career and skills development priorities:

• Next-generation UI development scored high both in the large enterprise and overall (75 percent)
• 67 percent of all developers surveyed are looking to hone their app development skills on mobile platforms, and 46 percent in cloud application development
• As one might expect, among corporate developers at companies over 100 employees, another priority is gaining expertise with Big Data/analytics (44 percent)

Strong Interest in Cloud Development

• More than 60 percent intend to use some form of public cloud in their development projects, with Amazon ranked the most popular at 30 percent
• As far as skills are concerned, 46 percent of all developers surveyed are looking to hone their skills in cloud computing, with a high desire to gain expertise among 52 percent of developers in large enterprises. This result is consistent with the high level of interest that Zend is seeing at phpcloud.com (launched in October 2011), where developers are actively building apps for the cloud, in the cloud, in the Zend Developer Cloud sandbox.

State of Languages
The new norm among developers is use of multiple languages, and rising use of dynamic open source languages, and the Zend Developer Pulse™ survey echoes this trend.

• Four languages, PHP, C, Java and Javascript dominated survey results, with a number of other languages trailing far behind
• Two-thirds of all developers surveyed spend more than 50 percent of their time with PHP, using PHP as their core language; this includes an uptake of PHP in the enterprise
• Developers reported that in addition to PHP, they use 1-2 other languages on a regular basis; as high as 33 percent of enterprise developers report using both PHP and Java

Demand for PHP Skills
Survey results show that developers see rising demand for PHP skills in 2011-12 compared to previous years, and independent data strongly support this trend.

• From an employment perspective, more than half of developers surveyed see increasing demand for PHP skills in 2011-12. This finding is supported by data from oDesk, an online employment platform, which posts an average of more than 4,000 new PHP jobs per month and reports PHP as its #1 job posting.
• Looking to bolster its talent pool with experts in PHP and several other leading programming languages, Facebook recently bypassed the standard résumé request in favor of setting up online coding tests to pre-qualify candidates for phone interviews.

According to Andi Gutmans, CEO and co-founder of Zend, “As our survey and other industry findings confirm, 2012 brings with it escalating requirements for cloud, mobile and social apps.  Enterprises are investing in PHP development projects and skills, and turning to Zend to help meet these requirements so they can build and deploy business-critical PHP apps that drive real business value.”

About Zend Developer Pulse™
Zend is relentlessly focused on serving the developer community, as an innovator and contributor to the PHP language, a contributor and supporter of Zend Framework, the creator of phpcloud.com, and the host of the annual ZendCon event for the PHP community. The Zend Developer Pulse™ is a survey series that takes the pulse of developers to understand their evolving technology challenges and needs and gauge their responses to Zend solutions, consulting and training services.

About Zend Technologies
Zend is the leading provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical applications in PHP, which runs more than one-third of the world’s Web sites. Zend’s industry-leading PHP solutions, including Zend Server and Zend Studio, are deployed at more than 40,000 companies worldwide, providing a comprehensive solution for the entire application lifecycle. Learn more at www.zend.com.