Zend Framework: Preventing Code Duplication

Posted by santosj on October 15, 2006

There are some areas of the documentation, that could use more detail. It would prevent a custom code solutions for what Zend already provides. I really don’t like going through the code to figure out what is possible. It is my believe that documentation should cover most possible solutions.

When I was developing using Java and C++, I found the best APIs had clear documentation and examples covering the possible usage. Zend Framework documentation doesn’t have far to go and they are working on it.

I have to say, I’m very much loving the Zend Framework. Every day I use it to provide solutions that would taken me days or weeks, is another smiley face sticker on the board. The more I use the framework, the better I understand how easy it actually is.

RSS Example

I think the most interesting event is spending 30 minutes creating a RSS object, because you think the Zend Framework doesn’t allow RSS feed creation. It does. It was only 30 minutes, and I can always use my class for PHP 4.

I did go through the Feed classes and thought that perhaps it might be possible for it to create feeds, but found no clear mechanism for doing so. Checking the Feed documentation on the Zend Framework gave the answer and an example. The heading title was misleading.

Controller

Actually, I created my own custom implementation, but I had a good reason. The Zend Controller Plugin, gave me a nice idea.

The problem is that I need to make it easy for the rest of the team to develop using the Front Controller without actually interacting with it. I also need it for a PHP 4 project.

Configuration

After spending two weeks building a configuration implementation, I found that a similar solution was being added to the Zend Framework. Wasn’t all that happy about that. The only thing going for my classes was that it used SPL array access, which was also why it took so long. It was fun and a great learning experience. I may add it to the Zend Framework, but I’m just to angry and the project leaders might of had something against adding Array access.

The Configuration in the Zend Framework is damn sexy and I’m loving it. Just wish I wasn’t under the influence of “Not Invented Here” or I would had researched other solutions. You can find my code at the DevNetwork Forums and parts of it on this blog. Total crap and incomplete, so I would recommend using the Zend Framework instead.

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2 Comments.

  1. Maugrim October 16, 2006 at 10:39 am

    I had my own Settings classes just around beginning of Summer I had to drop…;). The positive was that my classes could actually generate the config files (Zend_Config only wraps existing config files). A little tinkering to match the Zend_Config expected format and I had a matching file writer in five minutes… Currently only using an INI format (testing/internal dev), but the other formats will follow.

    I can’t remember if Zend_Config had a YAML format supported yet…

  2. Jacob Santos October 16, 2006 at 8:56 pm

    Well, yeah. The way the configuration classes are set up, all it is really doing it passing around arrays. Which at the end when I realized that I would also need to support multiple backends is what I had to do. It would be easy to do, but I think the decision had more to do with security than ease of use.

    I mean, they were talking about adding it later, and I don’t find anything wrong with manually having to update the configuration. Well, since the config is XML, I could write an admin page for updating it. It may also be faster than direct access to the database, but that depends on whether XPath is used.