[PHP] Blackbird ESB released
Hello all, After 6 months of work (OK, maybe not entirely on this!) we're pleased to release Blackbird, an enterprise service bus for PHP. It's not meant to be a replacement for something like ServiceMix, but it is usable out of the box, and it's very easy to use. (Also, ahem, a lot more efficient on memory usage, especially out of the box!) You can get it at: http://www.blackbirdesb.org/ We've included a number of samples for things like setting up a SOAP server, sending e-mail messages, bridging topics, and performing XSL transformations on messages. Documentation is also on the project site - please pardon any thin areas. We're adding to it every day. We put it under the GPLv3 - hopefully that doesn't start any wars. Appreciate any feedback and comments, too. Please post them on the forum (on the site) so we don't clutter up this already-busy list! Regards, Chad -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Strategy when working with designer(s)?
Steve Finkelstein wrote: Hi all, This is more of a conceptual based inquiry. I'm currently working on some projects which require me to build system 'X' prior to any (X)HTML/CSS/graphics are available to me. A lot of the time, I just garble up default tables/forms/images to replace what the designer will be ultimately adjusting. It's certainly a lot simpler to have someone come to you with the CSS/HTML and then building on top of that. I was curious how do you folks who strictly do development and not designing, strategically work with a designer in this fashion? Do you have a skeleton you follow or preload some existing templates and then code around that? If there's even a book which focuses on such concepts, I'd be more than happy to purchase and read it. OK, I'm a recent list subscriber so feel free to dump this straight to the bit bucket, but here's my 2c. We work with a lot of Web designers and it's always a challenge. We've been using content management systems heavily (we like MODx, but most are good depending on what you're looking for), and now that we have, we'll NEVER go back. We can have a designer working on a template and a developer adding functionality to that template at totally different times, with different goals. Changing the template doesn't hurt anything, provided the conceptual elements are all there. (For instance, you can't pull sidebar dynamic data into a page with no sidebar, obviously!) It really does help a lot when we work with both sides because we can define how we want things to work VERY closely, and we know that as long as the designers stay within those bounds, the sites will work no matter what we want to do with them. I suppose the answer would thus be 'yes, we have a skeleton', basically what's imposed by the limits of a CMS, but they aren't very significant. We have to be careful about what kinds of code elements we use, and where, and we have to make sure nobody tries to do silly things like using AJAX to pull CSS files on the fly for dynamic page data sets, or trying to embed large parts of the site's functionality in Flash files. However, we don't really feel restricted by those things, and it's made the quality of what we produce much higher, and much easier for customers to understand. Just my 2c. Regards, Chad -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Job Opportunity: PHP Developer
Robert Cummings wrote: This being 2007 and all I get quite curious why so many businesses are still trying to follow the archaic physical location infrastructure. I mean sure, I can see it if you need to set up machines, or make the boss some coffee, but for programming, running DB queries, etc... it's seems somewhat asinine. I was a big supporter of remote work until recently. I myself worked extensively from a home office (every day, barring a day or two a month when a client visit was required, usually for sales meetings), and loved the freedom and extra time it gave me. When we started our new business, my business partner convinced me that this wasn't always a good idea, and now I can see the other side. We have a design and development team here that works VERY closely together. I don't mean we have meetings once a day, I mean we talk CONSTANTLY. You couldn't possibly do this with IM or e-mail - it's too slow, and too annoying, and you can't do things like slide your chair over and see your colleague's screen. We'd need to be on the phone the entire day. If we didn't have a development TEAM - if everybody worked on their own projects - it wouldn't be a problem. Also, if we had a HUGE project that we could document very well, then go off and do our own things for a while and come back to meet up and discuss, we'd be fine. But we're a startup, so our requirements are changing daily - it's not poor software engineering, it's just the nature of a startup. Agility is one of our best assets, and not one we'd ever want to sacrifice. Are there solutions? Sure. You could talk about remote control apps, Skype, and so on, but they're all hacks, things to make it 'ok' to do remotely what would really be better in the same office, the same room. All of this is just IN THIS CASE - I'm not saying working remotely is wrong. However, I CAN say (honestly) that for an average employee commute time of 20 minutes each way we gain 2.5 hours a day in productivity gains. We work together as a team, we can comment on each others' ideas all as a group, and we don't have to say "Well, Chris said that Eric said ..." From an employer's perspective, it has other benefits. For one thing, morale is much higher this way. It's hard to feel like a member of a family when you never see the people you work with. If somebody puts in some long hours, you don't get the emotional impact from seeing an e-mail sent at 1am that you get from seeing a guy in the same chair, same clothes, that he was in when you left late last night, because he pulled an all-nighter. I think each method has its place. Working from an office isn't the 'old' way, it's just 'one' way. Working from home or a remote location is 'another' way. Each is appropriate for different situations, and neither is inherently wrong or right. Use the best thing that works for your situation. Regards, Chad -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
