Web Application Development with Yii and PHP: A Book Review

We were again graced by Packt and was given the opportunity to review the second edition of Web Application Development with Yii and PHP by Jeffrey Winesett, which was released November 2012. Wait! What?! That is really 2012 and no typographical error, almost two years from now. You might be shouting expletives if I seem pulling your leg and reviewing a book over a year old.

When I double checked with the official Yii Framework website, it turns out that this book is for the Yii Framework version 1.1.12 which is about two versions away from the current version (version 1.1.14 as of this writing). What's so special about this book is that the Yii framework starting with version 1.1 is supported until December 2015. That means you get this book as an investment resource for Yii Framework 1.1.x development, and that means it's relevant now and beyond, make that 3 years after this book is published.

The Woe and Wow of Mozilla Firefox 4 Downgrade

When I got into work today (yes I still have a day job), I read an advisory that we should not yet upgrade to the newest Firefox 4 web browser. I looked into this and found it was because of Selenium, the PHP application testing goes quirky, it works, but there were some functionalities that just doesn't work as expected (our OS is <gasp!> Windows 7 Professional).

Poke URL with PHP for Response and Stay Sane

I recently had a project to parse the response of a web URL using PHP and based on that, to perform an action. The confusing part isn't which action to take once the URL is processed, but how to obtain the response from the URL, when the response is merely 0 (zero/false) or 1 (one/true).

Flick Your RedBean: The Alternative PHP ORM

Object Relational Mapping or ORM according to Wikipedia, is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems in object-oriented programming languages. This allows flexible processing of data to and from any database system with a given object-oriented programming language.

When it comes to PHP-based ORM systems, the usual suspect or most popular choice is Doctrine, but as in any programming endeavor there are many ways to skin the cat, and one of the alternatives I found online is RedBean; the project's website highlight the virtues and merits of this ORM like ease of use, implementation and prototyping while being fast and lightweight (I wonder if it be in kilograms or pounds).