In search for a RAD

With the deadlines due, forward thinking and getting myself clean on the coding side becomes a must. Over the last week I’ve been trying to search for a better way for coding backends and a better approach than the normal ad-hoc modulizing code. I wasn’t looking for a coding framework, was rather looking for a Rapid Application Development framework.

I was this close to switch from PHP to Ruby

Ruby, as you know has a comprehensive framework. It’s been proven how reliable it is but something keeps on telling me do not swith anything over PHP. I’ve been coding in PHP since version 3 and been using Zend IDE since version 2. The frustration of not having a proper RAD framework got me to a point of thinking to even swtich after trying out Symfony which makes life harder if not livable at all. Prado and ZF, Mojavi, and the rest are all coding frameworks or better put, libraries to get you going on. No Scaffolding, automation, nor code generation, nothing but libraries of classes.

After my frustration, I was all about to consider ASP.Net with its beautiful visual editing and the almighty Visual Studio. Once again I looked back and even tried if I could implement Flex and Flash instead.

My last options got me to CakePHP and CodeIgniter. Both of which have very close structure and qualities. In addition, CakePHP has a code generator called Bake, that bought my mind and raised my liking towards it. Both of the frameworks are flexible and do not limit the programmer to use the style of framework coding, just MVC and really neat configs, you could still use your own libraries of code and even modify whatever you want, that’s a feature to me.

I’m going to test CakePHP for real tonight and will be trying to see if that’s the one.

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Message boxes and Inline messages Pt1

When was the last time you clicked on an alert-box or message box’s ok button? When did you last click on a yes button on a confirm-box? Long time ago, at least for me. What’s good about inline-messaging in the markup? How does it improve the user experience if it does at all, and more are subjects of this article.

Dialogue-Box Models

Dialogue boxes or message/input/confirm boxes are part of the basic webbrowser-user interaction framework. Every webbrowser has it’s own native boxes, icons and colors are different in every browser, however they all do the same thing and are invoked using the same particular function in Javascript.

Diealoges are all Window object methods in Javascript wich result in modal boxes that await input(click, keypress, or value insertion) from the user. We’re talking about the ol’ alert(), confirm(), and prompt() functions.

What happened is, they’re rarely used nowadays with the existense of many other ways of implementing the same interaction with less user abuse and smoother attantion capturing methods such as inline-messaging and smooth/animated modal dialoge boxes(lightbox-gone-wild as an example)

New day, new way: new web

It’s not so new. It’s been there for a long long while, but, it’s time to embrace it to the max; AJaX and DOM are supported more than ever on the major browsers, so that’s why.

On the hype of Web2.0 or the AJaX and weekly project beta pop-ups this new way of interacting with users along with the new ways of gathering data, validating, and data views have somehow evolved and are now fresher, quicker, and most importantly all inline.

Inline, as in next to your error, below the empty form-field, on top of the whole page deeming the rest of the content, and even beside you mouse pointer. All this along with nice little stylings for erroneos elements and messaging elements that make it easier to distinguish.

All this appeals and works for the user because it is done on the same page, most of the people dislike the built-in dialogues and many think there are erros of the page they are on. On the flip side the inline model lacks the beep sound which in most cases will cause users to wait and wait but not hear the beep/ding sound. On a regular desktop application there are APIs specific to every OS that could invoke the beep/ding sound to grab user’s attention, but not with inline messaging on web–no OS APIs available on the browser side.

So which one are you going to use next time developing a web app? Browser based dialoges or your own custom inline messaging solution? Well, that’s up to you. But here’s my take on the decision.

• Use inline-messaging for empty-field errors
  It’s annoying to get a ding/beep with a floating message box telling you that you actualy forgot that it is to be filled
• Inline messaging is good for checking something’s availablity or duplicate check such as domain names or usernames
• Use browser dialoges for Authentication errors and notifications since that kind of information is important to the user, so no one would mind being disturbed for something important
• Credit card validation should never use an inline messaging for confirmation or erroneos notifications, nor for authorization and not even for validation or type checking. Cautions and warnings in general should be shown on browser dialogues showing the seriousness(ugliness) of the situations.
  
  As we end this introductory and breif portion of this argument we will review some of the new techniques used for messaging in some high profile applications and then compare it to the good ol’ browsers dialoges in details. Until then, digest this and let me know what’s your take on it.

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Zend PHP Framework, YA Framework?

On Dec 2nd Zend announced and demonstraded a buzz about working on a Framework to help commercial development and to help PHP developers in general to develop faster and with less duplicate and repeated coding. With a number of reliable and commercialy sound packages available in the market how Zend is going to make the difference? Or is it going to be just one of those “Yet Another”s? It’s obviously not. But is it going to have any value other than it’s produced and supported by Zend which is indeed a big added value?

The rise of the Frameworks

Frameworks for web development and in particlular for PHP programming have been growing fast. PRADO a framework awarded by Zend in 2004 PHP5 Coding Contest is a framework that implements ASP.Net style of component and tag design. PRADO succeeded to reach the public programmers but not the hardcores. I haven’t witnessed any application that is made with PRADO in the PHP community.

2 years ago, I was assigned to research about suitable frameworks available in the PHP community as well as the commercial space by my previous employer. The list was already a long one back then. On top of the list was PEAR , HORDE , PHPFrame , Mojavi , Blue Shoes , etc… The need for that kind of research was to find out the chances we had back then for grabbing a framework which was closer to our Interaction Level framework and not only for a particular utility component. Simple put, frameworks were middle-weres/utility code back then. By now Ruby-on-Rails is offering alot of tooling and code generation. ASP.Net 2.0 is out with great components and a new standardized architecting model. What’s Zend to add?

The added value

The presentation/webcast by Andi Gutman and Mike Naberezny stated that they’re going to work with framework makers and develop components by small teams. Simplicity of coding and architecture was the main point through all the presentation in which Andi Gutman repeated many times. The question that many people might have is what’s the value anyways?

• One value (well, the core value) is that it’s supported by a PHP-oriented company which echos all around the world, and who, the makers of Zend Engine and the best PHP IDE.
• Second is the commercialness of the whole image (although the license is going to be PHP-like license) and free of charge.
• Zend will sure make it part of their Zend Platform, and sure integrate it with the IDE

IDE integration and GUI framework

The modern view on a framework is the higher level framework. It’s no more the utility code repository that does the work and providing APIs. It’s the automation of the developers’ job. How much of the code is going to be written by the framework and how much configuration is needed are the actual features of the framework. Ruby-on-Rails got it right. Now, Symphony is on the way for PHP. How is Zend going to implement such a framework and how is it going to make us code less and focus on tasks instead of coding what’s behind the tasks is going to be tempting to wait for.

Until now Zend has tried its best to provide some snippets, code libraries to it’s IDE users. As a user of Zend IDE since version 2.0 I have to say it hasnt improved fast. The last addition on the IDE was collapsable and nested code segmentation on the editing panel which is not something new. Dreamweaver got it too. On top of all that is Zend to implement the framework and integrate it with the IDE? That’s going to reform the whole IDE to a WYSIWYG and a wizard based IDE rather than text-based hacking IDE. Is that to happen?

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