ZZR update

Careful readers (if there are any… somehow I doubt that ) may have noticed that on October 1st, I posted a small update to the previous article about the “mileage” of my old Suzuki (99880 at the time).

Well, on October 4th, I finally managed it: the counter reached 99999. Of course, I made the effort to ride that extra kilometer, but to my great surprise, the counter refused to flip to zeros. The main counter and both trip counters just stopped. A new challenge is here

In the mean time, I forgot to tell you that I took the Kawasaki ZZR 1400 for a test drive, on September 23rd already. I had to go through Kawasaki Netherlands to find a dealer that still had the ZZR available, and it brought me to a small motorcyle shop in Haastrecht.

The test drive was enough to make me decide that I wanted that bike, and since the actual demo bike was for sale at a nice price, I decided to buy that one. Last Saturday, I went back to Haastrecht to pick it up. Me happy!

So… things went a little quicker than I thought. There was barely enough time to ‘finish off’ the Suzuki, before her replacement arrived.

Please contact me if you want to make me an offer on a blue ’99 Suzuki GSX750F with heated grips and a Givi wingrack with two 36-liter cases .

Oi!!

*drool*

Could this be the one?

As the end comes nearer (*) for my old Suzuki, it’s time to slowly start looking out for her successor. I have been a long time admirer of the Yamaha FJR1300/A, and with the introduction of the new AS-model  with YCC-S (chip controlled shifting system or automatic clutch), it has become even more interesting.

However, there aren’t a whole lot of motorcycles whose specifications compare to those of the new Kawasaki ZZR1400. And face it: power is cool and this baby has got a LOT of that.

With 190 pk (200 with RAM Air) at 218 kg (with ABS), a maximum torque of 154 Nm at 7500 rpm, and a supposed top speed of 324 km/h, this monster appeals to me in ways I cannot describe

I wonder if that buddy seat is a little comfortable. I hope so, for the sake of my girlfriend I will definately try and arrange a test drive some time soon!

(*)
My “old” Suzuki GSX750F, as I already said here (in Dutch), is approaching the 100.000 km milestone. It’s got just over 95.000 now, and my vacation has yet to begin. I have always said I would put 100k on the clock before I would trade it in for something else. Now that this moment is actually in sight, I am definately ready for something new…

Update August 12th:
We just got back from holidays in France, and the count is now up to 98527…

Update September 12th: 99155!
Update October 1st: 99880. Damn, why does that take so long? 😉

PHP application frameworks (2)

Some additions to the October 24th article. Comments may follow later.

eZ Components

P4A (PHP For Applications)

Sourdough

Additions on June 7 and 8, 2006:

CakePHP

Zoop Framework

Xaraya

Mojavi Project

Phrame

WASP

Buscuit

Qcodo

Studs MVC Framework

PHP on TRAX

SMART3 PHP Framework

Ambivalence

PHP Web Toolkit (phpwebtk)

And, to be as complete as possible, some non-free stuff (as in: requires payment to use or get the source):

BlueShoes (has free download without source)

Lampshade (not downloadable)

And if this is not enough, check out this page for even more MVC frameworks.

Some AJAX / JavaScript stuff:

Behaviour

script.aculo.us

Found one more on August 24th:

Stratos PHP Framework

And one more on August 31st:

Yana Framework. It’s not entirely free, and the site is in German.

Nieuw design

Na lang prutsen is het er dan: een nieuw design voor GRENDELMAN.NET. Kunnen we er weer even tegen. Ik hoop dat je het mooi vindt! Reacties uiteraard welkom.

PHP application frameworks

If you’re developing more and more web applications in PHP, you will find that a lot of things tend to come back every time. Somehow, I find myself designing forms and programming form handlers to put stuff in databases all the time.

Between doing it all yourself and using a WYSIWYG content management system, there is also the option of reuseable code. Lots of code (usually in classes) has been written and made available to the community as free software. The PHP Classes Repository for example, has a large collection of freely downloadable classes.

However, if you’re building larger applications, you want all this code to work together. For example, your form handler should know how to use your database abstraction code. That’s where application frameworks come in. I have looked at a few of those.

First, I’ll mention a few that are installable through PEAR, using channels.

Cerebral Cortex
PHP5-only. Uses PHP Data Object (PDO).

PHP Application Tools
Looks nice, has some interesting features, like a BBcode parser.

Horde
This has been around for quite a few years, and some well-known applications have been built on top of it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a clear view of its capabilities just from looking at its website.

Seagull
This looks very nice too! Uses PEAR, seems quite feature-rich and the API documentation looks good! Seagull is more than a framework, it is also a CMS and it creates 33 database tables to start with. Maybe a little overkill.

Solar
“Similar to PEAR, Similar to Horde”, but based entirely on PHP5. Is supposed to run cleanly under E_STRICT.

Symfony
Form validation, pagination, authentication, templating and more.

The Others:

binarycloud
Unfortunately, this doesn’t run on PHP5 (yet).

PAS Application Server for PHP
Looks interesting, but is very database-oriented en doesn’t have classes that deal with logging, sessions, etc.

BlueShoes
Looks like it could be what I’m looking for, but the open source version lacks some important features and the “enterprise” version is quite expensive.

Roadsend Site Manager
This look really nice and looks like the best shot so far. Forms, database, sessions, authentication… it’s all there. And it uses PEAR.

Prado
This PHP5-only “event-driven” and “component-based” framework was the winner of the 2004 Zend Coding Contenst. Its design is based on RAD tools like Delphi and Visual Basic.

PHP2Go
Looks nice, with quite a lot of features. Unfortunately, the API docs are in Portugese.

Ismo PHP Framework
As a “spare time project”, with current version 0.1.4, released mid-2004, this seems dead as a doornail. It does have some of the wanted features though.

php.MVC
Focused on the Model-View-Controller design pattern. Project seems dead.

DotPHP
“DotPHP want be like ASP.NET.” Is that good? It’s Engrish! I think the idea is much like Prado’s, but Prado looks much more solid.

Achievo ATK
This looks like it’s got a lot of features too. ATK is about minimizing the amount of user-code. Application code is generated from the toolkit. Sometimes compared to Ruby on Rails.

Fusebox for PHP
“Fusebox is, by far, the most popular and mature web framework available for ColdFusion and PHP developers”. Well, aren’t they all? I couldn’t get a good idea of its features from the website, and the examples are mostly based on ColdFusion.

For your convenience, I included a Google search for “PHP application framework”.