March 16th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
I have started working on a project which uses both Kohana and Zend Framework. I use Kohana for low level system structure (e.g. MVC) and Zend Framework for higher level components.
What I wanted to do is to create a framework on top of these two great open source frameworks, this way building applications will be a lot easier in the future because I will have all the basic (and advanced) functionalities ready to go. :) In a nutshell, the framework will act as a ‘middle-man’ layer.
One of the goals of my framework is to act as transparent as possible. This means, the user can simply drop the framework at a convenient location, place a hook file in Kohana add it as a normal Kohana module, and that’s it! Let the magic begins!
One major achievement for me today is how I made the framework absolutely transparent. Normally this is how you extend a Kohana library or helper:
class valid extends valid_Core {}
Thanks to Kohana’s cascading file system, it will automatically start looking for ‘valid_Core’ in the modules and system directories.
Now, I wanted to add my framework, and assume my framework has an enhanced version of valid_Core, and I want to use that, what do I do? See below:
class valid extends valid_Core {}
That’s right, it is *exactly* the same syntax as before! You don’t have to alter your existing application in anyway to take advantage of more libraries and helpers. :)
And of course if the library or helper isn’t present in my framework, it will automatically fall back to the Kohana one. And if for some reason you don’t like the enhanced version, you can easily disable them. :)
That’s it for today. In the next few days I’m going to play with the new Kohana unit test library (only available in the SVN repository for now). I wonder how it compares to SimpleTest and PHPUnit.
P.S. The name of my framework is called ‘Layerful’, I will release it in open source license once it’s mature enough. :)
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Tags: framework, hook, Kohana, Layerful, php framework
Posted in Kohana, Layerful | 4 Comments »
March 13th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
Last night I stayed up really late doing some usual reading and researching, I think it was 6:00AM that I finally went to bed. 11:00AM this morning, door being knocked, I quickly jumped out of the bed and rushed to the door, yup that’s right, it was TNT Express, my Macbook Pro was arrived. :)
I had been waiting for this moment for so long. Before I got this new Macbook Pro, I design graphics on my Windows XP desktop (Q6600 + 4GB RAM) and do all development work on my 12″ Powerbook (1.33GHz G4, 768MB RAM), trust me, it was a pain. Even the Windows desktop was playing nasty, Photoshop and Illustrator quit on me constantly despite the fact that I keep my computer clean and organised (and virus-free obviously).
It feels so relieved to be working exclusively on the OS X platform, I think my productivity will increase.
Okay, in the last few days I started looking for phones. I currently use a Sony Ericsson S500i as my primary phone and a Nokia N80 (kinda broken) as backup. They’re both 2G phones, so I was going to buy a 3G phone, either Nokia E65 which is free on a $29 cap plan on Three Australia or Nokia N82 outright on Ebay. I was so sure that one of these phones will become my primary phone for the next few months…
Until I hit ‘apple.com’.
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Tags: Adobe, Adobe CS3, Apple, AppZapper, BetterZip, Chmox, ChronoSync, CleanApp, CSSEdit, Firefox, FontExplorer X, iPhone, iShowU, iWork, Lightroom, Little Snitch, Macbook, Macbook Pro, MAMP, Microsoft Office, NFOViewer, Powerbook, QIM, Quicksilver, StuffIt, StuffIt Expander, Textmate, Transmit, VMWare, VMWare Fusion
Posted in Hardware, Software, iPhone | 4 Comments »
March 6th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
Here is the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm
It has an ‘Emulate IE7′ button which is neat. So now I have IE8 (with IE7 emulation), IE6 standalone, Firefox 2 and Opera 9 installed on my Windows box.
It’s about time for Microsoft to pay attention to standards. I wonder how long we have to support IE6/7 for, another 5 years?
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Tags: IE8, Internet Explorer
Posted in General | 1 Comment »
February 28th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
FreeBSD 7.0 release annoucement.
Dramatic improvements in performance and SMP scalability shown by various database and other benchmarks, in some cases showing peak performance improvements as high as 350% over FreeBSD 6.X under normal loads and 1500% at high loads. When compared with the best performing Linux kernel (2.6.22 or 2.6.24) performance is 15% better.
Ah I wish I had enough time to play with it. Perhaps when my VPS providers upgrade their offerings I’ll give it a try. ;)
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Tags: FreeBSD, Linux, release
Posted in Server | Comments Off
February 27th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
Sweet! While I was fixing up my blog template (separate trackbacks from normal comments), I noticed that Apple has finally given us the updated Macbooks and Macbook Pros! :D
Penryn platform, multi-touch trackpad, doubled VRAM, bigger harddrive and slightly lower price, sounds wonderful. I know I will be ordering one soon before my ADC subscription expires :)
P.S. Right now I do all development work on a very dated 12″ Powerbook with 1.33GHz G4 CPU + 768M RAM despite having my Quad-core + 4G RAM PC desktop.
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Tags: ADC, Apple, Macbook, Macbook Pro, Penryn, Powerbook
Posted in Hardware | 1 Comment »
February 26th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
Elliot Haughin, a fellow CodeIgniter user has started writing a book on CodeIgniter. This is now the second book, after CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development by David Upton.
It is really nice to see the CI community grow. Personally I think the user guide is sufficient for a user to get the feet wet, but I understand some people prefer to have a top-down learning approach.
The book is scheduled to finish by August, according to Elliot.
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Tags: book, CodeIgniter, David Upton, Elliot Haughin, PHP
Posted in CodeIgniter | 3 Comments »
