Yverdon v0.2 - Looking Forward

For those of you who have been testing out Yverdon v0.1, I want to first say "thank you" for your time.  We've gotten some great feedback thanks to you and are doing our best to shape the system based off of your input.  We're aiming for a release early in December of v0.2, so I thought I'd give everyone a taste of the things v0.2 has in store.

Bug Fixes
Though I'm proud to say we've had a small number of bugs thus far, it would be a feat of unmatched fame if we had gotten through v0.1 without a few.  We're tackling all of the bugs we've encountered or been informed of, as well as fixing a few bad design choices with some of the core systems.  Everything will be backwards compatible with v0.1 just in case any of you have started using the framework seriously.

New Template Extension
Yverdon v0.2 will introduce improvements to the current dynamic template extension, as well as a new template extension called "static."  The static extension offers a more secure template parser for use with publicly editable templates.  We'll be sure to post a blogtorial on how to use it when the time comes.

More Database Accessibility
This release of Yverdon will expand upon our database engine selection.  We're including the old MySQL library as an option, plus one or two new engines that we'll save for release.  We also made sure to account for a bug in PHP's MySQLi library that would dump errors regardless of suppression.

New Utility Extensions
In order to show how versatile and effective the Yverdon system is, we're also piecing together some utility extensions (such as a FirePHP extension) to enable new capabilities for you, the developer.  I won't disclose a full list, but as usual we're working hard to make sure that the code is well thought out and efficient.

There will be other improvements, including additions to the web site and the introduction of a formal documentation.  I know I speak for everyone on the team when I say how excited we are to be getting close to this release.  Thanks for your patience with us as we build Yverdon into the robust framework it's bound to be and I look forward to more of your comments!

 

- Andy

N2F Yverdon v0.1 Released!

It's official!  The N2 Framework web site and the N2F Yverdon PHP framework have been released.  You can get to both of them by going to our website:

http://zibings.com/n2f/

Make sure you sign up on the forums too!

 

- Andy

The End of One Era, The Beginning of Another

Don't let the title fool you, I'm actually not about to embark on another journey down my twisted political mind.  Instead, I'd like to pay tribute to a piece of my development history that has served me dutifully over the past 4.5 years.  Most anyone who reads this blog will at least be familiar with the existence of ZSF, and some may even use it for their own purposes.  Regardless, tonight we celebrate all that it was and respectfully retire it into the software heavens.  (For anyone not following, this means that I'm not doing anymore work on ZSF, just to be clear)

Now that we have the emotional part of this out of the way, we'll get to the good news.  In lieu of the loss of ZSF, I have been working with some good friends and new colleagues to create 'ZSF Reincarnated', which we have called The N2 Framework.  The specifics of the plan for N2F are somewhat complicated, but for the moment we are working on one particular strain of the framework code named Yverdon.  Yverdon is the evolution of 4 and a half years of experience with ZSF bundled into one system.

Yverdon intends to be both simple and flexible for developers, on top of offering top performance and extremely low overhead.  The system is currently modular based, but is flexible enough to be overridden into most other popular patterns (including MVC).  Yverdon has been tested with PHP 5.2+ and should work with earlier versions of PHP 5.  Since the PHP group has been working to end it's work on PHP 4, we have opted to not make the framework PHP 4 compatible.  The system is currently being tested on both Windows and Linux environments to ensure that our code truly embraces PHP's cross-platform goodness.

Keep in mind that this is a very early release of the system.  Though we have worked hard to make the release functional, we can not guarantee that things will not change moving forward, nor can we assure you that there will not be bugs.  Our web site is in development and will provide easy ways to submit issues to the development team so that we can work them out.  We're looking forward to building a community around this framework and will rely on community feedback to shape the direction of the framework in the future, so don't be shy.

When the web site has been finished, I'll make sure to mention it at this blog.  Special thanks have to go to Chris, Matt, Patrick, Clemens and Javier for their various efforts towards this first release.  Working with each of them has been great so far and I think we're all looking forward to coaxing the true potential out of Yverdon in the months (and hopefully years) to come.

 

- Andy

Another Zune Update, Another Set of Features

The Zune Team at Redmond has been at it again, and I have to say I'm really excited about what's coming on September 16th.  Among other things listed in the article, they are adding the capability to tag and download music automatically from your FM receiver, as well as the ability to finally shop from your Zune wirelessly.

It's obvious that once again they've wasted no time between updates and as an early-adopter of the Zune I have to say I'm thankful I took a chance on the little MP3 player that could.

 

Andy

PHP Tutorial

I've had a few requests recently to finish my PHP tutorial on SuperTechHelp.  After a lot of consideration, I have decided to move the tutorial here to my blog and finish it at the same time.  The final tutorial will still be available on STH, but will be updated and will also link to here as the location of the actual tutorial.  I'll be looking forward to finally finishing the tutorial after about two years, hopefully I don't disappoint!

 

Andy

Andy Discovers: The Office

I've decided to start running a series to highlight random things I've "discovered" in my life.  As most of you know, I live a life of seclusion (by choice) and try as hard as possible to keep myself away from...well away from others.  From time to time however, one of my friends will convince me to give something a try.

For the first entry in this series, I finally took the time to sit down and get into the TV series 'The Office'.  I've gone through the first three seasons and am working on the fourth.  I can say I'm certainly hooked, though I don't like it as much as my Bones or House.  If you're looking for a good laugh and you've ever worked in the corporate world, this show should keep you entertained for quite some time.

 

Andy

ZSF 1.x Bug Fix

While working with ZSF on a client site today, I noticed a bug that has been around for quite some time.  The basic idea was that the usr.cnf files in the main modules directory were not being called when the system was used through a secondary directory (such as an 'admin' directory).  I cleaned this up and fixed two related memory leaks.  The latest version is available via Subversion.

 

Andy

Week In Rhode Island

It'd been quite a while since I'd last visited my father at his home in Rhode Island.  I asked my bosses and they were gracious enough to allow me to relocate my office for a week to the ocean state so I could get in some golfing and fishing with dad, all while doing close to my normal amount of work.

I arrived yesterday and am already feeling quite refreshed thanks to the air.  I don't know if I'll update anymore than I have been while I'm here, but I will at the least make sure to keep on my once-Sunday schedule.  I will arrive home the evening of the 17th, so any pressing issues will have to wait until then.

 

Andy