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Database performance is one of the major bottlenecks for most web applications. Most web developers are not database experts (and I'm no exception), there are however several basic methods to analyze and optimize database performance without resorting to expert consultants (such as those, whose founders blogs are an invaluable source of MySQL knowledge).
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Archive for the ‘PHP’ Category
Profiling queries with Zend_Db and optimizing them by hand
Sunday, October 12th, 2008Octabox launched and I’m back to blogging
Friday, October 10th, 2008I've been super-busy the last couple of months - I've came across a stupendous amount of work that I couldn't refuse in addition to the effort towards the release of my own startup, business platform Octabox. Things are finally calming down, and I'll be getting back to blogging, writing about plenty of things I've learned / implemented / experimented with the last two months.
Common misconceptions in web application development
Sunday, July 20th, 2008Over the time I have developed for the web, I have read and heard many assumptions about development practices and technologies. This is my list of common misconceptions in (web) development:
1. OO code is less performant than procedural code
The number one argument against OO application design from procedural advocates. This argument is based more on intuition than fact. The usual examples pit short procedural code against equivalent OO code in which procedural code comes out triumphant as more terse and performant.
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Handling mail and mime in PHP using the Zend Framework
Friday, July 18th, 2008Handling mail is a very common requirement in web applications. Even the most basic sites usually have a contact form that sends a mail through the server instead of putting a contact mail address for spam-spiders to find. Using PHP's built in function (aptly named mail() ) is relatively straightforward - until you need slightly more advanced features, such as adding and encoding email headers or sending multiple mails efficiently.
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The Advancing PHP Developer Part 5: Design Patterns
Saturday, July 12th, 20085. Design Patterns
A design pattern is a general reusable solution to a recurring design problem in object-oriented systems. Design patterns are essentially blueprints that suggest how to solve a particular set of OO design problems while adhering to OO best good-practices (which I've recounted in my Object Oriented part of this series).
To explain by example, lets have a look at the Model-View-Controller pattern, a common pattern in use on the web and a source of much confusion amongst aspiring developers. The Model-View-Controller pattern (abbr. MVC) is a general solution for decoupling domain logic from the user interface, resulting in much better maintainability for both.
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