Common misconceptions in web application development

CSS Javascript PHP UI Web development July 20th, 2008

Over 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.
Read the rest of this entry »


Handling mail and mime in PHP using the Zend Framework

Open Source PHP Web development July 18th, 2008

Handling 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.
Read the rest of this entry »


Comet is coming

Javascript The Webs Web development July 16th, 2008

In a recent article in which I wrote about the HTML 5 draft, I mentioned a server notifications API and hinted that it will standardize a technique known as Comet. So what is Comet anyway?

Comet is an event driven communication scheme with between a web-browser and a web-server. In the normal flow of an http request, a web server can not initiate communications with the client (the web browser) - it can only respond to requests. Comet declares a reversal of roles, in which the server can notify the client whenever new data is available. This technique is very useful in a constantly changing environment such as stock prices or online messaging (chat).
Read the rest of this entry »


The Advancing PHP Developer Part 5: Design Patterns

Javascript PHP UI Web development July 12th, 2008

5. 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.
Read the rest of this entry »


Attention subscribers – I’ve moved to feedburner

techfounder July 10th, 2008

I've signed up my blog's feed to feedburner yesterday, to give me better control of my subscriptions in case I ever need to make changes to the site and also to get some better statistical information ;) .

If you subscribed to my blog's feed, I would appreciate it if you could resubscribe at my feedburner feed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techfounder. After you've subscribed you can unsubscribe from the old one. Sorry for the trouble and thank you for reading my blog! :)


 Page 6 of 13  « First  ... « 4  5  6  7  8 » ...  Last »