Mysql and PHP help Obama become President of the United States

We have our answer to my earlier question about technology used by Obama and McCain.  One small step for LAMP, one giant leap for LAMP-kind.

Obama and McCain website technology

Hey all, I just realized that johnmccain.com is running MS Windows and .NET while barackobama.com is running LAMP with PHP. May the best tech, errr, candidate win.

Also, Obama needs a PHP contractor in Boston, Ma.

Is Microsoft buying Facebook a good thing for PHP?

Microsoft is buying a piece of Facebook. What do we all think this means for PHP since Facebook is one of the "web 2.0" leaders built on PHP? The way I see it, here are the options:

1. Facebook continues on its merry path, taking only funding from Microsoft
2. Facebook continues on its merry path, taking funding from Microsoft in addition to some development "resources." Resources here could be people, equipment, and technology. The free people, equipment, and technology probably won't fit very well in a LAMP environment. Pressure to move infrastructure to MS-friendly environment mounts.
3. Microsoft rewrites the whole thing in C#
4. Microsoft learns how simple and scalable PHP is and freaks out, unleashing a FUD campaign the likes of which we've never even dreamed of.
5. Microsoft learns from the open source environment, partially embraces it, and creates PHP.net, a half functioning version of PHP for .net framework.
6. Microsoft learns from the open source environment, fully embraces it, and abandons Windows by creating their own GUI for the next version of Linux.

In reality, I can really only see #1 or #2 happening. Your thoughts?

Debug JavaScript in PHP or JSP Pages with Visual Studio 2008

Fresh from my IM, Kirk Allen Evans blog details how to debug javascript for any kind of page in Visual Studio 2008. This has already existed for awhile with the Firebug extension for debugging Javascript in Firefox. But it's nice to have choices. And it's cool if you're developing within Visual Studio to have all your tools in one place.

You don't have to shell out the big dollars for Visual Studio to get this debugging either, you can get it with the freebie version of Visual Studio Express.

PRADO framework for PHP similar to ASP.NET

For Drew, the .NET fanboy who is just dying to release his app without having to shell out the big bucks for .NET hosting.  The PRADO framework for PHP is almost like ASP.NET.   From the homepage:

PRADO is a component-based and event-driven framework.

Look at that example on the homepage.  That's .NET with a PHP5 wrapper on it, not literally of course, but you get the point.  And yes, it has user authentication built in as recently described in this PHP framework comparison chart.  Enjoy.  And I'll take the first 1,000 shares at a discount when you go public.

To PHP5 or not to PHP5

I consider myself an Open Source Developer but I very rarely develop for the open source community. I create apps for businesses, where I work, and some side projects. I share code with those I work with obviously, but generally not with the PHP community as a whole. I share some items on this site that I think are helpful to people.

I'm not sure yet where I stand on the goPHP5 movement. I tend to use PHP5 on my newer development but still have to use PHP4 for legacy stuff. And by "legacy," I'm talking internet time here, so about 4 years is "legacy."

I'd like most of the common PHP apps to move to PHP5. I've got some PHP5 Wordpress plugins in my code repo right now. And heaven knows that Drupal could really use PHP5 (or even the namespace support in PHP6). But I think forcing their hand is a little harsh.

Photo Matt isn't moving Wordpress towards a PHP5 model any time soon. And this is a bummer. But I understand the point of not leaving users of your product in the dust. I don't really have that problem with my code.

As for my opinion, I feel like learning PHP5 was one of the best things I've done in my career. It helped the other object-oriented languages like Java and C# to seep into my head a little bit more. Knowing more then one language is always a good thing.

I love the object model in PHP5, as well as PDO, and the JSON extension is nice. But I find that I use the improved DOM handling of XML in PHP5 the most. It still really shocks me that more people aren't interested in using this. And it still shocks me that more people aren't interested in using XSLT and PHP.

Yes you, Mr. ASP.NET developer can use a hosted open source Subversion source control for your projects also

For some reason, most .NET devs that I run into insist on using closed source applications for everything they do. I have no idea why. I guess it's a culture thing. That's why I love it when a mostly ASP.NET fellow starts using something open source, like Subversion source code control. All the tools are in place to do what you need, the TortoiseSVN windows explorer plug-in, the Ankh Visual Studio plug-in. It's all there.
Plus, I've really fallen in love with the concept of a hosted subversion solution. For me, I host my own at my provider. But for my side projects, its great to be able to access them from multiple computers. If I can get to the internet, I can get to my project code.

VS2005 Errors when creating .aspx pages that retrun XML or JSON

I kept getting this on a page that did nothing but reference a code behind.

Validation(): Element 'html' occurs too few times.

This is because VS2005 is performing HTML validation by default. Yuk. You can turn this off by going to:

• Tools --> Options --> Text Editor --> HTML --> Validation
• Uncheck the "Show Errors" checkbox

Voila!

How to get a C# class to talk to Mysql in under 5 minutes

I had to access a Mysql database at work today using C# and .NET. Well, I didn't have to... but I wanted to... and I had some down time. I'm mainly a PHP guy, but C# is similar enough to C/C++ that I figured out what I needed to do in a few minutes. I think it's always important to step out of your safe little world every now and again to try something radically different. It keeps your problem solving skills fresh.

Here's the rundown for those interested.

• Download Mysql Connector/Net package http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/1.0.html
• While you're there, if you don't have the Mysql sample db "world" set up on your server, you should get that too at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/ (I'm assuming you know how to set this upin Mysql.
• Install it on the Windows server you are using (and on your dev machine too)
• Open up Visual Studio (2k5 if you got it)
• Open up yer C# project
• In the References of your project, Add a reference to the Mysql Connector. You'll probably need to go to the "browse" tab and go find it. The default install puts a Mysql.Data.dll in C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Connector Net 1.0.7\bin\.NET 2.0
• For my sample below, you'll also need to add the System and System.Data .NET references
• Then plop this test code into a C# project. This example is just a stand-alone console app to get you going. There's plenty of documentation at http://www.mysql.org/doc/refman/4.1/en/connector-net.html to keep you motivated.

using MySql.Data.MySqlClient; 

class mysql 
{ 
  static void Main() 
  { 
    MySqlConnection conn; 
    string myConnectionString; 

    myConnectionString = "server=localhost;user id=test; pwd=test;database=world;"; 

    try 
    { 
      conn = new MySqlConnection(); 
      conn.ConnectionString = myConnectionString; 
      conn.Open(); 

      string sql = "SELECT Name, Continent FROM Country Limit 10"; 

      MySqlCommand cmd = new MySqlCommand(); 
      MySqlDataReader results; 
      cmd.CommandText = sql; 
      cmd.Connection = conn; 
      results = cmd.ExecuteReader(); 

      while (results.Read()) 
      { 
        //string f1 = results.GetString(0); 
        //int f2 = results.GetInt32(1); 
        System.Console.WriteLine(results.GetString(0) + ", " + results.GetString(1)); 
      } 

      results.Close(); 
      System.Console.ReadLine(); 
    } 
    catch (MySqlException ex) 
    { 
      System.Console.WriteLine("error" + ex.Message); 
      System.Console.ReadLine(); 
    } 
  } 
}

.Net MVC framework for winforms and ASP ?

One of my biggest complaints so far with working on projects in .NET is the total lack of community projects. It seems every worthwhile-looking solution that is out there is spearheaded by Microsoft and slapped into its “patterns and practices” section. The problem I have with this of course is that if I choose any of these framework solutions to build upon, I wonder if MS will continue to support it moving forward. There are already a few of these solutions that have largely been abandoned.


My present needs have me creating a lightweight MVC framework for .NET. I need to have a system whereby I can create the core functionality one time and port the solution to either a desktop Winforms solution or an ASP.NET web-based solution. It seems to me that loads of people would want this same functionality. And yet, I haven’t been able to find an MVC framework that can do this except for the UIP Application block. Not only is that block created and supported by MS (strike one), but it is needlessly complicated (strike two). The user community surrounding it seems to also be non-existent (strike three).


There are a few MVC frameworks for ASP solutions on sourceforge and/or freshmeat but nothing with the ability to go from Winforms to ASP and back again. So, when I’m done with my own framework, I’ll probably open it up and slap it on sourceforge as a new project. Of course if I’m missing something in my search here, please drop me a line.