Hi, I like discussing the Zend Framework
 

Hello, my name is Brandon. I work for eROI in Portland, Oregon USA as the primary client web applications developer. I maintain a blog at http://blog.realmofzod.com which covers topics ranging from general technology to PHP programming with the Zend Framework. I Hope shameless blog plugging is permitted here. I'm open for questions, discussion, philosiphy, etc.

Welcome, I have just installed ZF myself and still learning the ropes. Hope you hang out here more often.

How well do you know ZF?

Pretty well. I've been deploying it in a production environment since version 1.0 . Some examples of its use can be seen on some of these sites i've written:
http://www.banfield.net
http://www.micro-power.com
http://community.wacom.com
The first two are actually deployed in a CMS I wrote called SilkCMS using ZF which I'm hoping to release into the wild when I have it refined enough. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a uber guru but i'm pretty experienced.

Great!

I read your blog on Firefox...I'm shocked to even hear that it has a chance of being dead? I am a huge fan of FF and can't see myself using any other browser.

As you mentioned in the article, perhaps it's the buggy-ness of the extensions that's causing the problem. I'm sure if you had a naked FF with no extensions, it would run farely well?

The only extension I use is forecast fox....although I do notice FF using quite a bit of memory but nowhere near the 600-700mb that you mentioned in your article.

Right now my FF is using 205 megs...that is actually quite a lot since I only have 3 tabs open....

BUT, I am using Vmware and Vm uses FF plugin to access it's guest OS...

I fear that my post on FF probably came out sounding more sensationalist than I intended. I use it daily as well as it's probably the ultimate web developers tool but there are a lot of performance problems that annoy me on a daily basis where there used to be none. I find the patterns
reminiscent of the issues I had with IE before jumping ship all those years back. With a new generation of browsers hitting the web with all kinds of new bells and whistles I just question how long FF can remain relevant without some very rapid evolutionary (revolutionary?) progress. If nothing else it helps to stoke the fire a little and put Mozilla on the defensive so they feel a little heat under their ass.

BTW:

Are you a WAMP or LAMP guy?

I wanted to wait for Google's chrome to mature a bit before I attempted to play with it. Do you design for Safari/Opera as well?

Check out my thread here, I am always interested in knowing people's computer setup...

http://www.talkphp.com/general/4048-...equipment.html

Linux all the way baby. I primarily work in Ubuntu Intrepid on a Sony Vaio.

Well my cross platform priority is Firefox, Safari (I guess Chrome goes here because of webkit), IE6/7, Opera, Konqueror. I'm working on an initiative here at my office to begin phasing out IE6 with the release of IE8. I use virtualbox to run a winxp environment to test on all the non-linux browsers which pretty much covers the gambit. I installed IE8 last week and I run standalone versions of IE6 and IE7. If i'm real desparate there's always http://browsershots.org/

All of us at eROI work on the sony vaio with a widescreen LCD for dual screen real estate. All the production people use Windows, the creatives use Macs but all the backend guys use Ubuntu. Pretty typical actually.

Great another LAMP guy! I'm mainly a redhat guy, but I don't use it for desktop/GUI purposes. Redhat/CentOS for all of my servers.

I'm really amazed at the Ubuntu culture. I just haven't had the time to get into it and see what Ubuntu is all about, but it must be a pretty fun OS if so many people swear by it...

have you had a chance to compare Ubuntu to Redhat/CentOS?
Or at least know the main difference that makes Ubuntu a cult hit?

You sound like you have a lot of expertise and that is welcomed here. I will bookmark your blog and go over your articles.

I've been into linux since the mid 90's when it was still fairly obscure, the first version I tried was Suse 6 and Redhat 5 (Before they went commercial) so I have a fair amount of experience with RPM based distros as well as deb based distros. It was actually gentoo that really slingshotted me into truly understanding the linux underpinnings so as a result I'm pretty comfortable in just about any distro now.

I prefer debian based distros mostly because of the package management system. Apt/dpkg has been much more capable than RPM for much longer and it's ubiquity makes it effortless to get the software I want or need. I personally enjoy Ubuntu because I don't really have to babysit it like I used to have to do with earlier distros. It's great for newbs and gurus alike because for the most part 'it just works' and has a lot of community attention.

I've been a sys admin as well as a desktop application developer as well as a desktop enthusiast so I consider myself a jack of all trades as far as computers go. I think having dabbled in all of the different aspects, I am afforded an deeper insight into the hows and whys of development which has served me well. I went into web app development mainly because it was the natural evolutionary step since most development has gone online.

I'm glad to make a new friend and I'd love to contribute wherever I can. My involvement with eROI and my affinity for open source software has pushed me to become more active in the development community abroad so I'll do what i can to further the cause. ;)

I believe I still have my Redhat 5 CD's somewhere around here... :-D

I too consider myself a jack of all trades (master of none), it's an inside joke I have with a buddy of mine. I think it's extremely valuable to be well rounded and USEFUL in various ways.

One thing though is that I have never really been able to pin myself down on what it is that I am an expert at.

Need someone to build your network with Cisco equipment? I can do that as I have my CCNA. I have experience with various Cisco equipment (L3 switches, Pix/ASA's etc). Give me photoshop and I can design you a new logo, website (color scheme).

Give me Dreamweaver/Ultraedit and I can code you some PHP etc...

I think you get the jist of it....I have been studying for my PHP certification and hope to take it soon. I don't necessarily believe that the PHP certification's at least right now are required in the market, but it's nice to know that at least I have the basic fundamentals to pass the cert...

And then onward to Redhat cert....

Sorry for going off topic...anyways, i just checked out eROI, that's a very very nice site... and quite a good list of clientele...

I have cousins/family in Portland, Oregon by the way....^^

I've been looking at the Zend Certification. I could get eROI to pay for that if I went through with it but I'm very curious to know how relevant it is in the industry. It seems like PHP while ubiquitous on smaller sites is only just now getting some industry respect for larger scale applications so I would be curious to get the community pulse on that.

Right. I don't think right now it is all that relevant. I have not seen it as a pre-requisite when it comes to job listings.

This goes for redhat certs as well...

The industry right now, certification wise, seems to be Ciso/Microsfot and VMware. Even possibly HPUX/Sun professionals..


I think you should keep an eye on the Zend Framework certification.

The thing about PHP and its framework is that it is funded and powered by Zend right? So I would look at Zend making more and more of a push in the industry to get people certified.

That's why I have not really looked at other frameworks like CakePHP.

Same goes for Redhat, my investment will be in Redhat certs.

I don't think corporations will want to know how well I know SuSe or Ubuntu, Gentoo etc...it will be the company that has the financial backing to make a presence in the certification industry...

woohoo another linux guy! We'll convert these Beast of Redmond users one day! you just watch!!!

Seriously though, welcome to the community m8.