Archive for April, 2010

After having used Delphi for PHP to build an application framework, I managed to figure a lot of things out. I had to dig into the VCL and make some changes, search through tons of useless online documentation, and build and rebuild to finally get something I felt was fluid and sensible.

I’ve been a Delphi application developer since version 1, and I’ve grown with Delphi and it’s IDE and development style over the years. I’ve created dozens of custom components, taken advantage of it’s undocumented objects, and became involved with the Open Tools API.

I believe Delphi can be used to write some extremely poor applications, and I know it can be used to create some very slick applications as well. It’s all in the architecture and the developer who writes the code. Events can be elegant or nasty, depending on the experience the developer has with the IDE.

I tried to follow good practices in the Delphi for PHP environment. I’m not a fan of data-aware development in either Delphi environment, but I played with the technology in Delphi for PHP. I followed the rules, studied the code, and created some applications that took advantage of the templates, libraries, and it’s AJAX architecture.

After some very simple and mildly complex applications, written the way I believe Delphi for PHP was intended to be used, I gave up on it. Ignoring the weight of the VCL and just trying to make a decent application with an open mind (and some high hopes), I just couldn’t keep my code simple and elegant. I also couldn’t consistently produce XHTML/CSS code that remained W3C compliant or validated.

The future of Delphi for PHP is always in question when you are determining the direction of an application. Will it be supported in 5 years? Will they improve it? Can it even be improved? Will the VCL stand the test of time? Will there be a pool of developers to draw from when it comes time to hire an employee?

I just cannot believe it has a bright future as a commercial development environment, especially when there is an entire force of PHP developers openly improving upon Eclipse for PHP. With that said, I could in no way recommend a client begin new development with this product. In my opinion, they would eventually be stuck with a heavy weight application that can’t meet W3C standards, has outdated and neglected libraries, and frowned upon my any respectable PHP developer.

This is where I stand with Delphi for PHP and will no longer be creating articles or videos in the Delphi for PHP IDE.

I will however, be contributing content to PHP application development using Zend Servers and Eclipse for PHP, as well as some of the Zend Framework.

For those of you who are unaware, I’ve been in China for a little more than a year. However, I’m back in the good ol’ United States now and have time to play with my hobby sites again.

I apologize to everyone who’s been waiting for me, it seems there has been a fair amount of activity for this site ( although I thought it would be dead and silent by now ).

I’m still heavily involved in web development using PHP and I fully intend to update my content and get things rolling again, as it’s not only fun for me, it’s always interesting to go back in time and see what I was doing.

I plan to begin updating my home page and my templates page this week.

Thanks for all the kind words and emails, I really appreciate it.

Michael