Coder Kung Fu!

SilverStripe CMS – A very designer friendly PHP Framework

coderkungfu — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:14:32 +0000

Been trawling the net for a good framework for my next project. Came across SilverStripe – a product coming out of New Zealand.

http://silverstripe.org/

I must say, this is a pretty impressive looking framework. Its main focus is a intuitive and user friendly backend CMS for content updating. Come with a smorgasbord of extensions and widgets.

What this CMS really excels in is the theming engine. It is really very flexible and freeform. Quite impressive for a full CMS suite to have such a powerful templating engine. Just look at the list of websites developed by the community in the Community Showcase. This is something which i believe is sorely lacking in modern CMSs like Drupal and WordPress.

Not only is it a full fledged CMS, it is also a programming framework (‘Sapphire’) AND a templating engine AND an extension development platform (Not many extensions at the moment – but they are all crucial ones). Oh… and the widgets… The community and documentation is equally impressive.

Anyways, here’s a demo.

Enjoy!

Hello World! Introduction to CodeIgniter

coderkungfu — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:22:41 +0000

I find this quite an entry level framework for any PHP developer who’s been coding procedurally all this while. If you are not quite ready to jump into a full fledged MVC framework, do give this a try. The concepts introduced in this framework will inculcate in you some good best practices in code reusability (DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself). Do give it a try.

Hello World! Introduction to CodeIgniter
Duration: 9 min 21 sec
Presenter: Derek Jones

Create a Blog in 20 Minutes
Duration: 20 min 21 sec
Presenter: Derek Jones

The forked project…

For when you are ready to jump into a full fledge framework. Its the same group of people behind this project – even the documentation method looks similar.

PHP on Windows

coderkungfu — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:49:37 +0000

Here’s a bunch of links for getting PHP on your Windows platform.

Microsoft Web Platform Installer
(http://www.microsoft.com/web/platform/phponwindows.aspx)
PHP on IIS
(http://php.iis.net/)
WinCache Extension for PHP
(http://www.iis.net/expand/WinCacheForPhp)
WordPress on IIS
(http://ruslany.net/2010/03/make-wordpress-faster-on-iis-with-wincache-1-1/)

Downloads

Official PHP Community installer for Windows
(http://windows.php.net/)
Microsoft Web Platform Installer
(http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx)
Official training package from Microsoft
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c8498c9b-a85a-4afa-90c0-593d0e4850cb)
SQL Server Driver for PHP
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ccdf728b-1ea0-48a8-a84a-5052214caad9)