Software Development

Coach Wei, Java developer, asks the following question on his blog.

Here is a question that I have been pondering on and off for quite a while: Why do "cool kids" choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java?

At work we're actually moving many of our in-house desktop applications from Python to Java. I wouldn't be too surprised to see us migrate more PHP Web applications over to Java too for some of the reasons Wei gives in his blog post. But I have a theory as to why PHP and Ruby could be considered "cool" and it has less to do with Java's features and more to do with the culture of open source.

I was looking for variety in the CMS headlines to excerpt/post at my site, but everything is coming up Drupal this morning. Not such a bad thing if you like Drupal, is it?

What I hadn't expected was a discussion of Larry Garfield's benchmarking of PHP magic over at Jeff Moore's Professional PHP Blog. Garfield has been collecting some benchmarks in preparation for Drupal 7 development. Drupal 7 "will open up developers to PHP 5 functionality when it is released next year" and likely break Drupal's compatibility with PHP 4.

I was really surprised not only find out that Joomla! 1.5 is going through a third release candidate, but will likely be followed with more release candidates.  In most projects, the release candidate is a nearly-done final product where the only thing left is to make sure all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed.  Not so with Joomla! 1.5.

Johan Janssens's writes in his post, "Is Joomla! 1.5 RC3 really a release candidate?":

So, Python isn't really a CMS topic unless you're a Plone user.  However, as my world at work slowly moves from Python to Java as the language of choice...I'll promote this underdog open source language anytime.  From the IBM developerWorks site:

If the project leaders and users of your favorite content management system are still debating when they should drop PHP 4 support, it looks like the PHP development team has helped make that decision for them.  PHP.net just announced the End of Life for PHP 4.  Starting in 2008, only security updates on a case-by-case basis will be provided...and PHP 4 is dead in August 2008.

Since most of the Web applications I run these days is on PHP I will fully admit that I don't know much about .Net and Mono applications.  However, I can recognize good news when I hear that it.  mojoPortal under a new version number can once again support more both the .Net and Mono platforms.  For developers and users of mojoPortal, life just got a little simpler.

Version 2.2.2.8 of mojoPortal was released this week and not only introduces the return of Mono support but additional features as well:

This is a fantastic article found on ZDNet UK not only about open source content management systems but the issues that traditional publishers are now facing in either competing or adopting with today's Web CMS.  The article is written by Mike Barrett and is titled, "CMS evolution, publishing revolution?".  The author writes:

Until this post by Nick Lewis, I've been in the camp with the folks that say PHP-based content management systems such as Drupal should be compatible with both PHP 4 and PHP 5.   After reading his post, I'm convinced he's correct that new development should be geared toward PHP 5.  It's hard to fight for the future when you continue to hold on to the past...

Should Drupal move to PHP 5?

In one word: absolutely.

In one sentence: if we don't, the drupal project will die along with PHP.

What seems like a very long time since I first heard about and ordered the new Drupal book, Pro Drupal Development, it finally arrived at my doorstep. So far, I have only read Chapter 1, "How Drupal Works", and glanced at the remaining pages of the book but I'm very impressed. The book is written in a very easy, well organized, and informative writing style.