php|architect – March 2008

Using and Extending PHPT

Writing tests is something you do every day, possibly withouteven realizing it. Setting up an entire test suite for anapplication, however, is a whole different thing. Travis shows youhow PHPT can remove the pain and help make the adoption oftest-driven development a simple matter of choice rather than amatter of time and effort.—by Travis Swicegood

Internationalization in PHP 5

The most talked-about feature of PHP 6 is its native Unicodesupport. However, when it comes to developing Web pages for aninternational audience, supporting various characters and encodingsis only the beginning. The internationalization extension for PHP 5and PHP 6 provides much needed functionality for globalizedapplication development.—by Stanislav Malyshev

Web Services with SOAP_Toolkit

Until very recently, PHP has not been nearly as Webservice-friendly as other platforms, notably Java and .NET. Evennow, as core PHP 5 features begin to close this gap, it is stillsomewhat tedious and complicated to code Web service clients andservers in PHP. What PHP developers need is a simple, robustframework for consuming and offering Web services. Better SOAPsupport would make PHP more acceptable in corporate IT shops thatare becoming increasingly service-oriented.—by Michael Tutty

A Refactoring Diary, Part I: The ATK Framework

When frameworks started to be mentioned regularly inphp|architect, Bart got a little worried. Shouldn’t he try them anddiscover what all the fuzz was about? But he found himself too busyfixing bugs and security holes in his own legacy code to spend timeon that. His worries didn’t go away however. At one pointm he evenbegan shaping his own legacy class library into a tiny littleframework—all the while knowing this wasprobably pointless, with so many more frameworks growing out therein the PHP community.—by Bart McLeod

Editorial: A Memory of ElePHPants

“My garage is full of elephants” is a strange utterance tohear on any occasion (except perhaps a meeting of Barnumexecutives)—and ever more so when you’re hearingit coming from of the community’s best-known members.—by Steph Fox

Test Pattern: A Closer Look at Cohesion

The concepts of coupling and cohesion in object orientedprogramming have been the subject of many a Test Pattern column,usually along the way to discussing a broader concept. This month,though, Jeff takes a step back and examines cohesion in moredetail.—by Jeff Moore

/etc: The Venerable Firebug

If you already use Firebug every day of your working life,you can skip this column. On the other hand, if Firebug is only acute-sounding name to you, you’d better read on.—by Paul Reinheimer

exit(0): [WU]TF

I (heart) Unicode. I (hate) Unicode. I really (hate)Unicode.—by Sean Coates