New Features in PHP 6.0

“PHP is the only oldest language that is fully dedicated to the web domain. It has nothing to do with others and it does what it is intended for. With every passing version, there is certain modification, addition and removal of features as per the demands of the industry and PHP does it in a seamless manner. This time, the industry is flooded with many assumptions, predictions and theories to find their dream land PHP v6. It is one of the highly anticipated versions of PHP; though, many said that PHP will directly release PHP7 version, but now it comes with PHP6 with some enhanced features. The release of PHP 6.0 was indubitably made to defer for long. However, the upgrade that kept most of us keyed up definitely planked in a horde of features to look forward to. But for most, the integration of native Unicode UTF-8 in the upgraded version looked preeminent of all. Listed below are some new features in PHP 6.0 that are hopeful of making many users swap to its structure”.

Internationalization: Internationalization or I18N is known for cross cultural or cross location programming. It helps in creating cross culture application with some local inputs like date, time, language, currencies and phone numbers etc. It is highly effective in crafting cross region websites for the industry. The highlight remains the embedment of native Unicode (UTF-8) to the core. Also, improved array indexing is a significant part of PHP 6.0 (enhanced array indexing is anticipated to induce the possibility of being used to sub string). Will discuss more on the next section i.e. Unicode Support.

Enhanced 64bit Support: It is awaited as yet however; PHP 6.0 envisages support for 64bit in near future. As a result, internal code compatibility will not be a hitch in any way. The security level will also increase and the standard of programming will definitely improve a lot. With this, the speed and efficiency of PHP application will also increase to a significant level. So, it is really a wow feature for PHP developers who know how to implement it perfectly fine.

Unicode Support: So far, UTF-8 has proven to be the most efficient alternative as default encoding for string values. Although UTF-16 could not thrive at being a part, the framework hopes to bring Unicode support, design and implementation for enhanced usability. As discussed above in I18N i.e. there are 18 characters in between I and N of Internationalization can help PHP developers in building cross geographic location websites using Unicode. Suppose your client want a website to be developed for 3 different languages like English, French and Belgium. Then, we can do it using Unicode. There will be a content file that keeps the translation version of each words and in the programming application, the PHP developer will keep levels for every field. Now, with Unicode this is possible. The different language words can be written in Unicode and saved into the content file and retrieved as when required by the application. Then according to some local data as discussed above i.e. Time, date, language and currency etc contents will be rendered on the web page. In short, this is highly important in creating multi lingual website in PHP.

Internal API Cleanup: There is no doubt that internal APIs for PHP platform has been on the rise since years. But, PHP 6.0 aims at building developer friendly APIs – which might extend to hash. To notify, hashes are largely employed for internal storage which further lead to the need of internal API cleanup. And since, the stream API tends to go through unfortunate ‘code duplication’, the new feature focuses on resolving the inconsistency and code duplication concerns. In the Cleanup process, the efficiency increases and the application become more stable and optimized as a result, hence improving the overall user experience.

Improved Performance: Performance is the key factor of every language, every version and every upgrade. Fortunately, PHP 6 is more efficient than that of its preceding version. Undoubtedly it will improve the overall productivity of the application and hence the user experience. Another prominent tweak comes in the form of enhanced performance by the framework. PHP 6.0 is likely to offer page level (OpCode) caching through moving Alternative PHP Cache into the PHP core. Along with this, the release unveils the new function of ‘break to label’ – which basically enables the transport of a break to a label (resembling a goto).

Removed Features from PHP: PHP 6.0 takes off magic quotes from its structure. However, developers would look forward to it if the upgraded version adds traits support, C# -style properties with getters/setters, or enable function call chaining. Along with that register_globals, safe_mode are also removed. register_globals is an important feature of PHP and if it is removed then it becomes a hurdle for the PHP developers while dealing with this parameter. I will suggest you to turn this value off for security concern. Because, remove of register_globals enables the users to add, delete or even modify the query string without any hassle and that may lead to fatal error in the application. So, be cautious of these features and accordingly implement them understanding their potential importance.

Warning Free Code: And yes, CodeIgniter eventually emerged as a significant part of this website programming language. Although code quality analyzer has gone astray, the CodeIgniter framework boasts of its warning free code function. There is no doubt that PHP 6.0 has been garnering much of attention since last few years, however it is certainly anticipated to become a popular choice as a hosting control panel vendor. This is really effective in avoiding false positive warnings which was there in the previous versions. Now, the PHP developer will be happier to find proper notification and essential warnings in the application.

Besides these, there are a slew of features that are likely to be amalgamated into PHP 6.0 with time. Though PHP 5.3 integrated many of the functions that were supposed to be embedded into PHP 6.0, the framework still has all the right reasons to intrigue developers for the most part. Also, we cannot forget the removal of register_globals and safe_mode which came as part of PHP 5.4 Alpha (while it was primarily a part of PHP 6.0).

And if you would like to harness the full potential of PHP web application development and are looking for a software development partner to do so, feel free to just drop in a mail at sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com and we would respond in one business day!

Top Reasons - Why small business owners use PHP to develop applications?

PHP a true web language in the web era: In 21^st century if anything has seen a tremendous growth that is none other than internet and hence the web development. So if we say this is the web era of 21^st century then it will not be a wrong statement. Internet is everywhere with mobile networks like 2G, 3G and 4G, wifi and through broadband connections as well. Before a decade it was limited to wired internet services. But now it is wireless and hence it can be reach to any remote place without much effort. People in remote places are also browsing internet web applications using wireless mobile networks. At the same time, we have seen a tremendous market growth of smart phones and mobile devices due to their extensive use in the internet connectivity. All these favourable situations create a heavy demand for web developers and web languages in the industry. PHP is one such web language which is totally dedicated for web development process only; It has nothing to do with desktop applications or hardware applications and it can do everything in web applications and modern smart phone web apps.

PHP is Open Source and hence having a low cost of ownership: For any start-up software firm, the initial investment matters a lot. They want better product at an affordable cost to sustain in the market. For them, PHP works like a boon due to its open source in nature. Any start-up can afford PHP to develop its initial web applications within his budget. Moreover, there are many open source and free frameworks are available for PHP which helps the web developers in developing enterprise standard web solutions in less effort. This really improves the productivity of the organisation as a whole.

We can hire low wage PHP developers: Due to its simple in nature fresher and beginners are more interested to learn PHP in order to kick start their career in web development in the industry. As a result, software farms get an opportunity to hire efficient PHP developers as fresher for their next web application. Well, it is not to mention that any start-up can hire PHP developers at comparatively low wages. So this is a win-win situation for both the PHP developer and the software farm.

PHP has a huge size of new modules in web: Due to open source, we can find millions of PHP modules in web and fortunately almost all are free to use. So a web developer can customize those modules as per his requirement and can integrate it to his application project. This makes a lot of mean when we think about faster web development with efficiency and accuracy without much effort.

All modern amenities under PHP: Web development process is not complete until and unless we think about web apps for modern devices like smart phones and tablets. Fortunately PHP has all necessary features to develop enterprise standard responsive web applications using modern technology like JQuery, HTML5 and CSS3. Moreover, web developers can develop different interactive and attractive mobile apps and web apps using PHP for the modern era web browsing.

After all, Support matters a lot: PHP has one of the largest developer communities in the IT industry. So we can expect an immediate, quick and effective solution to our issue while dealing with complex situations in web development process. We can get the help of both online and offline support community to develop flawless modern web applications for our client.

Mindfire Solutions provides expert PHP development services from India, gaining its expertise from years of experience in PHP web development and PHP application development.If you want to Outsource PHP Development or hire PHP Developers, you are at the right place. Please write to us at sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com and we will be sending a free quotation in one business day.

PHP and its elegant features that controls web development

PHP on its way to success: At a time when the industry was dominated by Java and .Net, PHP had come up to challenge them on the battle. In early stage of its life cycle PHP was not a huge success, but with time, it received tremendous acceptance value in the industry. This is possible due to the continuous learning attitude of PHP. PHP has been undergoing several changes over time to suite the demand of the PHP developer and industry and hence it come out as a gem in the industry. Moreover, at a period when the industry was carving for a better web language, PHP turned out as a boon for the web developers; because web development process through JSP or ASP was damn tedious at that time where as PHP made it easy with its simple approach and write less do more concepts. This brought an overnight popularity of PHP developers in the industry.

PHP is a true web domain specific language: PHP can only be used for web application development; it can’t be used to develop desktop application like Java or .Net. So at a time when the industry was dominated by web applications, PHP turned out as a leader of web domain specific language. PHP developer can develop any type of websites on the fly. It can be used for agile web development process to develop enterprise standard web applications for the industry. PHP developers can develop any size of application efficiently in less time and more productivity.

It has an awesome feature i.e. Functions with Arbitrary Number of Arguments: Well, PHP has an awesome feature i.e. we can dynamically set the number of arguments for any function. Let me explain how it can be helpful. Suppose, in our web application, there is a function that needs the user to enter the arguments as per his choice; at that time, the application developer is unaware of the number of arguments that can be sent to the program. So, to handle this issue, we can use the above concept to develop our web application.

PHP is future ready: Yes! PHP is future ready; because it has all the future amenities under the hood. Technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery etc. These technologies can be used to write responsive web applications for different screen size, resolution and platforms so that the user can get similar user experience in all screen sizes. To add this, Cloud technology can be integrated by a PHP developer in the web application. With the integration of Cloud technology, PHP developers can give the users an awesome and hassle free experience without any worry for the memory storage size.

It is Open source along with its best friend MySQL: MySQL is treated as the best friend of PHP. It helps the PHP web developer in developing dynamic and data driven web applications on the fly. The best part is it is open source just like PHP. Hence we can expect an exceptional quality of software from the PHP MySQL combo. Moreover you can kick start your first web application using PHP MySQL from the first day itself without any investment.

You can get in touch with a PHP web development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP web development services. If you would like to hire PHP programmers for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

PHP tips to improve your programming skills

The time at which the industry was trembling with Java and .Net applications, PHP come up to the industry to challenge these giants. Moreover, that time JSP and ASP were at their peak stage and hence we can’t ignore the courage of PHP to come up as a challenger in the industry. Anyway, PHP has come up as a winner in latter stage of its life due to its learn-from-mistakes attitude. With every newer version, it becomes even more powerful and efficient. As a result, there are many frameworks get born to support PHP like Zend, Laravel, CakePHP etc. Anyway, today we will discuss few smart features and tips for PHP developers to improve the skill of programming in the industry.

Naming convention is the first step: Well, when a new web developer or PHP developer starts his career in programming; the first and most important thing is to follow Naming convention. As a good software developer, you must follow some basic rules while naming different variables, functions, class, namespace etc. Moreover, you must ensure that these names are meaningful and give adequate hint to understand their basic requirement in the program.

Proper implementation of Session and Cookie: Yes, a good web developer must implement sessions in the application. Session helps in providing continuous service to the user with proper data from database. It also ensures that privacy is maintained from the users prospective. The cookie on the other hand helps in quick web browsing. It stores user’s data in local browser and hence that will definitely help the application to recognize the user and accordingly providing user specific data to the interface.

Avoid unnecessary database connection: This is really an important tip for every web developer including a PHP developer. Sometimes, we find new PHP developers use multiple queries to fetch a set of data to ensure the data availability in the application. This is a terrific problem when you are dealing with some low memory devices like smart phones and tablets. In that case, each and every tiny load on the browser may crash the application. So, you should avoid all nonsense queries in your code to make it more efficient and optimized.

Take the help of modern technologies: As a PHP web developer, you must learn different advanced technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery etc to create enterprise standard web solutions for next generation those are not only attractive but also light weight. Light weight means optimized!! It is an essential part of any modern web application which is supposed to run on different platforms like desktop, laptop, smart phone and tablets. So, you must implement these advanced technologies in your application.

You should learn about Cloud integration: Cloud is a future generation technology. Future is relying on Cloud and so you should!! A good PHP developer is incomplete without being up-to-date. So as a good web developer you must learn different techniques to integrate Cloud in your application. It will definitely bring a smile on the face of your user while roaming within your application.

You can get in touch with a php development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide custom PHP development services. If you would like to hire php programmer for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

Zend Framework - Is it the best that PHP has till date?

In the present times, having a strong presence on the web is mandatory for every business to be successful in their ventures. In the midst of technological revolution, web development has become very important. The role of internet in enhancing the business prospects cannot be undermined. Organizations are now aware of the need to harness the power of the internet by building a strong website that goes a long way in providing the firm with an important mode of communication with customers besides imparting an online identity to the same.

Zend framework stands out as one of the most popular and strong frameworks that PHP provides to its users. It is based on the common design pattern of Model View Controller (MVC). It is an open source framework that is used for developing web applications and services. Often referred to as the best framework that PHP has to offer, Zend comes with a simple as well as a unique structure of its components that is less reliant on one another. Therefore, it has the potential to help developers in making individual use of each component.

The features that are loaded in Zend add another dimension to web development while taking it to the next level. The flexible architecture facilitates building of interactive web services and applications without exerting any extra effort. There are several factors that contribute in making Zend as one of the best frameworks that PHP has to offer till date.

Loosely coupled components

With the loosely coupled components, it becomes easier for the developer to change a particular component without affecting others. The data model, application logic as well as UI are all separated from one another which lead to the components undergoing minor changes when one of them is altered. This proves to be highly beneficial not only during working on the project but also in future.

MVC Components

Each object in its library is entirely object oriented and comply with the E_STRICT set standards. Moreover, owing to the loosely connected or coupled components in the MVC, there is minimal interdependency that leads to easy building of web apps that are customized with the help of the web services of Zend PHP.

Basically, Zend framework has been created for building strong web 2.0 applications and services. Thus, it is capable of providing unparalleled dependability along with excellent security.

Model View Controller framework

The modular Model View Controller framework of Zend helps in separating user interface from business logic. This goes a long way in certifying that Zend stands as the best framework so far with respect to the development of web applications.

Supports various databases

Another stronghold for this framework is that it supports different database systems as well as vendors, such as, Maria DB, MySQL, SQL Server, Post GreSQL, IBM DB2 and SQLite.

High performance

As compared to other frameworks of PHP, Zend offers to its users with a high performance as well as a strong MVC implementation along with a database that is abstract and simple to be used with respect to development of PHP Zend. This makes it easy for web developers to promote the best practices related to PHP community. In this regard, it is important to note that Presentation logic is kept separately from core Application logic which results in simultaneous completion of the application.

Support

A large number of support communities promoting active development as well as hundreds of APIs are associated with the detailed documentation of the same for fulfilling various Functional, Technical and Business requirements.

Vastness

With respect to vastness, Zend is unparalleled. There are 64 components while writing in Zend framework and to add further the number is in steady growth. This makes the framework take the form of a vast and huge library.

Quality

From the perspective of quality, the framework is highly active as it pays much focus to the code’s quality. It, thus, follows the best practices of the industry. It makes adequate use of design patterns that are object oriented. The components in it can be extended and are tested through PHPUnit. Moreover, with the help of a continuous integrating server, it offers the provision for a testing component.

Security

Organizations find the protection of their code easier with the help of the Zend Framework License and the BSD License. The open source framework of PHP leads businesses to have absolute control on their code. Subsequently, this leads to the protection of the right to intellectual property and security of the same.

Zend has, thus, been of sound help to developers across the globe with enough features, security options along with other protective tools in order to meet the requirement of both small as well as large business organizations. With several readymade solutions to offer to the developers, the Zend framework significantly reduces the time consumed in making new developments. You can hire developers from a PHP development company, who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide custom PHP development services. If you would like to hire PHP developer for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions

Some New Features in PHP 5.4 that Needs To Be Listed

The new version, 5.4 of PHP has finally arrived, and it comes up with a string of new features that is extremely important for the developers to know or need to have a grip on. While there are features that have already been there in PHP, and have only been further developed, there are certain features that have been added afresh.

Traits

This is one of the most significant features of the version 5.4, which consists of code fragments or a set or string of methods, which can be used repeatedly across the classes horizontally. In case of other languages, mixins or multiple inheritances address this particular issue. However, traits do not offer states in forms of properties. It offers a copy and paste method that is assisted by interpreter. Moreover, traits come up with a unique conflict resolution mechanism. Besides, the multiple traits can be used in the same class, even if certain methods are overlapping.

Improved Arrays though syntax and dereferencing

Arrays act like super glue In PHP. They are one of the strongest as well as the longest constructs. As a result of this, shorter syntaxes can also be used in the new version for defining in associative as well as numerical way. The structure of the syntax introduces brackets as short-hand, which has properly been defined and included in PHP scripts.

HTTP Server that is built-in

It also comes up with an in-built HTTP Server for current directories, for the purpose of testing as well as development. Then there are a number of additional options, which include customer document root as well as a router script that can be called upon each request.

Built-in Web Server (CLI)

CLI Server is not designed or developed to be used as a production Web server. It is basically used for conducting some of the PHP regression tests as well as other mechanisms of unit testing. In version 4.5, it comes up with some interesting as well as useful features for daily code debugging jobs that are conducted from the command line.

Deprecations

The latest version of PHP does not have a few of the older features such has the Magic Quotes option, which are either modified in the new version or have been dropped altogether. Again, the PHP namespace is now exclusively reserved to deal with the native code. The E_STRICT errors, which cover the correct usage of the object-oriented constructs as well as deprecation warning, are now covered by E_ALL error reporting, which will point out to each and every error, notice or warning.

Other changes and improvements

PHP version 5.4 has also seen some other minor, not so revolutionary, yet handy improvements that the developers will appreciate at the end of the day.

The latest edition has the ability of disabling the processing of POST data for saving memory CPU cycles. In case this property is activated, it is still possible to go and read the raw data through the input stream path.

JsonSerializable Interface has been introduced and this will help making an object acceptable to the json_encode().

Other improvements include:

Added callable typehint, which provides a function name, an array, composed of an object or a classname, a closure, and a method name, for a definite string.

Added Closure rebinding as parameter to bindTo

This particular feature has been modified so much so that it will now accept any other type of argument, which will define a new scope. This can well be an object in case its class is used as class name or a scope.

Improvement in Memory and Performance

Besides, there are quite a number of internal structures that have either been contracted or have been altogether been eliminated and this has led to almost 20 to 50 per cent memory savings in the larger applications. This has also bettered the performance by 10 to 30 percent, though a series of optimizations that include inlining of various common paths of codes. You can hire PHP developers from PHP development company for your web development needs, who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide custom PHP development services. If you would like to hire developers or would like to discuss with our developers about your projects, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Symfony - A Weapon for PHP Developers

As a server-side scripting language, PHP is used widely by developers for creating a wide variety of websites and web applications. Some programmers prefer mixing PHP code with HTML code, whereas others combine PHP code with different web development frameworks and templating engines. But most web developers use Symfony to rapidly create large and complex PHP applications. As a leading PHP framework, Symfony makes it easier for developers to curtail the both development time and efforts. At the same time, the innovative features of Symfony make it a powerful weapon for PHP developers.

Features that Make Symfony a Powerful Weapon for PHP Developers

Easy to Use and Configure

Symfony is compatible with most platforms, infrastructures and business libraries. So it can be used for creating PHP applications for clients belonging to different sectors. However, the framework is still easy to use and configure. The programmers have option to start development simply by configuring certain things in the application. Unlike other PHP frameworks, Symfony can be configured without requiring any extra time and efforts.

Fast and Saves Memory

Symfony2 is designed with strong emphasis on performance and speed. So it is much faster than other frameworks like Zend Framework 1.10 and Symfony 1.4. At the same time, Symfony can work efficiently without taking much memory. So the programmers can use the PHP framework without investing in expensive hardware and memory devices.

Expandable

Symfony enables developers to add new bundles to the framework through bundles. They also have option to present all aspects of the application as bundles. Thus, the system of bundles allows all aspects of Symfony modifiable. Also, the bundles can be reused for multiple projects, and be shared with the Symfony community. The bundles make it easier for programmers to control the framework’s behavior without complete reconfiguration.

Extensive Cache System

Symfony2 also comes with an extensive cache system. The cache system can be used to optimize the performance of websites and internet applications. The extensive cache further makes it easier for developers to easily optimize the performance of large applications.

Supports MVC Architecture

Despite being a powerful scripting language, PHP cannot be used exclusively for creating complex web applications. But Symfony makes it easier for programmers to create large and complex application by using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. The MVC patterns enables programmers to keep the business logic, presentation and controls separate. So the large projects can be developed in a distributed environment. The MVC architecture further makes it easier for developers to maintain and modify their code.

Generates Reusable and Testable Code

Unlike other PHP frameworks, Symfony is effective in producing reusable and testable code. The developers can simply create plug-ins and use them to add new functionalities to the application. The plug-ins can also be reused from several projects. Likewise, Symfony improves the application’s performance by delivering testable code. Symfony also provides built-in unit and functional testing framework to facilitate test-driven development.

Command-Line Interface and Tools

Symfony also allows programmers to use a command-line interface. The command-line interface makes it easier for developers to automate the deployment of applications between two web servers. Symfony also allows programmers to access a wide range of command line tools to effectuate project management and administration. For instance, they can use the in-built form generator to automate the repopulation and validation of forms. Likewise, the administrator can track the application’s activities by using the logging features provided by the PHP framework.

Despite being a leading custom PHP development framework, Symfony is open source and free. So the programmers can use the web application development framework without incurring any additional expenses. Further, they can avail the assistance of huge community of Symfony fans to easily enhance the application’s functionality and performance.

We provide PHP development services. If you would like to hire PHP programmer for your web development needs, please contact Mindfire Solutions.

CakePHP - What Do We Know About It?

Before we get on to the details about cake PHP, let us at first know what CakePHP is all about. It is actually a web application framework that is open source and follows the customary MVC (Model View Controller) business. It is written in PHP and follows the concept of ROR. Alternately speaking, it is a PHP framework for rapid web development that generally uses certain common design patterns such as ActiveRecord, ADP or Association Data Mapping, Font Controller besides following MVC. It is basically a PHP equivalent of ROR.

The framework is extremely useful when it comes to seamlessly creating static pages, more so when it comes to creating controller for these static pages or defining action for each of them whenever needed. Therefore, technically speaking CakePHP is a foundation structure that can be used for creating web applications. The primary objective of the framework is to help the developers to work in a quick yet structured manner, with losing any flexibility.

If the task of web development was somewhat monotonous, CakePHP has taken out that element of monotony, by offering a wide range of tools for coding as well as specifying logic into the application. So let us go through the features that CakePHP comes up with:

• The framework is active as well as extremely user-friendly so that even the ones who are new in development can deal with it without any hiccup whatsoever
• It is flexible as well as compatible with PHP version 4, 5
• It comes up with integrated CRUD for database integration, it supports scaffolding of applications, helps in code generation
• It features certain build-in validations along with a request dispatcher with some clean custom URLs, routes
• It is pretty fast and it supports flexible templating with helpers for PHP syntax, AJAX, HTML forms, JavaScript and much more
• It also supports data sanitization as well as flexible caching

The USP of the framework is that it is designed to provide a tough enough base or foundation for any application. It is designed to handle each and every aspect – right from an initial request by a user, through the process of development till the final rendering of the web page in question. Again, as the framework is designed to follow the MVC principles, it allows seamless customization of the pages and extends to almost every feature of an application.

It also offers a basic organizational structure, helping in structuring of filenames as well as the names of the database tables, which in turn helps to maintain the consistency along with the logic of applications. This is a simple, yet quite powerful concept, especially in the question of maintaining the overall health of an application.

Now let us go through the basic tasks that can be done with the help of CakePHP.

Data Validation

This is an extremely vital component of any application because it helps to guarantee that the data that are used in a particular model sticks to the business rules or the terms and conditions pertaining to the application. This may include validating the user ID or password or checking out the uniqueness of the user names used.

Data Sanitization

It also helps in data sanitization. The Sanitize class that CakePHP comes up with can be utilized to free the data submitted by the users from the malicious or erroneous data and other unnecessary information. Sanitize is essentially a core library, and hence can be utilized anywhere within the code, though it is best used in models or controllers.

Error Handling

In case any unrecoverable or irretrievable error occurs in any application, it is a rather common practice to halt the processing mechanism and display the error page. For that what is needed is separate code error handling for each controller and component, which is a tedious as well as time consuming task. CakePHP saves a developer from this laborious job by pre-defining a series of error-types. One of the most common as well as useful error types is ‘Error-404’.

Debugging

It is an inseparable part of any software development cycle. Though CakePHP does not come up with any tool specifically for debugging or tools that have anything to do with Editor or IDE, it does offer a string of tools that help in debugging indirectly, though not directly; displaying whatever was running at the back end of the application. CakePHP also helps in debugging, caching, logging, testing, localization and internationalization, pagination and REST (Representational State Transfer). You can hire developers from PHP development company who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to discuss with our certified php developer about your web development project, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

The Pros and Cons of Zend PHP Certification

Zend PHP Certification is done in two phases – Zend PHP Phase I and Phase II. The phase I of the certification course is basically the foundation course that is designed for providing a sound idea of PHP language to the non-technical or non-programming individuals. This particular course guides the aspirants through the fundamentals of PHP with a somehow experiential approach that is pregnant with a number of examples along with several hands-on exercises. As the course comes to an end, the aspirant learns the key essentials that are needed for PHP programming.

The second phase of the certification curriculum on the other hand, is an intermediate-level course that is built upon the programming knowledge that has been acquired throughout the 1^st phase. The 2^nd phase is chiefly consisted of a hands-on approach, rich with a number of instances along with practical exercises and development of a key project with a view to enhance as well as continue enhancing the skills by utilizing the best practices with the help of the most effective tools.

Now the question is whether this certification course if really worth. While one school of thought is of the opinion that the course is really valuable, according to another quarter, the course is not that useful. On the contrary, it is a bit overrated. All said and done, it is perhaps most sensible to say that the course has its merits as well as demerits and one cannot ignore its efficacy at the end of the day, no matter which way it is seen from. So let us discuss the pros and cons of this certification course.

Advantages

It helps in confirming the skills

The most important objective of this certification is that it provides a formal confirmation about the PHP programming skills of an individual. Once a programmer successfully completes the course, he/she is described as a ZCE or Zend Certified Engineer. His/her name gets included in the directory of all successful ZCEs, which surely is a feather in his/her cap.

This certification is particularly important for the intermediate developers as this helps to differentiate them from the beginners. As the certification course covers various aspects of PHP programming language in a comprehensive manner, getting certified helps the programmers immensely whenever they chose to learn advanced PHP programming.

An excellent way of reviewing and extending the programming prowess

For taking up the examination, a thorough preparation is needed, as the course virtually includes all the fundamental functionalities of the language. Thus, preparing for the certification itself helps a lot when it comes to learning various aspects of the language, or evaluating one’s programming knowledge as well as expertise. The knowledge may include certain fundamental concepts like syntax, language constructions, dealing with operators along with various intricate features that may include working with different types of files, manipulation of arrays and strings, session handling, dealing with cookies and form data and so on.

Disadvantages

However, the certification is not without blues. This takes us back at the start of this article where it is stated that a certain school of thought has reservations regarding this course. Here are the points that have been raised by that quarter.

Limitation of examination questions

The examinees have to answer about 70 questions, the samples of which can be found on the official website of Zend. Some of these sample questions deal with the inbuilt function names of PHP, parameters – their usage etc. All these knowledge would by default form the very part of the psyche of any developer or programmer. Therefore, it is virtually impossible to evaluate this knowledge by asking such questions. Also, according to this sect of pundits, there is no logic of memorizing such a huge number of array and string functions just for passing the examination successfully, simply because in real life scenario, a proper string or array function can easily be found on the net by browsing appropriate PHP documentation.

Efficacy of the certificate

Again, certain people have expressed their reservation regarding the very efficacy of the certification, citing that it may not after all be a proof enough that an individual is an efficient PHP developer. While the certificate does guarantee that the individual in question has advanced PHP knowledge, it does not say that the person is skilled or competent enough to use that knowledge in real life scenarios. You can hire developers from PHP development company who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to hire PHP developer India for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.