There are a number (perhaps too many) of good PHP frameworks.  Symfony is one of them.  I like to study their features to see what I can adopt in my own work.  Partly because the best ideas are worth copying and partly because it is a pity to create conflicting standards where there is already [...]

Semantic markup is a very healthy development.  But it’s giving me some headaches figuring out how best to handle its ramifications for something like a Content Management System (CMS) or any other system that integrates web material from multiple sources.
semantic markup is intended to clarify the meaning of the document
To recap the basic principle, semantic [...]

It isn’t new to have doubts about helpers.  One provocative blog by Nick Malik grabbed attention with the title “Are Helper Classes Evil?“.  That talked about helper classes, defined as classes consisting entirely of static methods.  I wanted to broaden the scope and also give my own reasons for trying to avoid helpers.
Why broaden the [...]

At the end of 2007, I placed a subscription for the Linux Journal with magazinecity.com. It looks as if that was a mistake. No magazines have arrived, emails went unanswered. A phone call elicited the promise of an email. All the email said was that I should wait a couple of [...]