Microsoft adds new features in Eclipse for PHP and Java developers

Eclipse Summit that was organized in Germany brought fresh news: Microsoft together with its partners Tasktop and Soyatec are going to release a range of tools and updates for Eclipse.

• Eclipse will support Windows 7 and all its new interface functions;
• Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) will be expanded to work with new features in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2;
• The open source tools Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse will be available for PHP developers;
• The open source Windows Azure Software Developer Kit (SDK) will be available for Java developers;
• The Eclipse Tools plug-in will be available for Silverlight.

So, Windows Azure SDK for Java allows leveraging Azure storage service while developing Java applications. Its logical architecture is quite simple:
It is reported that according to the voting (see The Open Source Developer Report 2009 based on Eclipse Community Survey), conducted among Eclipse users, more than 64% are using it in Windows OS. It’s obvious that PHP and Java programmers will appreciate this significant commitment from Microsoft.

How to learn any new programming language faster then ever

It’s always difficult to learn something new. Nevertheless, there are some techniques and tricks that can be very helpful for beginners who want to become Java, .Net, php, flash programmers, etc. So using them you can learn any new language easier, faster and more efficiently:

Set your time commitments

Don’t think that you can learn a new language, giving it only half an hour every day. It’s much better (more productive) to read textbooks devoting the whole day to this activity (better 1-2 days a week then 30 min a day).

Use cribs
Cribs may be more valuable than it might seem at the first glance. Writing cribs is one of the most useful methods of learning (they are not only reminders, but also your samples and tips).

Collect all the necessary material
There are many resources for any programming language: Flash and Flex, AJAX, coding for mobile applications and others. Some of them are very good, others are not. Collection of numerous textbooks and internet-sources will allow you to choose the best authors and the easiest approaches. So, use Google and collect guides and manuals for programmers, articles in different media, post in popular blogs and respected forums.
And the last point: make sure that you understand the basis of language, before you will begin to work with examples. You wont be able to built a house without foundation.

PHP 5.3: welcome to release party in Munich

Today we continue our analysis of the most significant changes applied to the new PHP version.

Changing magic methods

Before the introduction of PHP 5.3, these methods could be marked not only as public but also as private, protected, static ones, etc. Starting with the 5.3 these methods (mentioned below) cannot be static and must be public only:

* __get ()
* __set ()
* __isset ()
* __unset ()
* __call ()

Ministry of Health warns

PHP has a list of functions that were marked for removal. Most of them are not common (PHP developers use them not very often), but nevertheless, you should check your code (they won’t work in the new version). These functions are:

* Call_user_method ()
* Call_user_method_array ()
* Define_syslog_variables ()
* Ereg ()
* Ereg_replace ()
* Eregi ()
* Eregi_replace ()
* Set_magic_quotes_runtime () / magic_quotes_runtime ()
* Session_register ()
* Session_unregister ()
* Session_is_registered ()
* Set_socket_blocking ()
* Split ()
* Spliti ()
* Sql_regcase ()

Moreover, some directives in PHP.INI suffer the same fate, now they will warn you (E_DEPRECATED) if you try to activate them:

* Define_syslog_variables
* Register_globals
* Register_long_arrays
* Safe_mode
* Magic_quotes_gpc
* Magic_quotes_runtime
* Magic_quotes_sybase

Surprises

In PHP 5.0, the method “is_a ()” was described as inadvisable (manuals recommended to use “instanceof”), but in spite of this fact “is_a ()” was not removed from the language. Furthermore now it works without E_DEPRECATED-warnings.

The following words were reserved:

* GOTO
* NAMESPACE

It is very unlikely that they were included in your code, however, it would be better for you to scan the code. These words cannot be used as function names, class names, etc.

Say hello to the new version of PHP! (Migrating to PHP 5.3)

We sure that some software specialists who develop PHP applications have already downloaded and started testing the new features of PHP 5.3. No doubt, this version can be considered as the major change in language over the past 7 years. But most of the developers are not interested in new features, which can be used for their future developments; first of all they worry about changes that can affect already written applications.

What was updated:

Good news for PHP developers who used to write code according to the current trends, your application will be affected only by a few changes. But those programmers, whose code was aimed at earlier versions of this language, should be so lucky! So, in this post and the next one we are going to describe some key points that deserve your attention (we hope you will find some useful tips here, especially if you are going to migrate from PHP 5.2.x to PHP 5.3.x).

Of course this list of updated features is not a complete one, more extensive information you’ll find in PHP 5.3 changelog.

More work with arrays:

Array functions in the previous PHP versions could work with arrays taking them as arguments, so you could indicate an array or an object as an argument. But you can’t do it in 5.3, many of array functions now can accept only arrays. If you want to get object properties using any of the options below, you will need to convert the object into array:

* Natsort ()
* Natcasesort ()
* Usort ()
* Uasort ()
* Uksort ()
* Array_flip ()
* Array_unique ()

…to be continued

Average Salary of Developers in various countries

The question of the “Salary” is one of the most interesting and also mysterious question that almost every person is taking an active interest in discussion when pertinent time was come. And almost every person wants to know the great secret – salary of his colleagues to compare with own salary (may be boss underestimated his skills and the time to do meeting with boss is come), but how can he ask them?

Salary is also a very private theme to have a talk about. We try to lift the veil of mystery from this question and you will know not only about the salary of your colleagues but will have a possibility to compare your own salary with salary of developers in various countries. I hope you will take a good time while reading this
article.

First of all, let’s gossip about the salary of our neighbours, then will travel to America and the sweetest information about the salary in our country will leave in the end.:)

Doctrine in a PHP programming

Home page: www.doctrine-project.org. Current version: 1.0.2

Doctrine requires PHP 5.2.3+. It doesn’t require any external libraries. For the database function call abstraction Doctrine uses PDO which comes bundled with the PHP official release that you get from www.php.net.