Treasure trove: PHP offers features that will make your Web apps sparkle
15053Treasure trove: PHP offers features that will make your Web apps sparklehttp://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/99/06/21/990621oppetreley.xmlPHP runs on most free and commercial versions of Unix. It currently has limited support for Apache and Internet Information Server on Windows NT. I'm currently running PHP Version 3 (PHP3) under Linux as an integrated module for the Apache 1.3.6 Web server.
Considering that PHP3 is probably one of the leading plug-ins for Apache (the most popular Web server on the planet), it's almost embarrassing to call it a "hidden" gem, or to admit that I'm only now getting familiar with it.PHP > Magazine ArticlesOct 12, 2006
There are a number of different interpretations. We are talking about tracking and control of software development and its activities. That is, the mangement of software development projects with respect to issues such as multiple developers working on the same code at the same time, targetting multiple platforms, supporting multiple versions, and controlling the status of code (for example beta test versus real release). Even within that scope there are different schools of thought:
PHP is an open source programming language that is widely popular on the web. However because PHP so popular in shared hosting environments, many people have an impression that PHP is only for small scale web-sites. This is patently untrue, and PHP is in use in many large scale web sites such as Yahoo and Lufthansa Online Ticketing for the creation of large web applications such as IMP. This article is an attempt to readdress the balance and show how PHP is used in the enterprise
While the success of Open Source software like Linux or Apache has been documented extensively throughout all mainstream media, the rise of PHP has gone largely unnoticed. Still, the Web scripting language PHP is the most popular module for the Apache Web server, according to a E-Soft survey (http://www.e-softinc.com/survey/). Netcraft studies have found that PHP is in use on over 6% of all Web domains in the world (see http://www.netcraft.com/survey). That is an incredible market penetration for a rather specialized product. This popularity continues to rise exponentially, with the new version 4.0 just around the corner. Increasingly, this is being reflected in traditional media: By May 2000, more than 20 books about PHP have been published in different languages, with more in the pipeline. Commercial players are beginning to join the bandwagon: PHP is included with Web servers, for example C2's Stronghold, and Linux distributions. A new company, Zend Technologies, has been formed to provide commercial add-ons and support for PHP. A long list of large-scale Web sites employ PHP, as well as hundreds of thousands small to medium Web sites. Enough reasons to take a closer look at PHP.
There are a number of great online GIS ( Geographic Information System ) solutions out there, ranging from Mappoint to Mapquest to some cool PHP projects. However, it is still nice to be able to be able plot you own data and put some basic mapping utilities on your site with a minimum of fuss and bother. Over the next couple of articles I will hopefully be able to give you a few pointers on how to create you own basic GIS system for free. I do not claim to be a GIS expert, and there may be better ways to do things, but hopefully these articles will give you a start in the right direction.
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