09 Mar 2012
Few days ago I was working on a little script which I use to import a log into a database, the script has to make few calculation on date and time so I came across this little nasty bug.
I know it’s not ideal to run a PHP environment on a Windows machine but I’m forced to do it, at work that’s the Corporate choice for Operating System. This bug comes alive only on Microsoft Windows machine, all other Operating Systems are not affected.
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05 Feb 2012
When developing any web application, you may want to know when a record in your table has been created and when was last updated. Now this is something you can achieve in your script by adding the date and time in your query; but let’s face it, it’s a pain as you may easily forget to do it on same operations, it will clutter your code and queries, it’s a repeating operation and as such boring and useless. Continue Reading →
08 Jan 2012
Following the list of all steps we have seen during the tutorials so that you can have a look at the big picture.
29 Dec 2011
This is the last part of the tutorial, where all things are finally glued together and it “should” start to make some sense. If it doesn’t, don’t worry it’s normal, it will come to you with time and loads of practice.
In the first part of the tutorial I’ve briefly introduced YII and we have created the foundation of the application. In the second part I have explained how to link the application with the database server and finally in the third part how to create the basic scaffoldings and the CRUD environment.
It is time now to customize a little bit our application to better suits our need, so that you can get an idea of where to start after you created all the basic stuff. The hard, yet fun, work starts now; but is it really that hard?
20 Aug 2011
Summer is almost over and with it also my free time. I have few months of hard work ahead and would no be able to dedicate myself as much as I want to the blog.
I will be probably back and posting by Christmas with the holidays, so stay tuned 
16 Jul 2011
Scaffolding it’s a term commonly used in Construction Engineering, it refers to a temporary modular structure made of metal pipes; it is used to support people and material in the construction and repair of buildings and other large structures.
If we transpose this idea in the field of Software Engineering we end-up with something very useful. It is a tecnique used to build database-backend software systems. We can find this commonly used with the Model-View-Controller pattern. Usually the developer write a series of specification using a meta-language and then the application framework will take care of building the basic blocks of the application to interact with the database.
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11 Jul 2011
Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Now that our application is perfectly working, the next step would be to hookup a database so that we can add more functionalities and transform it in a real dynamic web application.
For the sake of this exercise I will be using MySQL as database server, but you should know that YII gives you the option to connect to the most used databases on the web (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle) because its db abstraction model is build upon PDO.
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22 Jun 2011
YII and the otherThey have been around for a while, sometime unnoticed some other time have got all the spotlights like a star from Hollywood. I’m talking about that group of software that are now called application framework, and were once known as libraries or toolkits. Despite what ones may think it’s not a new concept, actually is quite old; an application framework is a collection of objects/classes (if founded on OOP) or functions/variables that facilitate the implementation of complex application and try to bring a sound structure and consistent approach to what can be a code’s hell. Continue Reading →
04 Jun 2011
Software Development is a multi-layered and wide subject, in this article I’m going to focus on some considerations one has to make about software development for web compared to “traditional” software development. I’ve made myself those considerations in the course of my experience and work-study-life, they are just an indication a little spotlight in a long otherwise dark road for many. Continue Reading →