New version of P4A (3.2.0) finally released!

Wow, it’s been a while since the developers updated this framework.  I thought this project was about to die because it used to be very active.  We’re actually still using v2.0 at work (which is working very well) but with the changes in this release, I think it’s time to upgrade :).

Here are the major changes (from the developer’s website, the one I’m most excited about is the P4A_Grid widget):

1. P4A is now released under LGPL 3. This means more flexibility for developers and customers.
2. A new widget, the P4A_Grid, has been added to fast table data editing.
3. P4A_Simple_Edit_Mask has been added to quickly create a simple mask to edit a database table.

You can view the entire changelog here.

Download P4A 3.2 from here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=98294&package_id=105252&release_id=647599

Can’t connect to SQL Server 2005 using PHP

I was updating our web application last Friday and I needed it to connect to an SQL Server 2005 Express Edition database to query some tables but my application couldn’t connect to the MSSQL server.

After a few hours of searching the internet and trying different things I finally got it to work by downloading a newer version of ntwdblib.dll (version 2000.80.194.0) and replacing the one that came with PHP 5.2 (we’re using WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) btw).

In our case, I had to put it in wamp\php, wamp\Apache2\bin, and C:\Wndows\System32.

Also, in your application, don’t forget to add the instance name of the SQL Server in your connection string (eg. server1\instanceName).

Here’s an example connection string for ADOdb (it worked for me without specifying the port number):

‘mssql://admin:password111@webserver01\\SQLEXPRESS/Database1′

I don’t remember the URL where I found this solution, I’ll post it here if I find it again.

Java losing to newer programming languages?

Here’s an interesting article from infoworld.com saying that Java is losing ground to newer languages such as Ruby on Rails, PHP, AJAX, and Microsoft’s .NET in web and mobile applications development. Developers are complaining that Java hasn’t gotten easier and has become more complicated which slows them down. The article also mentioned a survey of 1,850 businesses and found .NET to be the choice over Java among businesses of all sizes and industries. Click here to read the full article…

Do you agree or disagree?

P4A PHP Framework

Here’s a nice PHP framework called P4A (stands for PHP For Applications) for those interested in creating web applications quickly. I’ve built a few web applications for work using this framework and I really like how fast you can build things with it. You don’t even need to know much about PHP to get started (I’ve never worked with PHP before I started playing around with this framework). As long as you know some basic object oriented programming concepts you should be fine.

Check out this link for a demo of P4A in action: P4A Web App Demo

You can find more information from their website: http://p4a.crealabsfoundation.org.

I also strongly recommend that you watch these screencasts before you start playing around with it, they’re very helpful: Build your CMS in 10 Minutes, Address Book Demo