redbullmarky

haha at rooperts rant - totally spot on. add 25% to all your prices, and you have the UK version of your rant.

as with most things like this, i think it generally depends on how you like working and/or what you like about what you've already used. for example - i found CodeIgniter easy to learn/use and had a bag of features, but CakePHP was more solid and consistent and did more for you - so when I made my own, I took the best from both of these and made something that i was comfortable working with. so in answer to what you need to have when rolling your own, the question is somewhat easier to answer than "which is the best framework to use?" - simply because you can decide based on what you already know. I'd definitely recommend having a good play with several frameworks/CMS's though - even if it's just a 10 minute mess around to see what first impressions/ease of use is like.

schools seem to like anything that you can't use for a career. eg, BASIC and Pascal. Maybe CF is different, but I cant see any benefits.... YouTube is also PHP

hehe otherwise, you can normally find out by putting some of the different 'index' pages after the main URL, and depending whether there are plenty of rewrite rules in place will give you the answer you need. eg, i just tried sitepoint: http://www.sitepoint.com = normal homepage URL http://www.sitepoint.com/index.php = gives homepage http://www.sitepoint.com/index.asp = 404 error edit http://www.archive.org is also PHP

phpfreaks

hmmm as far as i'm aware (or can remember from using php 4), parent works fine in php 4. parent::method() = used to call a function that exists in parent class but has been overwritten by descendent $this->method() = call a method that has been defined in either descendent class or parent $this->variable = used to access a variable that has either been set in parent class or overwritten by descendent ref: http://uk.php.net/keyword.parent - under PHP4 OOP manual you mention variables, but your example would imply a method call - which one is it you're trying to do, and what result are you getting?

main thing that spoils it from the off is the header. the plain-text "logo" makes it look more like a domain parking/ad site rather than the finished article. otherwise, it's not too bad at all. just watch out for mixing "modern" gradient-type stuff with more traditional web stuff, else it'll look a bit confused in terms of the design direction it's trying to take.

mostly i'd want a cleanup job, just so functions follow the same naming conventions (ie, with respect to using underscores in some functions and none in others), have the needle/haystacks all the same way around, etc. it's getting slowly better as we move along but still needs work. all i'd really ask for is that PHP doesnt try to force a particular coding style (ie, OOP vs functional) on people, as half of PHP's charm is its simplicity - whereas the Zend framework and many extensions available are just a tad too complex, IMO. My only other thing would be to allow true legacy support (maybe even using a flag or something in the php.ini file), so that a host can upgrade their PHP version to the latest without worrying about breaking sites - the fact that we're getting nearer to an official version of PHP6, yet some hosts are stuck on PHP4 is not good at all for the language/community/future as a whole - the reason hosts give is that incompatibilities will break too many sites they host. I didnt have too much breakage when I upgraded my own server, but I enough to have cost me money to pay a developer to do it if I couldnt have done it myself.

it doesn't LOOk too bad, but i have to echo what moberemk said already - there are a fair few bits of mess all over the shop. also - you need to seriously look into image optimisation. your background image alone is nearly 2MB in size, and your header image/logo is over 220KB and in BMP format. at least make it a JPEG or something - even on my reasonably fast BB connection, it just takes ages to load and looks ugly whilst it's doing it. i pity those that stumble on your site that are on a dialup connection.

if you have a # in your href (either just # or #top, #bottom, etc) then this is the normal behaviour as it starts from the top of the page looking for a named anchor. i'm assuming you're using href="#" with the intention of doing some javascript instead of creating a link. in which case, in your 'onclick', put a "return false" in there. <a href="#" onclick="doSomething(); return false">click me!</a> there are several ways to achieve the same, but this seems to be the one that sorts out what you have already

this does the job (or seems to): $query = "SELECT type, name, CONCAT(object_id,type,name) as uniquefield, id, data FROM (SELECT * FROM object_data ORDER BY id DESC) as subq WHERE object_id = $object_id AND public = 'y' GROUP BY uniquefield"; but my reservations: 1, it seems a bit 'hacky' 2, it uses subqueries - i'm pretty sure this is probably slower, and also no idea if this works on 3.23

Hi all I'm working on a mini revision control system. Each page can have a number of slots to insert data, each slot can have its own name and slots can be of different types. If my table structure looks a bit like this: `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, `public` enum('y','n') default 'n', `page_id` int(10) `type` enum('type1','type2') `name` varchar(150) `data` PRIMARY KEY (`id`) how can I, in one query, pull out all the latest revisions (i'm using the primary key for this - ie, ORDER BY id DESC). in the event that there are two or more records with the same 'page_id', 'type' and 'name', i need to pull out the one with the highest ID. It maybe more simple than i'm making it out to be, but i'm a little rusty with my SQL these days...Hope my question makes sense Target machine is MySQL 3.23 if that changes anything... Cheers Mark

have a google around for mod_rewrite (if you're on an Apache web server), as this is the general approach of most similar setups (eg, myspace). the idea is that instead of domain.com/username pointing to a username folder, it ACTUALLY points to something like domain.com/user.php?username=whatever in the background.

it might seem a little obvious at first, but i'm amazed by how many people miss this one due to only being able to (easily) have only one version at the same time: IE6 vs IE7. IE7 is naturally taking over IE6 users (via auto-updates, people upgrading Windows, etc) but IE6 is still very much the leading browser. Both do things differently enough to treat them as seperate browsers in their own right.

good article. i've paid a fair bit of attention to that site recently. cant remember when/if i posted it, but another from the same site that was a great article was here: http://www.digital-web.com/articles/redesigning_the_expressionengine_site/

let's face it, it's not the GAME that is the point of Stu Nicholls site.... I've been back and forward to his site for quite a while now and it's definitely one of my main resources for CSS tricks and stuff. There are many that would still swear blind that it's impossible to do stuff like that without Javascript or Flash on the go...

it's simple and to the point, i suppose, but maybe TOO simple. you can go all fancy and stuff without having to splash a site with graphics and colour, but it's supposed to be your showcase of what you can do. your contact/portfolio pages are broken and give a little bit too much info away - pathnames, etc.

unless i've got this totally wrong, you could consider using HEREDOC or output buffering: <?php $out =<<<EOF <div id="test"> <h1>hello</h1> <p>world {$variable}</p> </div> EOF; ?> or <?php ob_start(); ?> <div id="test"> <h1>hello</h1> <p>world <?=$variable ?></p> </div> <?php $out = ob_get_clean(); ?>

Capricorn. I have a question for you winning the lottery is fun. getting a new job or completing a project is fun. writing music and making noise with the guitar is fun. which part of finding out someone's star sign is fun?

read a book/watch a DVD/go to the pub/update my (still under construction) personal site/play with the family, etc etc (in no particular order and not all at once)

hmm. his terminology, etc throughout that and his other post would indicate a wannabe comedian rather than someone who's a bit technologically backwards...good reads either way

if your email is displayed in italics (which it is) then only yourself and moderators/admin can see it.

ditto for mediawiki. tried and tested, used (and abused) by millions...

dont mean to be rude, but: a) amazon.co.uk is big and ugly enough with a decent enough search to find some good books yourself b) if you cant read the stickies that say "good PHP books" etc at the top of the very forum you're posting in, maybe give the books a miss altogether. topic locked

unfortunately though igor, it really doesnt work like that... in an industry that can be run without ever having to meet your colleagues or clients face to face, nobody really cares whether you're the Pope or Mother Teresa, and nobody has the time to get to know eachother properly and personally. All a client wants is a site built as quickly as possible. All a developer wants is to get paid for building a site in the least amount of time possible. Shame, but true. So my judgement of you is based on the same as any other prospective hirer of your services - your reputation, your attitude and your portfolio, not how nice you are. How nice you are is the difference between me buying a round for you at the pub or not to say thanks. How GOOD you are is the difference between me using your services and letting you put food on the family table or not. It's as simple as that. You really need to let the SEO chip on your shoulder go and just get on with what we're all here to do. Your travel site is still the same now as it was back when i first remember you posting in these parts. No improvements, no SEO adaptions, nothing. If you focussed as much attention and time into your own site as you do hawking the SEO forums and the Google guys, you'd have a pretty good site by now up there with the best...But you dont. I don't mean to be a bastard about it, you might be a nice guy - but it's just the way it works. And it DOES work. Over and out