What has changed in ROR 4.2 – The new version of Rails

During mid-August the ROR 4.2 was announced for the first time. Now when it is out it definitely looks to go a long way. Besides being the latest and upgraded version, this time certain interesting changes have been introduced in the Ruby on Rails application. Moreover, since it is the recent version it is being widely applied to solve performance issues across the various ROR versions.

Let’s explore the changes one by one:

Active Job and Action Mailer

Delayed Job, Resque, Sidekiq, etc are queuing systems and on top of these lies Active job, an adapter layer. This feature can be used to note down the jobs and they will be running on the queues without any changes. This happens due to the pre configured inline runner. It is a new framework that has been added to Rails 4.2.

Besides the Active Job, there is Active Mailer that is available with #deliver_later method which can add an email that is to be used to the queue. If this is done the model or controller cannot be bogged down at all.

Adequate Record

This version of ROR is also packed with another performance improving feature, known as Adequate Record. This is a set of patches that enables the Active Record to be faster twice. As far as Active Record is concerned it transforms the relation objects to ARel ones. The ARel objects stand for the SQL query AST. Lastly, the Adequate Record can also convert the AST to a real SQL string that is further made to pass to the database.

The Adequate Record works by caching onto the SQL query pattern even when it executes the Active Record calls. The cache, thus, helps in skipping some part of the computation that is engaged in transforming the calls into SQL queries.

Web Console

This is a set of debugging tools used for the ROR application. In a default Rails error page the interactive console is automatically launched. Inspecting the stack trace as well as executing the Ruby code becomes easy with this. Thus running the rail console proves to be quite handy. At times, however, it is not easy to access or share the session with a friend if it is configured with a remote desktop server. It is in this regard that the web console can help the rails console to run. These are found on the in the terminal right in the browser.

Support for Foreign Key

Initially there was no support for the foreign key – neither while adding it nor while removing it. But this time it is different. These keys are immensely useful to ensure that the data stays consistently and corrected even while the records are removed. This feature is supported ROR out of the box.

Bootstrapping apps

For enabling an automated setup code while bootstrapping an app, a new feature has been launched, known as setup or bin. If you have already written down the script then it is time to rename it. For almost all the Rail applications, you need to run certain commands before they are tried out. Even if the apps are almost empty they would require the database to be setup prior to the booting. This is also the place where you should include other codes required to run your applications as well.

HTML Sanitizer

Finally, ROR has replaced the HTML Sanitizer with a more robust framework that has been built across Nokogiri and Loofah. The advantages of this new sanitizer are that it has been built more powerfully and it is also more secure.

Besides the mentioned changes there are other several changes as well, like, the following:

• JSONB datatype is supported by PostgreSQL adapter

• ActiveRecord::Base#validate! has been introduced. This leads to the display of RecordInvalid if the record is actually invalid.

• In order to define the validation on the association a :required has been added to the singular associations.

• #valid? Has found a new alias in #validate

Owing to such changes and more, the ROR 4.2 is being considered as an application that will help I further improvements. You can get in touch with a Ruby on Rails development company, who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

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Some New Features in PHP 5.4 that Needs To Be Listed

The new version, 5.4 of PHP has finally arrived, and it comes up with a string of new features that is extremely important for the developers to know or need to have a grip on. While there are features that have already been there in PHP, and have only been further developed, there are certain features that have been added afresh.

Traits

This is one of the most significant features of the version 5.4, which consists of code fragments or a set or string of methods, which can be used repeatedly across the classes horizontally. In case of other languages, mixins or multiple inheritances address this particular issue. However, traits do not offer states in forms of properties. It offers a copy and paste method that is assisted by interpreter. Moreover, traits come up with a unique conflict resolution mechanism. Besides, the multiple traits can be used in the same class, even if certain methods are overlapping.

Improved Arrays though syntax and dereferencing

Arrays act like super glue In PHP. They are one of the strongest as well as the longest constructs. As a result of this, shorter syntaxes can also be used in the new version for defining in associative as well as numerical way. The structure of the syntax introduces brackets as short-hand, which has properly been defined and included in PHP scripts.

HTTP Server that is built-in

It also comes up with an in-built HTTP Server for current directories, for the purpose of testing as well as development. Then there are a number of additional options, which include customer document root as well as a router script that can be called upon each request.

Built-in Web Server (CLI)

CLI Server is not designed or developed to be used as a production Web server. It is basically used for conducting some of the PHP regression tests as well as other mechanisms of unit testing. In version 4.5, it comes up with some interesting as well as useful features for daily code debugging jobs that are conducted from the command line.

Deprecations

The latest version of PHP does not have a few of the older features such has the Magic Quotes option, which are either modified in the new version or have been dropped altogether. Again, the PHP namespace is now exclusively reserved to deal with the native code. The E_STRICT errors, which cover the correct usage of the object-oriented constructs as well as deprecation warning, are now covered by E_ALL error reporting, which will point out to each and every error, notice or warning.

Other changes and improvements

PHP version 5.4 has also seen some other minor, not so revolutionary, yet handy improvements that the developers will appreciate at the end of the day.

The latest edition has the ability of disabling the processing of POST data for saving memory CPU cycles. In case this property is activated, it is still possible to go and read the raw data through the input stream path.

JsonSerializable Interface has been introduced and this will help making an object acceptable to the json_encode().

Other improvements include:

Added callable typehint, which provides a function name, an array, composed of an object or a classname, a closure, and a method name, for a definite string.

Added Closure rebinding as parameter to bindTo

This particular feature has been modified so much so that it will now accept any other type of argument, which will define a new scope. This can well be an object in case its class is used as class name or a scope.

Improvement in Memory and Performance

Besides, there are quite a number of internal structures that have either been contracted or have been altogether been eliminated and this has led to almost 20 to 50 per cent memory savings in the larger applications. This has also bettered the performance by 10 to 30 percent, though a series of optimizations that include inlining of various common paths of codes. You can hire PHP developers from PHP development company for your web development needs, who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

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PHP and Its Evolution over the Years

As a dynamic programming language, PHP can be used for both general programming and server-side scripting context. But PHP was originally not written by Rasmus Lerdorf as a new programming language. After designing the language to maintain his personal home page, Lerdorf subsequently extended it build simple and dynamic web pages. He publicly released “Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter” or PHP/FI as “Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools) version 1.0”. Since its first public release in April, 1996, PHP has been evolving over the years as a powerful and dynamic programming language.

Continuous Evolution of PHP as a Dynamic Programming Language

PHP/FI: It is the second-generation implementation of the programming language that provided a complete makeover to it. The implementation further converted PHP into an independent programming language from a set of tools. Along with supporting cookies and user-defined functions, PHP/FI also came with built-in support for several databases including mSQL, DBM and Postgres95.

PHP 2: The version 2.0 of PHP was released in June 1995. It is also a single and full version of PHP 2.0. When PHP 2.0 was released in November 1997, it came with a completely rewritten underlying parsing engine. The parsing engine also distinguished the commercial release from the earlier beta release.

PHP 3: The version 3.0 of the programming language closely resembles the modern PHP. PHP 3.0 was developed by the combined efforts of many developers across the world. The version was released officially after thorough open public testing. The release also made PHP installed on 10% of web servers across the world. It was further hosted on web servers running on Macintosh and different versions of Windows.

PHP 4.0: PHP 4.0 was designed with the objective to optimize the performance of complex applications. Along with making PHP’s code base more modular, the version 4.0 also supported a wide range of databases and third-party APIs. It was further made based on the new Zend engine. The engine and new features improved the programming language’s performance drastically. PHP 4.0 also supported additional web servers, output buffering, HTTP sessions, while handling user input more securely.

PHP 5.0: After several pre-releases, the version 5.0 of PHP was officially released in July 2004. Along with Zend 2.0, it came with a number of new features and significant improvements. Along with supporting XML, PHP 5.0 further allowed programmers to access and manipulate XML as PHP objects. At the same time, it also came with an improved MySQL extension called MySQLi that included an object oriented interface. It further enable programmers to create make Web Services more interoperable by using the built-in SOAP extension.

PHP 5.1: The version 5.1 of the programming language was released in November 2005 with a completely rewritten date handling code, improved time zone support, several built-in extensions, and bug fixes. By enabling PDO extensions, PHP 5.1 simplified and improved data handling.

PHP 5.2: PHP 5.2.0 was released in November 2006 with features to improve the performance of heavy-traffic websites. Along with more tracking memory usage more accurately and efficiently, the version 5.2.0 also came with a new memory manager for the Zend Engine. It also came with a number of new features including ZIP extension, JSON extension, input filtering, date and time objects, and hooks for tracking the progress of file uploads.

PHP 5.3: The earlier versions of PHP were lacking the better object model required by complex application. So the version 5.3 of PHP was designed with improved object oriented programming. Along with several new extensions and optimal garbage collection for cyclic references, PHP 5.3 also supported namespaces, closures, late static binding and similar concepts related to object oriented programming.

PHP 5.4: As a major version of the programming language, PHP 5.4 was released in March 2012. Along with over 100 bug fixes, it came with new features like shortened array syntax, traits and built-in web server for application testing. At the same time, the version also introduced optimized performance and memory footprint.

PHP 5.5: The version 5.5 of PHP was released in June 2013. It introduced several new features including finally keyword, support for constant array/string dereferencing, simplified password hashing API, generators and coroutines, and support for list() constructs in foreach statements.

According to several reports, a new major version of the programming language called PHP7 is under development. The next version of PHP aims to optimize its performance by refactoring the Zend framework, while retaining its language compatibility. You can hire PHP developers from PHP development company for your web development needs, who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

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Python Programming for Mobile Applications – Is It Possible?

Unlike other widely used programming languages, Python enables programmers to express concepts without writing lengthy and complex code. The general purpose programming language is further designed with focus on code readability, while featuring automatic memory management system and a dynamic type system. The large and comprehensive standard library provided by Python further makes it easier for programmers to create a variety of applications.

The huge popularity of smartphones, tablets and phablets often makes programmers explore ways to write mobile applications in Python. The high level programming language does not run natively on any of the widely used mobile platforms. So the programmers cannot use Python directly for creating mobile apps for Android and iOS. But they still have option to use a library called Kivy to create mobile applications that run seamlessly on major mobile platforms.

How Kivy Helps Programmers to Use Python for Mobile App Development?

Facilitates Deployment of the Same Code to Multiple Mobile Platforms

Often developers have to put extra time and effort to create versions for the same app for different mobile platforms. But Kivy enable programmers to write the code once and deploy it for various mobile platforms. So it becomes easier for developers to create mobile apps for different platforms. The Python library can also be used for creating the same app for both mobile devices and computers. After creating different versions of the same app, it becomes easier for the enterprise to package it distinctively for each app store.

Can Interact with Mobile Device’s Features

Kivy can further access rendering engines. It can interact with the device’s hardware and execute advanced rendering. For instance, programmers can use built-in adapters for smartphone cameras provided by Kivy to make the app more responsive. Likewise, they can also use the modules included in Kivy to render and play videos. Also, the robust input module of Kivy makes it easier for the app to interact with the users through gestures and multi-touch.

Easily Create an Array of Visual Effects

Kivy also has access to OpenGL. So it can be used for generating and rendering a wide range of visual effects. As it uses PyGame, it becomes easier for developers to create a variety of exciting games. However, the existing PyGame needs to be rewritten for the Python library. The programmers can use the modules of PyGame to play music, draw shapes and manipulate colors. As visual effects are essential to make a mobile app popular, Kivy can be used to make the mobile apps more impressive and eye-catchy.

Supports Asynchronous Request Processing

While using native apps, users want their requests to be processes regardless of the strength and available of network. As Kivy supports asynchronous request processing, it becomes easier for programmers to create apps that can finish the user request once the network in available. For instance, when a user frequently travels in and out of network areas, the feature will make the app sync the user request and finish it as soon as the network is available.

Provides Loads of Widgets and Controls

Kivy also helps developers in creating prototypes of the mobile app quickly by using several widgets and controls. The widgets and layouts are also available out of box. For instance, Accordion enables programmers to expand and collapse items through simple touch or clicks. Likewise, the user can use Carousel to swipe between slides. Based on the use of the mobile app, the developers can use the layouts and widgets to make the app deliver richer user experience.

Before using Kivy for creating mobile applications, the programmers must have a solid grasp on Python. However, the programmers are not required to know how to program on major mobile platforms like iOS and Android. Kivy further allows developers to define layout using a special language called Kv. As a layout language, Kv makes it easier for developers to keep the business logic and presentation separate. So the developers familiar with Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern can easily use Kivy to write complex applications in Python development.

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How good is Software Development Using ColdFusion 11?

Software development, including development of websites as well as web based applications with the help of ColdFusion 11 has got a number of advantages from the developers’ point of view. In fact, the professionals who deal with ColdFusion 11 can enjoy a fair amount of advantage, particularly when it comes to development of web based applications that are highly effective.

The specialty of this ColdFusion version is that there is no need of any wide-ranging coding like what is needed in JSP, PHP, and ASP applications. It is, thus, extremely easy to use, and also comes up with a high run time performance. Besides, it is highly dependable, and this is one of the main reasons why it is always better to use ColdFusion 11 for software development. In fact, at present it is one of the most adorable as well as sought after choices when it comes to software development. Again, the version 11 is particularly preferred by the CF programming professionals as well as development specialists. This version is capable of quickly producing web based apps that are dynamic and are rich in advanced functionality, along with a string of value added features.

Recent upgrades of CF have resulted in the incorporation of a string of innovative features that have significantly raised the levels as well as quality of functionality along with the scalability of the applications. With the use of the CF version 11, the users will also find it much easier while integrating CF with other IT environments and the domains thereof. One of the most useful features that make it highly effective in software development is that it offers a web app server with the capacity to work across a variety of platforms. This is a very important aspect as it permits the owners of the sites to maintain a stability level of their already-existing applications. It also offers a sustainable, definitive, as well as a stable framework for various applications that allows a developer to come up with additional applications whenever required for the existing applications. Also version 11 of CF has the ability of integrating web pages with the databases with the help of a wide variety of tools that is customary of every ColdFusion version.

ColdFusion 11 is indeed a fantastic application that can be used for managing a significant extent of information, like customer information database. A CF programmer has the leverage of tracking the projects and providing back-end support. CF11 offers the option of easily managing the database with the use of a single interface, which maintains data integrity within an environment that is safe and secured.

Particularly, when it comes to CF version 11, it comes up with Ajax framework, with the help of which, users are able to access various elements of the user interface like tree controls and rich text editors. Also, by using CF version 11, users are able to apply remote or local .NET objects with their already existing applications. In fact, using CF 11 is indeed a sound as well a wise choice for a number of site owners.

ColdFusion 11 also enables development of mobile applications by using PhoneGap, CFML, and HTML5 and for that there is no need to have any extensive knowledge about PhoneGap whatsoever, Even any lack of familiarity with PhoneGap APIs or the development model thereof will also not make much of a difference. Just some knowledge of ColdFusion based APIs designed for mobile device, which summarizes up the concept of singular or multiple corresponding PhoneGap APIs will be more than enough.

ColdFusion11 also offers extensive supports to the client-side CFML. It actually is a code that performs within a browser. The concept is different from its server-side counterpart, which essentially is mainly compiled and executed on a server for generating the desired HTML output, which is subsequently sent to a browser.

Thus, when it comes to the development of website applications with the use of ColdFusion 11, the advantages are diverse. The only thing that is needed is using the application with some common sense along with some professionalism to bring the best out of it. You can get in touch with a custom ColdFusion development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

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Top ASP.Net Controls for Software Developers

Microsoft has designed ASP.Net as a server-side web application development that helps programmers in rapidly create websites, web applications and web services. Since its initial release in 2002, ASP.Net is used widely by developers to create a wide range of dynamic internet applications. As the framework is built on Common Language Runtime (CLR), the programmers have option to write code in a variety of languages supported by .Net including C# and VB.Net.

At the same time, they also have option to use several ASP.Net controls to accomplish complex tasks without writing longer lines of code. Along with using the HTML server controls, web server controls, and validation server controls, ASP.Net programmers also have option to create user controls and custom control. They can further use the properties and attributes of these ASP.Net controls to curtail the overall development time and efforts.

Widely Used ASP.Net Controls for Web Programmers

HTML Server Controls

As the name indicates, these controls are HTML tags identifies and understood by the web server. The ASP.Net files treat HTML elements as text by default. But the developers can make the HTML elements programmable by adding the runat=”server” attribute. Also, they have to add the id attribute to make the web server identify the HTML server controls at run time. However, it is also important to place all HTML server controls a <form> tag with the runat=”server” attribute. The attribute will ensure that the form needs to be processed at the server, while allowing the server script to access the enclosed HTML server controls.

Web Server Controls

The web server controls can be defined as special ASP.Net tags identifies and understood by the server. The web server controls are created on the web server. Like HTML server controls, web server controls also need the runat=”server” attribute. But the server controls can be used to represent more complex elements without being mapped to any existing HTML elements. The programmers can follow a simple syntax to create different ASP.Net web server controls.

Validation Server Controls

The web programmers also have option to use a variety of ASP.Net validation server controls for validating user input. But each validation controls is designed to validate the user input against a specific value or range of values. An error message will be displayed to the end user, if his information does not pass the validation. The page validation will occur by default whenever the user clicks on a Button, LinkButton or ImageButton. The programmers, however, have option to disable the validation by setting the CauseValidation property of the button control as false.

Data Bound Controls

Most websites and web applications have present a wide range of data to the users. The applications are further required to present and retrieve data from the backend source based on user’s criterions. The ASP.Net data bound controls are designed to facilitate retrieval and presentation of data from the backend source for dynamic web applications. ASP.Net 2.0 has further effectuated the data presentation by adding the declarative syntax and BaseDataBoundControl class to the data-bound controls. The web programmers have option to derive several data-bound classes from the DataBoundControl, including List controls, GridView, FormView, DetailsView and AdRotator. Likewise, they can derive Menu, TreeView and SiteMapPath classes from the HierarchicalDataBoundControl class. Thus, the programmers have option to make the data presentation more engaging by using the right data bound control.

Web Parts Controls

The ASP.Net web parts controls are designed specifically to enable end users to modify the website’s content, behavior and appearance directly from a web browser. Whenever a use changes the web pages or controls, the settings will be stored for future. Thus, the overall look and feel of the web page can be personalized for the user during his future visits. The web programmers have option to use several web parts controls to allow users to personalize the page layout or page content. Likewise, the authorized users can be allowed to modify, manage or personalize the site-level settings.

Microsoft aims to re-implement, ASP.Net as a cross-platform and modular web development framework that runs on the open-source .NET Compiler Platform. The project titled “ASP.Net vNext” will make it easier for programmers to use these ASP.Net controls to create applications that run smoothly on a wide range of devices. You can get in touch with a custom .Net development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide .Net development services. If you would like to hire certified .net developers for your development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Amazon Web Services with .Net – What Should We Know?

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) can be defined as a single package that can be downloaded. It comes up with VSP or Visual Studio Templates, the AWS.NET library, code samples of C#, and last but not the least, documentation. The AWS.NET Software Development Kit (SDK) is designed to make the life the Windows developers much easier, when it comes to building .NET applications that offer economical, scalable, as well as trustworthy infrastructure services like Amazon Simple Storage Service or Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2, SimpleDB and the likes.

The SDK of the package is also designed to support development on any type of platform, which is compatible with .NET Framework 3.5 or the more advanced versions. It also helps to develop as well design applications with the SDK, by using 2010 or later versions of Visual Studio. In order to make the process of development much simpler, AWS also provides a Visual Studio AWS toolkit, a plug-in for Visual Studio that comes up with the Software Development Kit for.NET, so that the developers do not have to separately install the SDK. The plug in also includes project templates for C# for web applications as well as consoles, support for taking care of the account credentials with optimal safety or security, a AWS Explorer, which can be used for managing the AWS resources from the Visual Studio.

The package is designed in such a way that when it comes to running MS SQL server, Exchange, SharePoint or applications of custom .NET, the customers or in other words, the end users will be able to rely on its trustworthiness and absolutely secured global infrastructure for running any type of MS Windows applications in the cloud without any hiccup whatsoever.

It helps the customers to get rid of the cost as well as the complexity of purchasing servers or managing the data centers and still avail more resources for putting emphasis on various solutions, as they provide value addition to the end users.

AWS also offers AMIs or preconfigured Machine Images. These AMIs help customers to switch on and run fully supported Window Server Virtual Machines within minutes. Then again, there are multiple versions of the software, which may be or may not be with SL Server. With the use an AMI, the MS software licensing can be taken care of by AWS though the expense will get added to the monthly bill.

It also helps in designing and coding, building and testing, running and debugging. The AWS Windows PowerShell tools help the Windows developers as well as the administrators to manage their AWS related services from the Windows PowerShell scripting setting.

The framework also helps to improve connection, by offering the developers the option of joining the community developers, who are into the development of secured, trustworthy, and scalable operations on the AWS cloud. It also helps in establishing connections that shift the process of development into a faster lane.

It also comes up with a streamlined manual that provides in depth knowledge of the package, provided by seasoned and experienced experts. This manual provides guidance on making the most of the AWS, along with various ways to find solutions to the common and not-so-common challenges. It supports Windows, Windows Phone Apps and connects the Windows Store and the Windows Phone Apps to Amazon Web Services cloud. It also comes up with libraries, which support Windows servers, tablets, desktops, various phones, or mobile environments.

On the other hand, the OPF or Object Persistence Framework negates the requirement for converting application-level data along with the customized middleware solutions through the process of mapping the .NET classes to the Amazon Database items for storing or retrieving the data. It comes up with a DynamoDB Session State Provider that is designed to remove various session state scales hiccups or bottlenecks by storing the state of ASP.NET sessions in DynamoDB. You can get in touch with a custom .Net development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide .Net development services. If you would like to hire ASP.NET developers for your development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Symfony – A Weapon for PHP Developers

As a server-side scripting language, PHP is used widely by developers for creating a wide variety of websites and web applications. Some programmers prefer mixing PHP code with HTML code, whereas others combine PHP code with different web development frameworks and templating engines. But most web developers use Symfony to rapidly create large and complex PHP applications. As a leading PHP framework, Symfony makes it easier for developers to curtail the both development time and efforts. At the same time, the innovative features of Symfony make it a powerful weapon for PHP developers.

Features that Make Symfony a Powerful Weapon for PHP Developers

Easy to Use and Configure

Symfony is compatible with most platforms, infrastructures and business libraries. So it can be used for creating PHP applications for clients belonging to different sectors. However, the framework is still easy to use and configure. The programmers have option to start development simply by configuring certain things in the application. Unlike other PHP frameworks, Symfony can be configured without requiring any extra time and efforts.

Fast and Saves Memory

Symfony2 is designed with strong emphasis on performance and speed. So it is much faster than other frameworks like Zend Framework 1.10 and Symfony 1.4. At the same time, Symfony can work efficiently without taking much memory. So the programmers can use the PHP framework without investing in expensive hardware and memory devices.

Expandable

Symfony enables developers to add new bundles to the framework through bundles. They also have option to present all aspects of the application as bundles. Thus, the system of bundles allows all aspects of Symfony modifiable. Also, the bundles can be reused for multiple projects, and be shared with the Symfony community. The bundles make it easier for programmers to control the framework’s behavior without complete reconfiguration.

Extensive Cache System

Symfony2 also comes with an extensive cache system. The cache system can be used to optimize the performance of websites and internet applications. The extensive cache further makes it easier for developers to easily optimize the performance of large applications.

Supports MVC Architecture

Despite being a powerful scripting language, PHP cannot be used exclusively for creating complex web applications. But Symfony makes it easier for programmers to create large and complex application by using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. The MVC patterns enables programmers to keep the business logic, presentation and controls separate. So the large projects can be developed in a distributed environment. The MVC architecture further makes it easier for developers to maintain and modify their code.

Generates Reusable and Testable Code

Unlike other PHP frameworks, Symfony is effective in producing reusable and testable code. The developers can simply create plug-ins and use them to add new functionalities to the application. The plug-ins can also be reused from several projects. Likewise, Symfony improves the application’s performance by delivering testable code. Symfony also provides built-in unit and functional testing framework to facilitate test-driven development.

Command-Line Interface and Tools

Symfony also allows programmers to use a command-line interface. The command-line interface makes it easier for developers to automate the deployment of applications between two web servers. Symfony also allows programmers to access a wide range of command line tools to effectuate project management and administration. For instance, they can use the in-built form generator to automate the repopulation and validation of forms. Likewise, the administrator can track the application’s activities by using the logging features provided by the PHP framework.

Despite being a leading custom PHP development framework, Symfony is open source and free. So the programmers can use the web application development framework without incurring any additional expenses. Further, they can avail the assistance of huge community of Symfony fans to easily enhance the application’s functionality and performance.

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CakePHP – What Do We Know About It?

Before we get on to the details about cake PHP, let us at first know what CakePHP is all about. It is actually a web application framework that is open source and follows the customary MVC (Model View Controller) business. It is written in PHP and follows the concept of ROR. Alternately speaking, it is a PHP framework for rapid web development that generally uses certain common design patterns such as ActiveRecord, ADP or Association Data Mapping, Font Controller besides following MVC. It is basically a PHP equivalent of ROR.

The framework is extremely useful when it comes to seamlessly creating static pages, more so when it comes to creating controller for these static pages or defining action for each of them whenever needed. Therefore, technically speaking CakePHP is a foundation structure that can be used for creating web applications. The primary objective of the framework is to help the developers to work in a quick yet structured manner, with losing any flexibility.

If the task of web development was somewhat monotonous, CakePHP has taken out that element of monotony, by offering a wide range of tools for coding as well as specifying logic into the application. So let us go through the features that CakePHP comes up with:

• The framework is active as well as extremely user-friendly so that even the ones who are new in development can deal with it without any hiccup whatsoever

• It is flexible as well as compatible with PHP version 4, 5

• It comes up with integrated CRUD for database integration, it supports scaffolding of applications, helps in code generation

• It features certain build-in validations along with a request dispatcher with some clean custom URLs, routes

• It is pretty fast and it supports flexible templating with helpers for PHP syntax, AJAX, HTML forms, JavaScript and much more

• It also supports data sanitization as well as flexible caching

The USP of the framework is that it is designed to provide a tough enough base or foundation for any application. It is designed to handle each and every aspect – right from an initial request by a user, through the process of development till the final rendering of the web page in question. Again, as the framework is designed to follow the MVC principles, it allows seamless customization of the pages and extends to almost every feature of an application.

It also offers a basic organizational structure, helping in structuring of filenames as well as the names of the database tables, which in turn helps to maintain the consistency along with the logic of applications. This is a simple, yet quite powerful concept, especially in the question of maintaining the overall health of an application.

Now let us go through the basic tasks that can be done with the help of CakePHP.

Data Validation

This is an extremely vital component of any application because it helps to guarantee that the data that are used in a particular model sticks to the business rules or the terms and conditions pertaining to the application. This may include validating the user ID or password or checking out the uniqueness of the user names used.

Data Sanitization

It also helps in data sanitization. The Sanitize class that CakePHP comes up with can be utilized to free the data submitted by the users from the malicious or erroneous data and other unnecessary information. Sanitize is essentially a core library, and hence can be utilized anywhere within the code, though it is best used in models or controllers.

Error Handling

In case any unrecoverable or irretrievable error occurs in any application, it is a rather common practice to halt the processing mechanism and display the error page. For that what is needed is separate code error handling for each controller and component, which is a tedious as well as time consuming task. CakePHP saves a developer from this laborious job by pre-defining a series of error-types. One of the most common as well as useful error types is ‘Error-404’.

Debugging

It is an inseparable part of any software development cycle. Though CakePHP does not come up with any tool specifically for debugging or tools that have anything to do with Editor or IDE, it does offer a string of tools that help in debugging indirectly, though not directly; displaying whatever was running at the back end of the application. CakePHP also helps in debugging, caching, logging, testing, localization and internationalization, pagination and REST (Representational State Transfer). You can hire developers from PHP development company who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to discuss with our certified php developer about your web development project, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

Why is AngularJS and ASP.Net Considered a Good Combination?

Before discussing the efficacy of the combination of AngularJS and ASP.Net, let us at first discuss about them individually and then shift our discussion to the combination of the two.

AngularJS

Web application development is a complex process and in order to make the process trifle easier, a number of frameworks have been operational of late. Some of these applications have tasted success, while some others have not. AngularJS is one such application that has been quite successful. It is simple, yet effective, especially when it comes to providing a declaration markup, in which the intent of the user is expressed through the custom syntax of HTLM and the customary data bindings. It is also compatible with dependency injection, mostly because AngularJS supports robust testing. AngularJS employs‘$http’ for the purpose of loading files, with the use of its very own jQuery version, which is much lightweight. In case a project has a jQuery copy already installed, Angular will opt for that version and use it so as to be consistent, leading to the smooth as well as seamless execution of the project.

ASP.Net

ASP.Net on the other hand is a stout as well as extremely mature platform that helps in designing and developing enterprise-level web applications. It is exceptionally mature in terms of .Net runtime. Besides, it can easily be comprehended. This is what makes it so popular amongst the developers. The framework provides a fairly healthy as well as user-friendly abstraction over various web based protocols that include the web APIs. It also provides a healthy software testing story.

Mixing ASP.Net with AngularJS

Now let us come to the discussion that involves the efficacy of using both these two frameworks together, on a single product. It is fairly easy to use both Dot Net as well as AngularJS, by simply using ASP.Net MVC4 template, and then following it up by importing angularjs nugget. The process involves a lot of technicalities though mentioning them at this point does not make any sense, given the topic of the discussion.

However, one thing that needs to be mentioned is that there is all the probability of running into the technical details of dealing with AngularJS routing, in order to partially display the HTML pages, which remain embedded in the server itself.

It is pretty simple as well as fairly advantageous to mix these two technologies as they both are compatible to MVC framework with the only difference being, while one is a client side validation (AngularJS) the other favors server side validation (ASP.Net) though practically speaking there is no such “one-choice-fits-all” solution.

Experts are of the opinion that usage of AngularJS usage cannot be regarded as a unique approach. If the users opt only to utilize the functionality of the two frameworks simultaneously that is not only a possibility, but that helps in creating the “apps” directory under the Scripts folder for the project in question, and that in turn goes a long way in helping to organize the files involved in the project, thereby increasing the maneuverability by many folds.

The combination or collaboration of ASP.Net Web API (which is a server-side technology) and AngularJS (which is a client side framework), works on .NET web stack and is widely acceptable by the developers. Since, the majority of application logic has moved on to the browser from the back end. This at the end of the day results in a much richer and much superior client interface, specially for the single page apps, which need an application structure that is very different from the ones needed by the traditional websites. For making the Angular.JS and Dot Net combination work along with MVC, it is imperative to utilize the HTML5 local as well as the locations of the session storage. You can get in touch with a custom .net development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide .net development services. If you would like to hire dot net devs for your development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.