I'm trying to write an interface between a home-grown project management system and Serena Mariner. (The bigwigs like to read Mariner, the worker bees like to write to the home grown system.)
How can I (programmatically?) figure out what Attribute Keys are available?
I'm actually writing the interface in PHP, but any advice would be much appreciated.
Mariner seems to have an API for working with the system. Otherwise, it might be better to ask at the Mariner Support Forum.
Update: I took a little bit more of a look at the API and it doesn't specify the attributes, which is what your question is about. I guess the support forum is the better bet then.
Related
I'd like to have "PRO" Php developers advice regarding the framework they use , specially for an application that use "mainly" php as authentication process, connector and db data process in relationship with an Ajax/Jquery Client ... I use Zend Framework , but is that framework the lightest solution for that kind of process ?
In my list i have :
Symfony http://symfony.com/get_started
Kohana http://kohanaframework.org/
Ok,
Here are further details on what i need :
I'm developing a website that needs these requirements :
Simple login with classic interface and social ones (facebook, twitter).
When user login , he can just change some parameters on his account (pseudo, password and so on).
Then, the only thing he can do is creating what i will call "objects" that have different properties.
These "objects" can then be share with others through a graphical interface.
Nearly everything on the client side will be just displaying these objects with Jquery/Ajax in relashionship with PHP...
So, i just need PHP for oAuth process and datas manipulations...
I'm trying to find the best solutions regarding this little scenario...
For now, i use Zend Framework on Zend server, it works, but seems to be a little bit "heavy" .. so my question is : is there a better 'lightest' way to consider this ?
Dunno if i'm clear :-/ ...
So, thanks in advance !
Aside agreeing with Gordon, I can see you're just looking for someone to suggest something besides zend.
I would go with Kohana over Symfony because Kohana is much easier to understand out of the box and doesn't require any special setup to work with. It is fast enough to supply you with whatever I assume you need at this level - and by that I mean that if you were building an enterprise level site like ebay you wouldn't be asking this question at all.
You don't need to use the ORM for database interaction but if you decide to it is very easy to understand and will make the development process much faster, even if you don't know the ins and outs of it.
Officially my answer is to agree with Gordon though. If he posts his comment as an answer I will upvote it because you shouldn't just ask the community what they use while providing a tiny list of things you need that almost every site on the planet also uses. It's just too vague.
And yes, I use Kohana all the time. Codeigniter as well if you want another option.
Limonade is another option for very tiny micro-framework. I dislike it for a huge number of reasons but it is not hard to use.
What should be the best choice among REST API, Restler OR Apify ? Which is more secure and more scalable ?
I have built quite a large API based on Restler.
The developer is quite responsive, even though the community might be smaller, and imo it was "simpler to get started"... I actually looked at apify and was kind of turned off by the fact that it was "too flexible" in that it feels (to me personally) like it is trying to tick too many boxes and it made it too complex for my taste... from what I gather you can even serve an entire web app using apify, with a complete MVC structure, etc... it wasnt so much what I was looking for... so I went to restler...
In restler you can convert code or start coding quickly and very easily expose that as an API. A new version is supposedly in the works to be released sometime and would be very much improved in many respects, nonetheless, the way restler is quite "bare" today I feel has been to the best...
I wouldnt want to be restricted in the way I do things, such as talk to a DB, or paginate, etc.... these things, in my case, are tied to my existing DB lib, and pagination and caching mechanisms which are inherited from my legacy non-api app.
In summary, I think apify is perhaps "more complete" in some respects, but it wasnt what I was looking for, quite the contrary. I also feel that I can today very easily port all or almost all of my code to apify, as my code itself is all contained in classes and functions. I have just now looked again at apify and I still find it to be "bloated"? (maybe not performance wise, but to me as a dev it feels a bit bloated, kinda like the kitchen sink - does everything...)
AFAIK restler is also open source, so both are kinda on the same ground there. IIRC restler is based upon another smaller framework. I like that restler is quite small and simple and "gets the job done"... I dont want a PHP Framework a la codeigniter/symphony, etc, I just wanted something to help expose functionality as an API in a secure form, with different permissions, authentication, eaccess levels, etc.
I'm always open to other suggestions!
EDIT: this site may be useful in looking at some other options... http://blog.programmableweb.com/2011/09/23/short-list-of-restful-api-frameworks-for-php/ FRAPI was a close second choice but i thought it was a bit too complicated to get everything i wanted the way i wanted... I suggest you experiment with several for a few hrs each and see where you feel more at home.
I would favor apify for its larger developer and contributor base. Open Source in general is secure, and the actual security of your application will be based on your implementation. The same applies in scalability. I think all mentioned solutions can be scaled equally if the implementation on the server side is correct.
I have a project to implement an EDI solution into an existing ecommerce-like website. There are only three EDI documents involved and only one company to transfer files with. They have strictly defined the X12 documents, and will be responsible for all of the GET/PUT's to an FTP site. The three documents are the Inventory Advice (inbound), Shipment Notification (inbound), and Invoice (outbound).
We do not want/need to implement a full-blown EDI management solution. My question is, am I crazy to think that this is a relatively simple parsing task using PHP? Does anyone know of any existing PHP libraries that might be useful (maybe X12 to XML)? My searches have come-up empty. I'd like to get started on my own right away if it is a realistic goal and no other resources are available.
The designer for the Oakland Data Transformer is free and this allows you to really understand the structure of the X12 document in the context of your sample document. You will need to contact Oakland Software support to get the required EDI definitions.
Depending on what you need, if you are just parsing the documents you should be able to do it pretty easily with PHP and understanding the context using the above product will take the mystery out of it for you.
Full disclosure: I run Oakland Software.
I was looking for something like that for .NET ... and nothing (at least not free, but really expensive). I don't think that you will find anything for php. I've ended up with simple code to do parsing (edi 850) and extract info that I needed. I think that it would be the best approach for you as well.
It's old, but I found it using google and maybe my answer will help someone...
I found in a comment on pear.php.net
http://code.google.com/p/izi-sandbox/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fphp%2Fphp_edi
I found searching for EDIFACT on github
https://github.com/markfoster/php_edifact
I'm primarily using Drupal and am considering moving away from CMS. If I were to build my own platform could I integrate modules like commenting systems, user login, etc. through a PHP/Python API? What would be the proper steps/good places to look/good tutorial on this? Would I have to build all of my own tables manually to suit the needs of such custom modules? I'm wondering if this would even be possible with out having to hard code all of this by hand? Thank you.
You can drop the Disqus commenting system into any site. Same with Facebook Comments.
First of all if you are considering moving away from CMS than you should consider using some sort of framework but with time you will come to idea that you need your own shit in order to be satisfied.
Second, subject you are trying to decipher is a little bit more complex than just writing it down here.
I would suggest you to first think what do you need. What is your main goal with it or what are you trying to accomplish? For example in meaning of commenting, if you want the truth nor PHP nor Python are masterpieces. Why not to consider Node.JS for that?
I mean, web is becoming real-time more and more. Now days we have scripts or to be more precise, pieces of art such as Socket.IO who can with help of Node.JS handle large amount of traffic without any problem. Something nor Python nor PHP can do.
Some stuff you will need to code by yourself but most of the time you just need to code "architecture link" between one versus many features. Eg. take some code and adjust it to be able use it from your own framework or whatever.
As far I see it. I like to do all crucial parts by myself but for example there is Zend Framework and you can use ACL + Auth library and start from there.
Hope this makes some sense. Cheers!
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The debate is that I need a PHP Framework/Drupal with the flexibility to add custom features to a potentially large application (web and with an api).
However, with a framework, like Kohana, I see myself tackling and re-inventing the wheel with the simple stuff like account management and cms stuff. Account management and quick data collection, like fast form creation, are tedious in Kohana but appear incredible simple in Drupal. On the other hand, based on my limited Drupal experience, I doubt building rapid custom "features" and allowing users to create "groups" and to manage their own roles within those groups is something Drupal can easily accomplish.
To simplify, is Drupal capable of true Web Applications; where the application is a service and provides custom results to each user? Can it provide a dashboard-like interface for users to change their settings or preferences? Can it aggregate data from particular users to provide better results/info to others?
If so, please point me to some knowledge :-)
I'll admit right away I'm a big fan of Drupal and I have never used Kohana, so this post will be one-sided.
In the company I work for they use Drupal or Zend Framework for pretty much all projects (Drupal being in the majority). Many ZF-oriented people dislike Drupal as it's structure is so far from the object oriented ZF-stuff, and Drupal is "just an CMS". As I see it Drupal is more of a Framework than "just" a CMS, and the best part being that it is incredibly flexible: everything is possible.
And yes there is indeed a module for everything. To be more specific:
On the other hand, based on my limited Drupal experience, I doubt building rapid custom >"features" and allowing users to create "groups" and to manage their own roles within >those groups is something Drupal can easily accomplish.
I can only guess what you mean with rapid custom features, but imo it's easy to expand Drupal with your own modules. Most features are available as (free, community contributed) modules, and many advanced looking features can be easily created for example with the "views" and "cck"-modules.
http://drupal.org/project/cck
http://drupal.org/project/views
Creating groups:
"organic_groups" ( http://drupal.org/project/og)
"og_user_roles" ( http://drupal.org/project/og_user_roles )
These modules together are what you need to create groups that have group spefic roles (and roles having specific rights). There are probably other ways than using "og_user_roles", but I'm advertising it because I've made a few patches for it a few years ago. The problem is usually a bit too many options.
If you want to extend group specific options you could code your own module, but most likely you don't need to because there already is a module for it. For example, there are at least 120 modules that integrate somehow with the "organic_groups"-module:
http://drupal.org/taxonomy/term/90?page=19
To simplify, is Drupal capable of true Web Applications; where the application is a >service and provides custom results to each user? Can it provide a dashboard-like >interface for users to change their settings or preferences? Can it aggregate data from >particular users to provide better results/info to others?
In short, yes. There are so many ways to achieve something you described. But probably they would involve at least the excellent "views"-module. I think of views as some kind of ultimate abstraction SQL layer and UI for anyone. And there are over 300 modules that somehow integrate with Views... ( http://drupal.org/taxonomy/term/89?page=55 )
This sounds that Drupal is all about the modules.. and I know some of my collegues even dislike it for that, because you never get to code fun stuff because it's already been done. At least you can look at the module code and learn from that. Or laugh at it, there's lots of badly programmed modules around too.
When you get to coding modules, you'll probably need lots of time to get used to the Drupal API, Forms API, Module hooks, the Theme override system, and the endless options from contrib modules. But it's worth the trouble.
I find this site very usefull to find a module for some specific need. The site shows the same module info as Drupal.org, but also user feedback/ratings, to find the best option:
http://drupalmodules.com/
If it's unclear, my answer would be go with Drupal :)
PS: D7 should be out very soon. Some might wait for it instead of starting with D6. During D5 people would wait a long time before upgrading to D6 because of missing modules. I believe for D7 the most important modules will be available for D7 very fast. Some research at the moment (04.12.2010):
About 190 modules promise to have a Drupal 7 version the day D7 is released:
http://drupal.org/project/modules?solrsort=sort_title%20asc&text=d7cx&display=table
About 130 modules are already available for D7 (most are included in the previous link):
http://drupal.org/project/modules?filters=drupal_core:103&solrsort=sort_title%20asc&text=d7cx&display=table
EDIT: As a newbie I'm only allowed to post one link, so, I removed http:// from the drupal.org-links
I worked with both Drupal and Kohana.
In my insight it really depends what you want to do. If you are going to make a web application that needs to grow a lot and should be flexible for it's growth then I recommend using Kohana. Kohana is made to keep your codebase clean and supporting in DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). While it likely doesn't have as many modules as Drupal it does have some Auth and ACL modules.
If you want to be done fast and you don't mind making your application out of others their modules Drupal will get your work done fast. But keep in mind that when you are going to extend you will most likely run into problems that come from modules you don't know. Also it takes a bit flexibility from you.
Ultimately it's your choice. But I recommend using a MVC framework if you are going to write it from scratch.
There is no impossible thing to accomplish. The question is do you want to work with someone else code and try to figure out how to dig inside and extend so it can fit your needs or you want to go with a light framework like Kohana or maybe CodeIgniter(my personal favorite) and drive your own car, although you might need to "invent" some of the wheels.
Go ahead and research what plugins are there to your framework of choice as there are a lot of frameworks providing very good solutions which can provide you with these wheels.
In my personal opinion the time you will spend studying Drupal will be equivalent to the time needed for you to create your basic CMS functionality, but the nerves you will use dealing with stuff out of your control like the core Drupal code will shift the scales in favor of Framework.
The fun stuff about Drupal is what the community calls jokingly rule #35: there is a module for it. Unless you want to do something really tricky, you will often find that the functionality has already been implemented and you just need to configure it.
I am new to both Drupal (7.12) & Kohana (3.2.0)... My experience thus far is that Kohana's documentation SUCKS (or at least, what I've seen of it). And if their website and/or forum is written in Kohana, it sucks as well (slooooow, with overlapping fields, etc.). Whereas with Drupal, it has been clean and so far, very efficient (as best I can tell thus far).
I guess I'm wondering if the comments thus far were focusing on Drupal 6.x and haven't taken into consideration the more recent innovations in Drupal. Any thoughts/comments? Thanks.
As a newbie web developer, I can tell you that you need to analyze the use cases for your web application very strictly. If you are able to cover at least 75% of the use cases you foresee, that's a good start.
With that done, you need to figure if Drupal/Joomla/CMS(x) will give you all of that and with another potential unknown 5-10% feature creep. If so, you maybe better off getting in with Drupal etc.
Else, I think CodeIgniter or Symfony are great PHP frameworks to jump in with. Both offer solid tutorials, video and otherwise, and a helpful community. Kohana, which I am working on, I think you should get into if you really understand PHP and its flaws and realize that speed will be a critical factor. Those are the two big strengths that KO3 brings to the table and you should really need them to use it.
Hope this helps.