Module Sharing and framework.zend.com

[Mary Nicole Hicks]

I have found that Zend Framework is brilliant, but there are some parts of a website that are just boring to implement. Take login and registration forms for example. I am sure that 80% are very similar.

I think that the Zend framework team needs to add a registry of 3rd party ZF modules to their site. Just something similar to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ would do the job. The url could be something like http://framework.zend.com/modules. The 3rd party modules would not have to be hosted on framework.zend.com, but could be hosted anywhere like http://sourceforge.net/. There could also be rules such as only allowing free open source modules.

The benefit of this sort of project is that it would foster a stronger user community around the framework.zend.com site.

[weierophinney]

-- Mary Nicole Hicks <[hidden email]> wrote
(on Thursday, 09 July 2009, 08:56 PM -0700):

> I have found that Zend Framework is brilliant, but there are some parts of a
> website that are just boring to implement. Take login and registration forms
> for example. I am sure that 80% are very similar.
>
> I think that the Zend framework team needs to add a registry of 3rd party ZF
> modules to their site. Just something similar to
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ would do the job. The url could be
> something like http://framework.zend.com/modules. The 3rd party modules
> would not have to be hosted on framework.zend.com, but could be hosted
> anywhere like http://sourceforge.net/. There could also be rules such as
> only allowing free open source modules.
>
> The benefit of this sort of project is that it would foster a stronger user
> community around the framework.zend.com site.

We've discussed this a number of times, and we're all for it. However,
the ZF team at Zend is very small -- myself and two engineers, presently
-- and we're fairly busy as it is working on the maintenance and
features of the framework. Something like addons.mozilla.org would be
nice -- but I also know that a fair bit of time went into developing
that application.

So, hint, hint -- if somebody or a group of you would like to work on
such an application, we may be able to host it on the ZF site, and give
credit to the authors. We would, of course, like to provide some input
as to the specifications, but otherwise... :)

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead            | [hidden email]
Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/

[Vince42]

Hi,

Matthew Weier O'Phinney schrieb:
> So, hint, hint -- if somebody or a group of you would like to work on
> such an application, we may be able to host it on the ZF site, and give
> credit to the authors. We would, of course, like to provide some input
> as to the specifications, but otherwise... :)

I guess as long as we still suffer from the absence of standards
regarding self-contained modules, this would rather lead to confusion
than to a big success.

I think most developers would expect to have the option to download and
to easily integrate some typical modules like Auth, ACL etc - and they
would be quickly frustrated if the modules - due to the lack of
standardization - would not work the way like Firefox plug-ins do.

Don't get me wrong: I don't expect the ambitious developer not to see
that it is always difficult to incorporate other people's work, but I
really think that for a newcomer such a site at the current stage would
be rather counter-productive as it induces some wrong expectations.

First we need to have some best practices like we discussed them before
- then it would be a joy to code such modules and certainly a big leap
forward for ZF to a wider user base.

Just my two cents. :)

--
Cheers,                        \\|//
Vince                          (o o)
----------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------------------------
 '''   (o)_(o)                                        [ ][0][ ]
 ô¿ô   (=°o°=)   World Domination by Copy and Paste   [ ][ ][0]
  -    (")_(")                                        [0][0][0]

 ()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
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---------------------------.ooO----(  )-------------------------
                           (  )    (_/
                            \_)

[umpirsky]

We can create new thread and share zend oriented api. All of us have sth implemented, I have started tr.im API class, extended twitter API class...someone probably have pay-pal e.t.c why not zip and share it right there on mail list? They might not be perfect, but can be used to see way sth is implemented, and why not making it better. Simply attach what works for you.

What do you think?

Regards,
Saša Stamenković

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 8:18 AM, Vince42 <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,

Matthew Weier O'Phinney schrieb:

> So, hint, hint -- if somebody or a group of you would like to work on
> such an application, we may be able to host it on the ZF site, and give
> credit to the authors. We would, of course, like to provide some input
> as to the specifications, but otherwise... :)

I guess as long as we still suffer from the absence of standards
regarding self-contained modules, this would rather lead to confusion
than to a big success.

I think most developers would expect to have the option to download and
to easily integrate some typical modules like Auth, ACL etc - and they
would be quickly frustrated if the modules - due to the lack of
standardization - would not work the way like Firefox plug-ins do.

Don't get me wrong: I don't expect the ambitious developer not to see
that it is always difficult to incorporate other people's work, but I
really think that for a newcomer such a site at the current stage would
be rather counter-productive as it induces some wrong expectations.

First we need to have some best practices like we discussed them before
- then it would be a joy to code such modules and certainly a big leap
forward for ZF to a wider user base.

Just my two cents. :)

--
Cheers,                        \\|//
Vince                          (o o)
----------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------------------------
 '''   (o)_(o)                                        [ ][0][ ]
 ô¿ô   (=°o°=)   World Domination by Copy and Paste   [ ][ ][0]
 -    (")_(")                                        [0][0][0]

 ()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
 /\  www.asciiribbon.org   - against proprietary attachments
                                  Ooo.
---------------------------.ooO----(  )-------------------------
                          (  )    (_/
                           \_)

[Mario Guenterberg-3]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 08:56:21PM -0700, Mary Nicole Hicks wrote:

>
> I have found that Zend Framework is brilliant, but there are some parts of a
> website that are just boring to implement. Take login and registration forms
> for example. I am sure that 80% are very similar.
>
> I think that the Zend framework team needs to add a registry of 3rd party ZF
> modules to their site. Just something similar to
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ would do the job. The url could be
> something like http://framework.zend.com/modules. The 3rd party modules
> would not have to be hosted on framework.zend.com, but could be hosted
> anywhere like http://sourceforge.net/. There could also be rules such as
> only allowing free open source modules.
>
> The benefit of this sort of project is that it would foster a stronger user
> community around the framework.zend.com site.

I think the speed for developing new minor/major versions of ZF
and there changes in API make this to a not practicable scheme. The
resulting _modules_ must be marked for compatibility of ZF versions.

And of course, there is so mutch changed in the last months, that it
is better to implement more standards, or maybe standard ways.

Just my 2 cents.
Mario

--
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V-- PS++ PE++ Y PGP+++ t--- 5 X++++ R++ tv- b+++ DI D++++  G++ e* h----
r+++ y++++
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[Mary Nicole Hicks]

Mary Nicole Hicks wrote

----- QUOTE Mary Nicole Hicks -----
I think that the Zend framework team needs to add a registry of 3rd party ZF modules to their site. Just something similar to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ would do the job.
----- QUOTE END -----

Matthew Weier O'Phinney-3 wrote

----- QUOTE Matthew Weier O'Phinney-3 -----
 - We've discussed this a number of times
 - The ZF team at Zend is very small
 - Fairly busy
 - hint, hint -- if somebody or a group of you would like to work on
such an application, we may be able to host it on the ZF site, and give
credit to the authors.
----- QUOTE END -----

Is there a bare list of features that such a thing would need. If there is very little time that anyone can spend on it, then I think number of features would need to be cut down to the bare minumim. To me, the bare minumim would be a list of links in a wiki somewhere. Although this would be far from being like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/, but it would be a start.

Vince42 wrote

----- QUOTE Vince42 -----
I guess as long as we still suffer from the absence of standards
regarding self-contained modules, this would rather lead to confusion
than to a big success.

Don't get me wrong: I don't expect the ambitious developer not to see
that it is always difficult to incorporate other people's work, but I
really think that for a newcomer such a site at the current stage would
be rather counter-productive as it induces some wrong expectations.
----- QUOTE END -----

It is for that reason that I think such a system would need to start small. Out of the way of newcomers, but in a place on the site where the ambitious developer can learn to bookmark.

umpirsky wrote

----- QUOTE umpirsky -----
We can create new thread and share zend oriented api. All of us have sth
implemented, I have started tr.im API class, extended twitter API
class...someone probably have pay-pal e.t.c why not zip and share it right
there on mail list? They might not be perfect, but can be used to see way
sth is implemented, and why not making it better. Simply attach what works
for you.
What do you think?

Regards,
Saša Stamenkovic
----- QUOTE END -----

This is why I think that the modules should be setup at a place like http://sourceforge.net/ with links from the framework.zend.com site. Currently there is code for modules scattered around on blogs and threads. Often no one will update code on threads or blogs, so to find a tr.im API class or extended twitter API class that works after ZF has moved along a few versions is hard.

When I do find a broken 3rd party tr.im API class or extended twitter API class that has been broken by a ZF update, I want to help fix it. Although I might not be the best coder, I can find the broken parts or bugs and help fix them. The bonus is that places like http://sourceforge.net/ have issue trackers for when these 3rd part classes break.

As long as all the linked modules are free, open source and are hosted on a web-based source code repository then collaboration is able to happen. Having this as a requirement to be linked to would help encourage people to put classes into web-based source code repositories.