Want to run PHP and access Java? Here's how to do it on Windows XP using Apace and Apache Tomcat. Apache Tomcat is a Servlet container developed at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). Tomcat implements the Java Servlet and the JavaServer Pages (JSP) specifications from Sun Microsystems, and provides a "pure Java" HTTP web server environment for Java code to run.

They go with the XAMPP distribution for the web server setup (for simplicity rather than on a unix-based system) and include the configuration and installation procedures to get everything up and running (screenshots included).

The PHP/Java bridge allows you to quickly access Java classes from within your PHP classes without having to know Java and vice versa. Because of this two-way flexibility, you can access hundreds of pre-built Java classes from PHP, and hundreds of pre-built PHP classes from Java opening up your applications to greater flexibility and enhanced functionality.

The post includes an introduction to the bridge's functionality - its functions/methods, how to make a new instance of it, catching exceptions and the type conversion it automatically does (like lang.java.String directly to the PHP String type).

They also mention the Zend Platform bridge functionality for a more commercial solution.

Like most organizations the BBC has its own technical ecosystem, the BBC's is pretty much restricted to Perl and static files. The good news is that they are planning to build a new infrastructure for bbc.co.uk and roll out a new Identity platform on it. This was announced on May during the XTech 2008 presentation that took place in Dublin, where BBC's plans to reinvigorate its technical platform were revealed.

The BBC wanted to upgrade their aging platform to something a bit newer and more flexible and wanted to be able to use things like the Zend Framework for the presentation layer and a MySQL backend to power the site.

I remember when PHP5 first came out having 'discussions' with a number of people who insisted that PHP5 was way better than 4. [...] Basically, intentions were made clearer with things like "public protected private" (PPP),but I have not yet seen any web project get done faster or dare I say even much *better* due to those sorts of things. [...] This isn't specifically saying PPP is necessarily bad, but that PHP could have addressed the issue in a fashion more suitable to dynamic languages. Keep reading for an example.

His comparison is to how Groovy handles properties in a class - everything is private unless declared otherwise. This could be ported (somewhat) over to PHP and would eliminate the need to search&replace all over the code for the right variables.

Besides the usual aspects: scripting vs. compiled and in-process vs. seperate process and Multithreading etc., i think there are some "soft facts" that might be even more important for commercial software development.

He points out things like differences in object lifetimes, defined structures in applications and the "not invented here" syndrome that he thinks PHP suffers more from.

Anyway, the result is: Even though there are not so many standards in the PHP world, successful developers have a common understanding about the do's and don'ts in PHP. [...] PHP appears more predictable than other programming languages.

Maybe it took the PHP community a little longer to realize the importance of testing. But now that we know how to build applications that "just work", are fast and scalable, as well as secure, a big topic in the PHP community right now is to implement processes and use techniques that help us assure that the software works correctly throughout the its lifecycle.

He points to some comments made at a recent panel discussion about PHP and testing, the proliferation of frameworks for the language and the things that have no name that developers use every day to make their code "just work".

Sometimes, you want to run PHP with Tomcat. Why? Well, you may have a legacy product, for instance, that will require servlets for many more years. Or you may be using this gigantic Java program and are only interested in adding a tiny PHP piece on the side.

It's a pretty simple process and most of the steps are the standard "download, install, unpack" sorts of things. The important things are the web.xml document you create and the additions to the servlet.properties file to make the PHP module work.

Without a little background in programming languages or computer science in general, it's entirely possible that typing systems are not something that have crossed your mind. I thought I'd take a blog entry to share some of my thoughts on how it’s affecting the creation and evolution of languages.

He walks through history a bit, mentioning C, Java, Python and PHP and how they differ in their default type handling. He especially focuses on the "blurred line" between strong and weak typing and how some if offers special features to the language that uses the method.

The comparisons I plan to make will be mostly to PHP, cause that's what I'm most familiar with, though there may be some other comparisons from time to time. This is a work in progress, but I'd be very interested in feedback from anyone out there interested in this aea - Grails, Groovy, PHP, why another language/platform/framework, etc.

The first two installments have been posted - part one and part two - with an introduction to what Grails is and a brief dip into some "Hello world" sort of code to give you an idea of the structure.

Topics mentioned include:

• PHPCity
• Thoughts on PHP as the next Java
• The Google Charting API
• Profiling PHP applications

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