With the fresh release of the Windows Azure SDK for PHP v3.0, it's time to have a look at the future. One of the features we're playing with is creating a full-fledged replacement for the current Windows Azure Command-Line tools available. These tools sometimes are a life saver and sometimes a big PITA due to baked-in defaults and lack of customization options. And to overcome that last one, here's what we're thinking of: scaffolders. Basically what we'll be doing is splitting the packaging process into two steps: Scaffolding and Packaging.

He goes through their current suggestions of how to set up the scaffold template that would auto-generate everything you need from a command-line call. He also talks about making custom scaffolds (that are, in concept, similar to phar archives) and gives an example of the simple structure.

The "bake" utility is included with the CakePHP distribution and helps a developer scaffold out an application with minimal effort. Things have been changed in the recent distributions, though:

Unlike the old bake.php, which was only used to auto-generate code for you, this one follows a much cooler concept. The main idea is to have an interface to a wide variety Tasks.

The new and improved "bake" program takes the tasks created and builds out a bit more functionality than just the scaffolding as the version before did. Felix includes an example of a task (a simple echo) just to show how it's formatted.

If you've ever seen the Creating a Weblog In 15 Minutes movie, you were undoubtedly startled at how useful and quick the scaffold command could be. But if you're still using PHP, and you love that command, then you could have a problem. Luckily, through the use of Object Oriented Programming, an equivalent solution is available, creating a full create, read, update, and delete CMS for a single table through one command.

The end result will look something like this: The end result of the scaffold class and some extra style.

The tutorial goes through the entire process, showing the code for the different parts:

• Starting The Class
• Listing the Rows
• Creating a New Row
• Inserting the Row
• Editing a Row (Form)
• Updating The Row
• Deleting the Row