Continuing their look at static methods in PHP, DevShed has posted this new tutorial (the second in the series) focusing on using the methods to create a simple loader application.

As its name suggests, a file loading program (or a resource loading program, to express the concept more accurately), is simply a PHP module that takes care of including, usually via its set of "include()/require() native functions, files that are required by an application to make it work as expected. [...] It's worthwhile to mention, however, that it was necessary to create an instance of the aforementioned class to load a determined file. This is a process that can be completely avoided in terms of good coding habits. But how can this be achieved? Well, it's feasible to statically call the class's load()" method, preventing its unwanted instantiation.

The code examples of the simple loader class (a require_once wrapped in a try/catch) and a usage example.