On the Tiger Heron blog today, Tony Freixas has posted a new article talking about the use of two patterns (no, not design patterns) in PHP development - the Bait-and-Switch method and the Shell Game.

Originally, I planned to write about how to configure the Apache server to run both PHP4 and PHP5. With the push toward PHP5 (see Go PHP5), there are now hundreds of articles covering that topic. Instead, I will talk about two IT patterns I use for PHP development on Windows. The patterns are ancient and familiar to most Unix developers, but little used in the Windows world.

He uses something he calls "junction points" to make both of the patterns work and describes a bit about what they are and how to create them. Then, it's on to the descriptions - he covers what each of the patterns is about and includes a method for implementing it. The Bait-and-Switch is mostly about swapping out multiple software versions transparently and the Shell Game uses a shell script to handle the creation of the environment and the execution instead.