Comments inline. > > But, who is using the web services components included in the ZF? I > know > > that in terms of image, to associate the ZF with web services is a > good > > thing, but, the discussions I'm having with Technical Managers and > other > > Developers are always about the components that ZF doesn't have. For > > example, Zend_Ftp, Zend_Form, Zend_File_Uploader, Zend_File_Utility, > > Zend_Debug, Zend_Build, Zend_Image, Zend_Tree, Zend_Nav and others > that > > honestly I can't remember now. > > (shrugs) You can't have every useful module right at the beginning. > There > are a lot of useful modules right now, and plenty of useful things > coming > in 2008.
That's spot on. We are developing what we feel would be most useful to our users, while providing some components- including web services- that are available nowhere else in the PHP world. What gets prioritized for Zend employees' time is largely a matter of strategy towards maximizing the usefulness of the project and the number of users experiencing said usefulness ;) ; what the community does is largely up to their needs and interests. Fortunately, our 'use at will' architecture means that you can use these components alongside other project's components. Solar in particular is well-suited for such side-by-side use and provides many of the components you mention above. That said, it is our intention to fill out ZF to cover most, if not all, of this functionality. You'll find that much of it will be included in ZF 1.5, which is slated for Q1 2008. > > So basically, Technical Managers know they don't have 2 months to > develop > > the missing components, and they are asking me questions such as, how > are > > we going to upload and resize images? How are we going to create a > > navigation system? How are we going to implement a web service for > > authentication using OpenID? How does the framework cope with TDD? > Doe it > > have unit testing? A debugger? So far, they never asked me anything > about > > any of the Zend_Service_* components, except in one project that we > needed > > one for PayPal. > > Well, of course it does have unit testing and OpenID support. Test- > driven > development is a methodology, not a technology. Xdebug is useful for > debugging. A navigation system--really? That's pretty basic. > > At some point a developer has to actually write some PHP, though, and > can't rely on the framework to do everything--this is the case with > uploading and resizing images. Uploading is very simple, and resizing > images just requires the use of the Magick Wand or gd extensions. > > Anyway, services are only a small portion of the Zend Framework whole. > > -Matt The only thing that I would add to that is a quote from Alan Kay: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." If you'd like to see Zend Framework go in one direction or the other, I encourage you to start submitting proposals and contribute your time and ideas. As you've pointed out, there is no lack of functional areas to work on. ;) ,Wil
