Forest, PHP 5.3 will have namespaces <http://php.net/language.namespaces> and many libraries like PEAR <http://pear.php.net/> and Zend Framework<http://framework.zend.com/>currently use pseudo-namespaces. Frameworks (like ZF) give you a decent abstraction layer to the HTTP request and response. Zend Framework modules<http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.controller.modular.html>have potential to solve this mess - but only, as you say, if developers build their applications in ZF. If, like me, this is a topic that's frustrated you then I'd keep an eye on ZF modules if not for any other reason that to see what sorts of best practices emerge. At risk of straying into too much technical detail, I also think that dependency injection could help a lot with keeping module dependencies clean. I happen to be working on a Zend_Container<http://framework.zend.com/wiki/display/ZFPROP/Zend_Container+-+Bradley+Holt>proposal for this very reason ;-)
Thanks, Bradley On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 6:39 PM, Forest Bond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 04:35:54PM -0400, Bradley Holt wrote: > > One of my frustrations with current-generation web applications is that > they > > typically are not designed to be modular. I don't know of any > non-monolithic > > wiki applications that can be easily integrated the way you want but if > you > > find one I'd be very interested in hearing about it. > > This is a symptom of the technology more than anything else. PHP doesn't > have > very good namespacing and HTTP requests are represented by several global > arrays. Both of these lead to most PHP applications being difficult to > merge. > > My experience is mostly with PHP4, and may not translate to PHP5. I > honestly > have no idea. A web framework could help to solve this problem, but only > if all > of the apps in question happen to use the same framework. > > Python has WSGI, which attempts to solve this to some extent. I don't > really > know a lot about it, but there are WSGI adaptors for the major Python web > frameworks. WSGI apps are more-or-less pluggable via a simple, > well-defined API > (or this is how I understand things, at least). > > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Server_Gateway_Interface > > -Forest > -- > Forest Bond > http://www.alittletooquiet.net > http://www.pytagsfs.org > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > > iD8DBQFI3rY1RO4fQQdv5AwRAlFfAJ97W5cyUIZIi+dRtF/+JaF9M52UKwCfccdn > BHJsZjEOPYtaxvthKFmpegg= > =Qh/H > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > -- http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/
