PHP debugging with FirePHP

Posted: August 31st, 2008 | Author: Ivan Jovanovic | Filed under: php | No Comments »

FirePHP logoI really like when I stumble upon a creative and useful piece of software that could improve my everyday development process. I remember when I started using FireBug it was great help in the HTML/CSS/JavaScript development and debugging.

I’ve just found out FirePHP, FireBug plugin that enables the developer to send log messages from PHP code to FireBug console. Quite helpfull I can say :) It consists of Firefox extension (mentioned FireBug plugin) and small PHP logger that you actually use in your code to communicate with the FireBug console. Logger comes in procedural and object-oriented fashion so if you are striving towards exceptional performance of your PHP app, or just still old-school PHP4 (R.I.P.), then man you have your choice :) Otherwise use OO PHP5 logger class. I’ve manage to set the demo, that goes within the PHP library, in a couple of minutes and I’m looking forward for using it in the future.

Thanks guys for great work.
Official FirePHP website

Another cool thing that comes with the FirePHP is its integration posibilities with CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Kohana, PRADO, Symfony, TYPO3, Zend Framework. So there is some for anyone.

Moving to Ubuntu or Windows sucks!

Posted: August 12th, 2008 | Author: Ivan Jovanovic | Filed under: general | No Comments »

Ubuntu logoWhile writing this post, post-intallation update on my fresh Ubuntu installation is under its way. It was long time ago I started to feel constraints of Windows as web development environment. So, very logical step was to move to something more developer friendly than user (read dummy) friendly. After testing Ubuntu with VMware player I decided to go step further and use WUBI (Windows Ubuntu installer) to intall Ubuntu as Windows application in a folder that will act as separate filesystem for my linux installation.

Yes, I know it is not perfect solution, but since I’m running it on Toshiba laptop I was worried about drivers and related staff  and didn’t want to stay even without the Vista crap (TM).
After all installation was smooth and harmless and it seems that everything works as expected for now. Setting the development environment is the next challenge I’ll take. Apache, MySQL, SVN … here I come :)