Crafting PHP Applications:

I've met a lot of good programmers who have worked a whille in various Client / Server programming environments, now wanting to make the shift to the Linux Apache MySQL PHP framework (L.A.M.P).

There's a lot of opportunity for interesting work available using the LAMP framework. This is because there are many differences in the way applications are structured when writing them to work of the Internet or a local Intranet when compared to a wired Ethernet backbone.

Several tried and tested application structures used in two tier, Client / Server, Ethernet bound frameworks will simply fail if applied exactly in the same way in the LAMP framework.

This is exactly what makes the LAMP framework so exciting to program in. Suddenly, application developers have to begin to think differently. They have to know exactly how the LAMP framework, works otherwise any application crafted to run on it has quite a decent chance of failing.

I get a whole load of such cribbing from programmers when they are making the change from some parallel programming environment to LAMP.

Amazingly, the 'Cause For Cribbing' is exactly what makes the LAMP framework something quite different and hence exciting to work in, that is 'If You Like Change N Challenges'.

After talking to many of these friends of mine I began to see a common thread that causes them to crib about how different the LAMP framework was.

Essentially, it appears to me that all of them were attempting to build applications on a framework that they had never:

• Installed on a computer before
• Configured to work together in harmony before
• Understood how the bits and pieces worked together in harmony before

Hence did not quite understand or appreciate how a commercial application had to be restructured to work on the LAMP framework.

I thought that I'd begin blogging on itvidya by addressing this issue by sharing the insight I've got while installing, configuring, working (and cursing) the LAMP framework with others.

It's a constant challange to craft standard applications such as Financial Accounting, Inventory, Invoicing, Merchant Banking and so on to work consistently and correctly of LAMP on the Internet or Intranet.

It's the challange that keeps drawing me back again and again like a fly to honey.