Hi All,
I work for BCD and just wanted to clarify a few things about WebSmart PHP,
mainly that we don't use any proprietary languages and there are no
limitations to the types of apps you can build. Zend's a great company
and we have a close relationship with them, one of the reasons for that is
we both work with PHP and put a strong focus on the IBM i platform. Zend
and WebSmart use the same PHP language, there is only one PHP language, so
whatever you can do with PHP you can do with WebSmart including running it
on any platform. You can also use Zend Framework with WebSmart and
anything you create with WebSmart PHP for the IBM i runs on Zend Server.
You can view a webinar I just did with Mike Pavlak from Zend here
[1]
http://bit.ly/13Kyfg6 which discusses using PHP on IBM i and at the 35
minute mark I do a demo of WebSmart PHP.
Jim's reply above explained the differences quite well between Zend's IDE
(Studio) and the WebSmart IDE but I'll go into a bit more detail about
WebSmart PHP. A key feature of WebSmart PHP is you can start with
intelligent program templates that we ship. These prompt you through which
files (DB2, MySQL or Oracle) you want to use, which fields and gives you
options to build a CRUD application, a login program or input capable
table. It then creates the HTML, CSS, JS and PHP for that application. For
basic file maintenance or inquiry programs you may not need to make too
many changes. Most people however use this as a starting point to create
any type of PHP app they want. All changes after the one time template
process are made directly in the HTML and the PHP (there is no 4 GL
language, Trevor, you may have been thinking about the ILE edition of
WebSmart) in the WebSmart IDE. Because you have direct access to all the
code in the IDE you can create anything you want. We include procedural
templates, which is usually what we recommend people to start with if they
are new to web development, and OO templates (which use jQuery, Ajax,
JSON).
The templates gives your development a jumpstart and they are also a great
learning tool. Because they build the starting application for you
including the SQL, you can then step through the code to understand how it
works and then go from there rather than having to do the initial plumbing
yourself. You can also edit any PHP file with the WebSmart IDE.
Marcel Sarrasin
Product Manager
BCD
[2]www.bcdsoftware.com
References
Visible links
1.
http://bit.ly/13Kyfg6
2.
http://www.bcdsoftware.com/
midrange.com
