1. All of the class files have the closing php tag (?>) on them followed by white space.
2. Lack of a modules directory in the default project
3. The Initializer Plug-in does not do some very basic things that should be done.

1. Closing php Tag

According to the PHP Coding Standard that is on the Zend Framework Wiki:

For files that contain only PHP code, the closing tag (”?>”) is to be omitted. It is not required by PHP, and omitting it prevents trailing whitespace from being accidentally injected into the output.

2. Lack of a modules direcory

I know this is easy to add if you know what you are doing with ZF but someone who is new to the framework they might find it hard to understand how to add support for the modules directory.  It’s part of the proposed project structure in the ZF wiki.

3. Initializer Plug-in

This is where I have the biggest problem with the default project that is generated.

1. The basic layout of the file is fine except for all the init*() methods return void where they should return the class object so that you can chain requests together in the routeStartup() method.
2. It sets the controller directory last so if something throws an exception before before the controller path is set you end up seeing the exception about how ZF can not find the error controller instead of the actually exception thrown.

Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions or additions to this.

Here is my updated Initializer.php file

< ?php
<?php
/**
 * My new Zend Framework project
 *
 * $LastChangedDate$
 * $LastChangedRevision$
 */

require_once 'Zend/Controller/Plugin/Abstract.php';
require_once 'Zend/Controller/Front.php';
require_once 'Zend/Controller/Request/Abstract.php';
require_once 'Zend/Controller/Action/HelperBroker.php';

/**
 *
 * Initializes configuration depndeing on the type of environment
 * (test, development, production, etc.)
 *
 * This can be used to configure environment variables, databases,
 * layouts, routers, helpers and more
 *
 */
class Initializer extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
    /**
     * @var Zend_Config
     */
    protected static $_config;

    /**
     * @var string Current environment
     */
    protected $_env;

    /**
     * @var Zend_Controller_Front
     */
    protected $_front;

    /**
     * @var string Path to application root
     */
    protected $_root;

    /**
     * Constructor
     *
     * Initialize environment, root path, and configuration.
     *
     * @param  string $env
     * @param  string|null $root
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct($env, $root = null)
    {
        _setEnv($env);
        if (null === $root) {
            $root = realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../');
        }
        $this->_root = $root;

        $this->initPhpConfig();

        $this->_front = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();

        // set the test environment parameters
        if ($env == 'test') {
            // Enable all errors so we'll know when something goes wrong.
            error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);
            ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);
            ini_set('display_errors', 1);

            $this->_front->throwExceptions(true);
        }
    }

    /**
     * Initialize environment
     *
     * @param  string $env
     * @return void
     */
    protected function _setEnv($env)
    {
        $this->_env = $env;
    }

    /**
     * Initialize Data bases
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function initPhpConfig()
    {

    }

    /**
     * Route startup
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function routeStartup(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request)
    {
        $this->initControllers()
            ->initHelpers()
            ->initView()
            ->initDb()
            ->initPlugins()
            ->initRoutes();

        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Initialize data bases
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function initDb()
    {
        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Initialize action helpers
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function initHelpers()
    {
        // register the default action helpers
        Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::addPath( $this->_root . '/application/default/helpers', 'Zend_Controller_Action_Helper');

        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Initialize view
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function initView()
    {
        // Bootstrap layouts
        Zend_Layout::startMvc(array(
            'layoutPath' => $this->_root .  '/application/default/layouts',
            'layout' => 'main'
        ));

        return $this;

    }

    /**
     * Initialize plugins
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function initPlugins()
    {
        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Initialize routes
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function initRoutes()
    {
        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Initialize Controller and Modules paths
     *
     * @return Initializer
     */
    public function initControllers()
    {
        $this->_front->addControllerDirectory($this->_root . '/application/default/controllers', 'default');
        $this->_front->addModuleDirectory($this->_root . '/application/modules');

        return $this;
    }
}

Seven things you may not know about me:

• I’ve been doing HTML and web programming since late 1995 when I started using Hot Dog HTML Editor from Sausage Software
  
• I’ve been using some form of linux since mid 1998 after hearing about it on a show called The Screen Savers.
  
• My friends and I played Dr. Mario on the NES so much one day that it melted the console with the game still in.
  
• TV is my second love after programming and computers.  I currently have two DVRs that record up to 15 hours a week of TV.
  
• I am an avid fan of music and I’m always listening to it.
• I enjoy watching IndyCar Series races as it’s some of the best racing out now.
  
• When I drink beer, I prefer to drink beer that is a micro brew.

I then get to pass on the baton to:

• Chrisian (Spooons) Flickinger: Who supplied the FAILS! stickets at ZendCon ‘08
• Ralph Schindler: With out Ralph’s help I would not be patching Zend Framework as often.
• Ed Finkler: Who makes the best Twitter Air Client around SPAZ.
• Rey Bengo: Always has good news on the JavaScript front.
• Brandon Savage:  Member of the PHP Community
• Ben Ramsey: Organizer of the PHP|Atlanta and PHP Community Member
• Wil Sinclair: Project leader for Zend Framework

These are the rules apparently:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some wierd.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

In short my year was this:

• Attended 4 IndyCar Series Races (Indy, Belle Isle, Kentucky, Mid-Ohio)
• Watched all the other IndyCar Series Races on TV.
• Attended one NASCAR and MotoGP Race at IMS.
• Worked with Zend on the Zend Framework Certification
• Attended my first (but not last) ZendCon

January - March:
Pushed out 3 site redesigns at work.  All of them based on Zend Framework.

April:
Started working with Zend on the Zend Framework Certification.

May:
It was the Month of May which included one of the best lead-ups to the 92nd Indy 500.   I also started using twitter more and more.

June:
I went out to Iowa Speedway for 2 days to help run an Open Test for the IndyCar Series and the Firestone Indy Lights.

July:
July started off good, there was a MotoGP test at IMS and it was awesome to hear the roar of bikes going around the track.  Then I had the honor of driving the 2006 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard Corvette around the track to help get the cars ready for the worst Allstate 400 at the Brickyard ever!  The tires that Goodyear brought just shredded after 10 laps.  I also went to one Indycar Race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Source

August:
After 5 months of hard work by the whole Zend Framework Certification Team we had wrapped up the exam and had it ready for it debut at ZendCon ‘08.  I went to the IndyCar Series Race at Kentucky Speedway and The Raceway at Belle Isle in Detroit.

September:
This was by far my busiest month of the year.  We finished out the IndyCar Regular Season at Chicagoland Speedway and had the Ignural Red Bull Indianapolis GP at IMS.  After that I headed out west to ZendCon 08 where I spent 4 days with the PHP community at large including Matthew Weier O’Phinney, Ralph Schindler and Keith Casey.  While out at ZendCon I learned a lot and had a great time.

October - December:
Not much happend in my professional career here, just a lot of work but nothing too exciting.

I am hopping that 2009 will be a great year and that I will get to spend more time with the PHP Community.

Cheers!

According to Matthew Weier O’Phinney:

For this particular release, we tried very hard to leverage the community. The majority of new features present in 1.7.0 are from community proposals, or were primarily driven by community contributors. For me, this represents a milestone: ZF is now at a stage where fewer and fewer core components are necessary, and the community is able to build off it and add extra value to the project.

Read More »

I am happy to say that I the Twitter Component was my handy work.  After ZendCon 08 Matthew passed the project off to me as he didn’t have time to complete it.

I also helped closed about 15 of thoes issues and I’m still working hard on closing more.  I also look forward to keep working with the community as it’s one of the strongest framework communities on the web.

Zend_Twitter_Service is currently in the standard trunk for Zend Framework and is scheduled to be released with 1.7.  Please check it out and check back for some examples in the next few days.

Currently it only parses out Id3v1 and Id3v1.1 tags but I’m working on the Id3v2.x support now.  If you want to see the source I am publishing it to github.com.

Current usage is like this:

$id3 = new Zend_Id3();
 
$tags = $id3->analyze('/Id3/_files/demo.mp3');
print_r($tags);

It only returns an array for right now but I’m considering having it return an object so you have easy detection of which variables are there and which ones are not.

I’ll post more when I get more done.

Trip 1 was to ZendCon08 (http://www.zendcon.com) in Santa Clara, Ca.  I had a tremendous time while out there.  I also took my elePHPant with me and if you want to check out his travels you can on my flickr feed.  I met a lot of the PHP community and made good contacts for any future endeavors I might have.

Trip 2 was down to Lake Cumberland in Kentucky with the girl friend and her friends.  It was a total blast even it was only one for 2 days.  Let me tell you there is nothing better than floating around for ~4 hours drinking beer.  After talk with with everyone we have deiced to make it an annual trip at the end of September. I already can’t wait for next year.

I am also happy to announce that I was part of the Advisory Board for the Zend Framework Exam from Zend.  We started working back in March and we compleated it at the start of September.  I learned a lot and also made a lot of good friends in the process and I would reccomend that if you ever have the chance that you should take part in one.

I’m going to try and blog more this fall as I should have a lot more free time.

The 2008 IndyCar season at chicagoland where Helio Castroneves beat Scott Dixon for the win by 0.0033 of a seconds which is the second closest finish in Series History.  Scott still won the championship but Helio made it interesting going into Chicagoland.

Now that the IndyCar season is over with I’m going to be heading to ZendCon ‘08 to learn and meet some of the people I talk with online all the time now.  It’s going to be a blast and I can’t wait for it, but before I get to head out to sunny California we have to provide support the Inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix at the Speedway.

It’s going to be fun watching the motocycles go around the road course inside the oval of the track.  They are saying that they will hit 200 mph while going down the front stretch and across the yard of bricks.  I think it’s going to be a very fun weekend.

Stay tuned for some blogging from ZendCon ‘08!

This is great news as apple has been very lazy about this feature. Checkout GeekBrief Showing off OpenClip in their latest episode.