Reducing software development time with Zend

If you are already familiar with Zend Studio, you will know about the various time saving features, such as code completion, integrated ftp/mysql/cvs/svn, internal debuging and syntax checking. In my opinion its real claim to fame is its integration with the debugging server shipped with Zend Platform or Zend Core. Typically this is used in conjunction with the browser plugins that are available, this allows you to navigate your application and at any given page start debugging with all the GET, POST or session data that were set within your browser session. It executes the code on the server but sends the debugging to Zend Studio allowing you to step through (in and over) the code, included files, etc. Debugging this way is a great time saver. In addition profiling the execution time of your scripts and finding out where the bottle necks are, is really quick to do.

In addition to debugging, Zend Platform also monitors all PHP execution on the server. It has standard event triggers that can let you know when things go wrong. It also allows one to specify your own triggers. Using monitoring you know exactly when and how your application is breaking, running slower than usual, running under high load, etc. Again this saves time in problem solving and debugging and money in reduced down time.

Zend Platform can also save time in improving your applications performance. It provides various performance enhancement features that work "out of the box". So less time is spent on rewriting code in order to improve performance.

In my own words Zend Framework is an open source library of best practices. It allows a developer to draw on years and years of PHP development trial and error. Implementing your applications correctly within the framework immediately provides scalability, security that would otherwise take days or weeks to write. A lot of this is "black box" stuff under the hood and customers don’t normally appreciate its value, because they don’t see or understand it. This level of coding is therefor ommitted by developers, because "we'll worry about it when we get there", which is really not a good approach. As soon as they are under SQL injection attacks or high load, they enjoy great benefit. In addition Zend Framework improves reusing of code... A big time saver. Lastly Zend Framework makes implementing common things such as access control, XML reading/writing, PDF writing, interfacing with common API's such as those from Google, etc. a LOT quicker and easier. This list is growing, and I really believe it will become very difficult to stay comptetive as developer without basing your application on it. AND its FREE and

Another aspect that can speed up development dramatically is skill. A skilled developer is a fast developer and Zend offers various training including PHP Certification training and Zend Framework training. Both of these are very good investments in a development business.

Then as a developer you might want to implement license control or protect your code from reverse engineering. Especially if its hosted on an ISP's server or at a client. Zend Guard allows you to encode your app so that it is protected. It also provides license key generation to help control use of your application. Simple, easy and quick.

If you've never heard of Zend, find out more here