I started looking at Zend_Tool today since I had a bit of free time and I felt like digging around ;). I'm sure most people would agree that Zend_Tool will eventually have a pretty drastic impact in how the public view the Zend Framework which has garnered a reputation as more of a library than a RAD framework since there's so little binding together the process of building an application other than spotty documentation detailing tasks which are commonly perceived as onerous manual stuff better left to a command line tool. I'm not in that camp incidentally but I am a fan of automation regardless.
The first thing I'll note is that I don't see many people looking at Zend_Tool in the short term. While the code has been progressing, documentation and explanations are sorely lacking. There is little if any public discussion, and it's hard even for me to figure out what Zend_Tool even does from what exists. After reading what I could find initially I gathered it's a command line tool for generating projects - which is old news. I don't mean to be the naysayer in the crowd, but if you want Zend_Tool to get attention someone has to put out the word and build up some enthusiasm and awareness. Where are the blog posts, articles, mailing list topics, detailed goals and specifics about what is being achieved? Has it been achieved? When will it be achieved? Outside of a Quickstart guide which is currently broken, and the possibility (certainty?) of a prototype being released in ZF 1.6, there is extremely little to go on. Even the proposals, categorised still as New, are very abstract and don't really fit themselves well into The Big Picture. The only item I've seen comments on without lots of digging is the XML Syntax (which is the easy target since everyone knows what XML is ;)). Back to my examination... I updated both the Zend Framework Standard Incuabtor and Core checkouts I use, and checked out Ralph's ZendTool branch alongside these. After updating my php.ini to add the branch's /library directory to the include_path, and adding that ZF_PATH environment var to my system, I finished up by adding the path to the new /bin directory holding the zf script (zf.bat if you're on Windows) to PATH. The first command I made: zf show version Unfortunately this doesn't work - Zend_Console from the Incubator is missing a Zend_Console_Context_Interface class which doesn't exist anywhere. I commented out it's require statement and the class implements phrase to proceed. I tried "zf show version" again: Fatal error: Class 'Zend_Build_Manifest' not found in /home/padraic/dev/zendi/library/Zend/Console.php on line 84 Another fail, another class which doesn't exist, and another line to tinker with commenting out. I don't think I need to continue. Zend_Build_Manifest is a singleton from the getInstance() static method referred to on line 84 so I assume continuing the trail will just see more mounting fatal errors. This is reinforced by the lack of unit tests other than for Zend_Tool_CodeGenerator. Now I don't really mind all the Quickstart fails - it's a new proposal under consideration and seeing code for a new proposal is a pleasant but unnecessary surprise (seeing a 1.6 prototype would be shocking). But the Quickstart is one of the only introductions to Zend_Tool. Which brings us back to the first two paragraphs I wrote. So far I have nothing to comment on, except the lack of anything to comment on. The only concrete thing I can find is that XML thing. I feel as if the proposals are running a reverse strategy specifically designed to confound everyone. There's nothing to indicate the presence of any overarching proposal which details, in excruciating detail, what's being implemented. I could guess - but I'm not psychic. Wil asked why nobody was reviewing these proposals - there's your answer. There's nothing to review. Unless you want the community to comment on how cool the PHP code looks. I don't think those are the comments anyone is interesting in though. Best regards, Paddy ----- Pádraic Brady http://blog.astrumfutura.com http://www.patternsforphp.com OpenID Europe Foundation - Irish Representative -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/What%27s-up-with-Zend_Tool--tp18402086p18402086.html Sent from the Zend Framework mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
