Introducing Zend Framework

At ZendCon, I heard there was a new version of the Zend Framework being released. The version number is 0.2.0. That does not sound very stable, but I decided to give it a try anyway, something I did not do back when 0.1.0 was released. This was quite an adventure. The new release is incorporating major changes in the MVC framework and quite a few other libraries. Most of the changes in the MVC section are made to improve testability, or so I was told. Since new changes may break a few things, they were placed in the incubator folder until the next major release. This seemed all right to me.

Writed by Ben Ramsey, one of the most important members from Zend Framework team,there is a 26 slides (as PDF) designed for a quick presentation of Zend Framework. This presentation provides also some short code samples.

A very good article on php | architect writed by Mike Naberezny (from Zend Technologies), which shows for PHP professionals the goals of the Zend Framework, the main components, along with some short - but clear - samples for Zend_XmlRpc,Zend_PDF, Zend_Mail, Zend_Search classes.

Great tutorial made by Chris Shiflett for A/R/T. Main topics are: getting started with Zend Framework, Zend Controller, Zend View, Zend_InputFilter, Zend_DB, and not only, but mostly exposing Model View Controller architecture. You can learn here even how easy is to make a basic CMS using Zend Framework.

A great overview over the Zend Framework, on PHPIT, covering all major compoenents. Even if it's related to the first public Zend Framework version it's a good startup for any new ZF developer. It has code samples for: Zend_Controller and Zend_View, Zend_DB, Zend_Feed, Zend_InputFilter.

In Part 1 of this "Understanding the Zend Framework" series, we discuss the goals behind the Zend Framework, including easy-to-use components and an architecture based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. Now we start to actually put that to use. In this tutorial, you will see how to use the Zend Framework to create the beginnings of our online feed reader, Chomp, creating a form and adding information to a database while getting to know the MVC pattern.

Part 1 of an excellent tutorial in 9 parts on IBM Developer Works blog.

Until two weeks ago I hadnÂ’t bothered looking at the Zend Framework. I am a pragmatic programmer, and while I pride myself in being a technologist I rarely give a second glance at technologies that donÂ’t have an immediate application in my day-to-day programming.Zend Framework looked like an interesting platform, but each tutorial that I read started out with explaining how to set up your front controller, and moved form there into writing an entire application.

One of the best introductions to Zend Framework was made by Rob Allen. Is a tutorial (now as 19 pages PDF document, continuously updated to latest Zend Framework versions, an translated to multiple languages) with a sample aplication for making an inventory system to display a CD collection. It shows mostly how to be used Model View Controller in Zend Framework.