We've now found a definite location for PHP Vikinger. It will be at one of the old factory buildings here at Klosterøya, close to eZ Systems' offices. The room has about space for 80 people, and has a nice view over the river southwards. About 20 people from Norway, Iceland, the UK, Germany and Denmark have signed up so far. This means there is still plenty of space for you! See http://phpvikinger.org for more information, and the invitation.

Because the lazy bastards at Sun still didn't manage to make a 64 bit version of their Java plugin, you have to go through all sorts of hoops to make it actually work. Normally I wouldn't really care about this, but unfortunately my bank decided to require Java working in the browser for authentication. Four hours of my time later, I managed to get it working. To save others from some of the pain, here is how I did that:

1. Download from ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/java/JDK-1.4.2/amd64/ the file j2sdk-1.4.2-03-linux-amd64.bin.

2. I downloaded it to ~/install, so go into that directory and run:

chmod +x j2sdk-1.4.2-03-linux-amd64.bin

3. Run:

./j2sdk-1.4.2-03-linux-amd64.bin

and wait until it's done installing (make sure it mentions "Uncompressing Blackdown Java 2 Standard Edition SDK v1.4.2-03" at some point).

4. Now, to make it work as a plugin, you have to link (not copy, as that makes the browser crash) the plugin to your mozilla directory. For me:

cd /home/derick/.mozilla/plugins
ln -s /home/derick/install/j2sdk1.4.2⇢
  /jre/plugin/amd64/mozilla/libjavaplugin_oji.so .

5. Restart the browser and check whether the blackdown java plugin shows up if you go to about:plugins.

On behalf of the eZ Labs team, you are cordially invited to eZ Publish Community Developer Day on the 18th of June, 2008 in Skien, Norway.

This is the fifth meeting in a little over a year. We decided to add a full morning of tutorials and break-out sessions on eZ Components, eZ Publish and extensions. Contrary to last year, the Developer Day will be organized separately from the PHP Vikinger event, so people who want to attend both events and the conference will be able to do so.

The afternoon on the 18th will consist of a few more talks by community members followed by a barcamp. In between, lunch will be offered for free

Read below for the (draft) agenda and registration information (registration is required). The registration form allows for submitting proposals for a talk and/or subjects you would like to see treated during the barcamp.

See you in Skien!

˙ǝʞoɾ slooɟ s,lıɹdɐ ʇxǝu ǝɥʇ ʇuǝɯǝldɯı oʇ ʇuɐʍ noʎ ɟı unɟ - sıɥʇ ǝʞıl ƃuıɥʇǝɯos sı ʇlnsǝɹ ǝɥʇ ˙ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ puɐ 'uʍop ǝpısdn ʇxǝʇ sʇnd ʎllɐnʇɔɐ ʇɐɥʇ ʇdıɹɔs ɐ ǝɯ ǝʌɐƃ lɐdoƃ oƃɐ ǝɯıʇ ǝɯos ˙ǝɯıʇ ǝɯos ǝʇınb ɹoɟ ǝpoɔıun puɐ sʇǝs ɹǝʇɔɐɹɐɥɔ ɥʇıʍ ƃuıʎɐld uǝǝq ǝʌ,I

The PHP Vikinger unconference, to be held in Skien, Norway on June 21st is now open for registration. You can find the full invitation and announcement here, but I will repeat the highlights.

First of all, this is a free event, but we do require you to register for it to see whether we would have enough space. Places to sleep, and getting to Skien should be arranged by yourself. We made a information page with some suggestions though. The Norwegian PHP User group has reports and videos from last year. The unconference open for all, from beginners to advanced PHP users. At the moment there are about 12 registrations, from people from Norway, Germany, Iceland and the UK. Hope to see you here!

Voici un compte rendu du eZ developer day du 17/04/2008 qui s'est déroulé dans les locaux de Sun Microsystems réunissant une cinquantaine de développeurs intéressé par le CMS eZ Publish . Nous avons tout d'abord eu droit à une première présentation de la stratégie "Open Source" de Sun. Rien de très intéressant techniquement parlant, si ce n'est quelques fonctionnalités avancées d'Open Solaris comme le système de fichiers ZFS ou la solution de virtualisation et une volonté affichée avec l'ouverture de Solaris de concurrencer les distributions Linux autant au niveau professionnel avec des niveaux de support avancés qu'au niveau communautaire.

La suite était heureusement nettement plus intéressante. Comme en octobre dernier Paul Borgermans nous a présenté la roadmap des différents produits eZ (eZ Publish, eZ Components , eZ Flow, eZ Find , ...). Le moins qu'on puisse dire est que de grosses évolutions voire des révolutions sont en marche au moins au niveau d'eZ Publish.

La version 4.1 d'eZ Publish

Cette version devrait voir apparaître le très attendu Online Editor basé sur TinyMCE bien plus configurable et souple que l'actuel. La compatibilité avec l'existant sera assuré de manière transparente. Cette version verra aussi le retour de la compatibilité avec Oracle, le support de Solaris 10 ou encore une fonctionnalité d'expiration des mots de passe développé par un partenaire.

Une extension fournissant un flash permettant l'upload massif sera également fournie. La démonstration était vraiment bluffante, ce sera une alternative très intéressante au WebDAV , protocole qui manque cruellement de client fiable en particulier sous Windows.

La version 4.5 d'eZ Publish

Cette version verra beaucoup de changements internes selon 2 axes principaux

1. L'intégration des eZ Components
2. L'amélioration de performances

Le second étant en partie remplie par le premier. en vrac les nouveautés annoncées sont les suivantes :

• allègement du code kernel en déplaçant plusieurs fonctionnalités dans des extensions permettant leur activation/désactivation simplement
• nouveau système de template et donc de surcharge (override) bien plus performant. Paul citait un exemple d'un template complexe qui s'éxécute 20 fois plus rapidement avec le nouveau système !
• amélioration du système de cache pour le rendre plus granulaire. Une possible implémentation de la norme ESI (Edge Side Includes) a également été évoquée pour être compatible avec Akamaï ou le reverse proxy Varnish .
• support de IIS avec PHP en mode FastCGI ainsi que de MS SQL. D'autres SGBD pourrait également être supporté l'écriture de la couche d'interface nécessaire
• introduction des "object states" personnalisables permettant de brancher facilement l'exécution d'un processus de workflow externe
• refonte du fichier index.php dans le but de l'alléger et de le rendre plus performant mais aussi de pouvoir y brancher l'exécution d'un script sans passer par toute la pile d'eZ Publish lorsque le besoin de performances est important
• réécriture du système multi-lingue et des URL alias car le code est actuel est complexe et est basé sur des opérations bit à bit en base de données ce qui compromet la portabilité sur différent SGBD
• "dé-normalisation" de la base de données, en particulier dans un premier temps la gestion des utilisateurs permettant de supporter plus d'utilisateurs. La "dé-normalisation" au niveau des contenus a également été abordée mais reste pour le moment un projet à plus long terme...

ouf ! voila déjà une belle et ambitieuse liste rien que pour eZ Publish ! Cette version devrait paraître avant la fin de l'année.

eZ Find, eZ Flow, eZ Components

eZ Find 1.1 apportera la recherche par facets dans le courant du second trimestre 2008. La version 2.0 sera une réécriture complète via le composant Search des eZ Components de manière à profiter de l'ensemble des fonctionnalités de Solr .

De nouvelles version d'eZ Flow et d'eZ Components sont annoncées pour la eZ conférence en Norvège au mois de juin . Enfin, eZ Flow 2.0 est également annoncée pour la fin de l'année.

BarCamp !

L'après midi s'est terminé par un barcamp axé sur les questions apportées par les différents participants. Chacun a pu échanger sur ses "recettes de cuisine" eZ Publish, je retiens plusieurs points très en vrac :

• PHP 5.3 apporte des gains significatifs de consomation mémoire
• Le mode cluster d'eZ Publish pose souvent problème (d'où les améliorations annoncées). Des solutions de contournements ont été mises en place par plusieurs prestataires.
• La gestion des utilisateurs est parfois problématique (volume, synchronisation LDAP, ...), là aussi des améliorations sont en cours.
• Enfin au niveau du volume de contenus possibles dans eZ Publish, Paul explique qu'avec du bon matériel eZ Publish est capable de gèrer un million de contenus sans vrai problème même si c'est dépendant de l'organisation de l'aborescence.

Bon au final, mon sentiment sur cette après midi fort instructive est que le développement d'eZ Publish tente de combler les lacunes au niveau des (très) gros sites autant en terme de volume qu'en terme de performances.

Snack Culture

Last week, I went to the eZSystem's Partner Day which was organized at Apple France headquarters. Vincent Bellissen's first slide was about Snack Culture, a new consumption habit based on bite-sized products. Minimal invest and maximum entertainment. You want to change, you can and it is easy.

A typical example is the success of the iTunes music library : once registered in the iStore, you can buy music files in just few clicks. The Amazon website allows too to buy books or dvds in two clicks maximum (one to login and one to buy).

So the consumption habit has evolved in the way that you can enjoy little part of a product instead of the full product. If we check the ratio part of product / price, we can see that the producer gets always great benefits. It's not new, you may buy a big pot of mayonnaise for 10€ or a tiny one for 3€ but you won't get the third of the big pot. What has changed is the way we can buy it, the product's availability and the way we can use it. You can check your mails while waiting a friend in a bar, watch a movie clip in the tube or even surf the net during a fly.

However, it's a bit threatening. I was thinking that in ten years, children won't read books anymore...

99 Francs

Still digesting this inner revolution, I watched the day after a French movie called “99 Francs”. The story is about a creative publicist who is working in the larger advertisement company in France and who has some issues with girls, drugs, his boss and the whole meaning of his life... I guess it is a good movie and it makes me wonder some things.

Our consumption habits are also enclosed in our today life. We are more receptive to advertisement using some classical symbols and values than original scripts and out of sequence art design. So, if we change the way to consume products by adding mobility and specific parts of products, may be we can break free from this chasm of consumption, classical one.

Moreover, I thought that it might be a catalyst for new shape of art and techniques. With smart phones, we will be able to add high enhanced applications as interactive games, shared software and other funny stuff (video chat or whatever).

Co ?

So, this is what we do. Causing people to buy our products or our services. We are creating desire around functionalities and freedom for a more or less convinced set of people.

The limit is what we can do to be pertinent : what functionality can I imagine that will be sold in the real life ? The business is restricting the scope of our ability and by this way only focusing on what is really important : users need.

That's why changing our consumption habit may change the way we are doing things. We may experiment some new techniques as the impact on bite-sized consumption is very thin.

Snack Culture

Last week, I went to the eZSystem's Partner Day which was organized at Apple France headquarters. Vincent Bellissen's first slide was about Snack Culture, a new consumption habit based on bite-sized products. Minimal invest and maximum entertainment. You want to change, you can and it is easy.

A typical example is the success of the iTunes music library : once registered in the iStore, you can buy music files in just few clicks. The Amazon website allows too to buy books or dvds in two clicks maximum (one to login and one to buy).

So the consumption habit has evolved in the way that you can enjoy little part of a product instead of the full product. If we check the ratio part of product / price, we can see that the producer gets always great benefits. It's not new, you may buy a big pot of mayonnaise for 10€ or a tiny one for 3€ but you won't get the third of the big pot. What has changed is the way we can buy it, the product's availability and the way we can use it. You can check your mails while waiting a friend in a bar, watch a movie clip in the tube or even surf the net during a fly.

However, it's a bit threatening. I was thinking that in ten years, children won't read books anymore...

99 Francs

Still digesting this inner revolution, I watched the day after a French movie called “99 Francs”. The story is about a creative publicist who is working in the larger advertisement company in France and who has some issues with girls, drugs, his boss and the whole meaning of his life... I guess it is a good movie and it makes me wonder some things.

Our consumption habits are also enclosed in our today life. We are more receptive to advertisement using some classical symbols and values than original scripts and out of sequence art design. So, if we change the way to consume products by adding mobility and specific parts of products, may be we can break free from this chasm of consumption, classical one.

Moreover, I thought that it might be a catalyst for new shape of art and techniques. With smart phones, we will be able to add high enhanced applications as interactive games, shared software and other funny stuff (video chat or whatever).

Co ?

So, this is what we do. Causing people to buy our products or our services. We are creating desire around functionalities and freedom for a more or less convinced set of people.

The limit is what we can do to be pertinent : what functionality can I imagine that will be sold in the real life ? The business is restricting the scope of our ability and by this way only focusing on what is really important : users need.

That's why changing our consumption habit may change the way we are doing things. We may experiment some new techniques as the impact on bite-sized consumption is very thin.

It took me fairly long time to figure out what particular tool available from PHP in my custom software and website implementations was missing from eZ Publish... but I finally got it. It's the ability to dynamically, flexibly cache variables, understood as operation or logic results, stored in a reusable form. Naturally, there is no significant need of caching simple variables defined directly within the pagelayout, just like these:

However, it gets worse not being able to cheaply store an array of ten values, whose fetching/generating cost was over fifty or one hundred SQL queries, several files accessed in the file system, etc.

Problem

The problem seems quite straightforward - out of many caching techniques and layers in eZ Publish, only two are universally useful: the viewcache and the cache-blocks. Unfortunately, both of them store presentation layer results rather than data, and both are quite independent. As a result:

1. Whenever you crave for variables that will be used by several cache-blocks in the pagelayout, they must be placed outside of cache-blocks themselves. Don't get fooled by the top cache-block apparently holding the variables used further on - it's a coincidence. This may only work if all expiry times are equal for all the blocks and no subtree expiry is ever used (or you've used bugged eZ 4.0.0 for half-a-year, where subtree expiry is simply broken and it's easy to take it as the default behavior), provided that the blocks never got desynchronized. The point is: variables must be kept outside cache-blocks and they will not be cached.
2. The module result gets generated before the pagelayout, so there's little reusability between their vars.

So what's missing?

My idea is a cache layer halfway between logic/data and the presentation layer. It could be a variable-dedicated cache-block equivalent (maybe a var-block?).

Example: Imagine a website that for each of its node views should be able to access both current node data (data map) as well as root node data in order to make some decisions, calculations, etc. Further, the data could be required by at least three of its cache blocks (with different expiry times, expiry rules and "uncomfortable" locations within the pagelayout). Today that sort of combination requires a substantial...

The var-block as I imagine it would have expiry settings similar to cache-blocks: subtree expiry, expiry ignore, expiry time and a flexible key management. In order to prevent frequent file system access, var-block could serialize variable collections rather than just singles. An additional "collection name" parameter could help organize the blocks within the pagelayout.

Please let me know what you think.

Here's the prototype:
http://ez.no/developer/contribs/template_plugins/self_var_cache