PHP - Any Viable Alternatives to Zend?

[Babaganoosh]

I have been a Perl programmer for over 10 years now and have been doing C++ for about 3. I have done a little PHP but really felt it was only suitable for dynamic content due to its lack of OO functionality (and several other annoyances). Now that PHP 5 is out, it's clear to me that it has finally matured and is worth developing web applications in.

I always use an IDE to code in. I downloaded Zend Studio and have been considering investing in the Zend small business program but their sales people are irritating beyond belief. Their encoder kicks ass and I planned to use it until I dealt with their sales person(s). I have looked at Ion Cube and was impressed as well. Do many people use Ion Cube?

Does anyone have any recommendations on an IDE and encoder? I'd rather not give Zend my money but I will if there aren't any other good options.

[Babaganoosh]

Oops, sorry. Didn't mean to post a business related thread on GFY. My bad.

[mrthumbs]

Error!

The following error happened: A MySQL error has occured and the webmaster has been informed. Sorry for the inconvenience



Any idea where i can download the Zen studio elsewhere?

[MrVids]

couldn't agree with you more. those zend guys are irritating as hell.


for an IDE, i use vim-enhanced and do it right on the server. i come from a sys admin background so dev'ing with vi is where i'm at home, though I know many find it difficult. vim-enhanced has color coding support for php, shell, perl, etc.

here is some good news though

if you don't want to use zend optimizer or suite on your server, use mmcache. it has it's own encoding and also provides caching, so help speed things up and give your server a breather ;).

http://turck-mmcache.sourceforge.net/index_old.html

I use it on my servers and it works like a champ. It's free source, so getting a hosting company to plug it in is usually a piece of cake. They have even made it so it will play nice with Zend optimizer if the person needs both.

I work as a geek at a hosting company, there is no doubt for a server module, Zend Suite is amazing. The debug info alone can save you a lot of grief. But, if you don't want to pay $1k or more a year, MMCache is an awesome alternative. It's also faster according to benchmarks.

[MrVids]

besides, if those zend guys drive you that nuts, go get yourself a warez version ;)

[Babaganoosh]

Originally Posted by MrVids

couldn't agree with you more. those zend guys are irritating as hell.


for an IDE, i use vim-enhanced and do it right on the server. i come from a sys admin background so dev'ing with vi is where i'm at home, though I know many find it difficult. vim-enhanced has color coding support for php, shell, perl, etc.

here is some good news though

if you don't want to use zend optimizer or suite on your server, use mmcache. it has it's own encoding and also provides caching, so help speed things up and give your server a breather ;).

http://turck-mmcache.sourceforge.net/index_old.html

I use it on my servers and it works like a champ. It's free source, so getting a hosting company to plug it in is usually a piece of cake. They have even made it so it will play nice with Zend optimizer if the person needs both.

I work as a geek at a hosting company, there is no doubt for a server module, Zend Suite is amazing. The debug info alone can save you a lot of grief. But, if you don't want to pay $1k or more a year, MMCache is an awesome alternative. It's also faster according to benchmarks.

Thanks! I'll mess with this a little bit. How popular is this? Until now, I've never heard of it.

[http]

Both Ioncube and turck are quite popular but my impression is that turck is gaining more momentum as of late, while IMO Ioncube was more popular a while back. Maybe Ioncube is simply older

I used Ioncube a couple of times and liked the speed improvements. It seems to put all cached pages into the same folder though which is not so nice for caching 1000's or even 10,000's of pages. Not sure how turck does this

[pstation]

I recommend Ioncude

http://www.ioncube.com/

[Babaganoosh]

Originally Posted by pstation

I recommend Ioncude

http://www.ioncube.com/

Any particular reason why?

[Doc911]

The encoder kicks ass. Its a wise investment. Zend Studio is awesome and makes coding easy. Just go to the trade shows and talk to their staff, or give them a call. There is no better company for support sales and service. Their products rock.

I agree their sales guys are a tad pushy. But hey they do have a fine ass product.

[Babaganoosh]

Originally Posted by Doc911

The encoder kicks ass. Its a wise investment. Zend Studio is awesome and makes coding easy. Just go to the trade shows and talk to their staff, or give them a call. There is no better company for support sales and service. Their products rock.

I agree their sales guys are a tad pushy. But hey they do have a fine ass product.

I agree, everything seems top-notch. I like to buy things but I hate being sold things. Once I simmer down I will probably go with Zend anyway...as long as I can make sure NO salesman gets a commission off me.

[Doc911]

Originally Posted by MrVids

couldn't agree with you more. those zend guys are irritating as hell.


for an IDE, i use vim-enhanced and do it right on the server. i come from a sys admin background so dev'ing with vi is where i'm at home, though I know many find it difficult. vim-enhanced has color coding support for php, shell, perl, etc.

here is some good news though

if you don't want to use zend optimizer or suite on your server, use mmcache. it has it's own encoding and also provides caching, so help speed things up and give your server a breather ;).

http://turck-mmcache.sourceforge.net/index_old.html

I use it on my servers and it works like a champ. It's free source, so getting a hosting company to plug it in is usually a piece of cake. They have even made it so it will play nice with Zend optimizer if the person needs both.

I work as a geek at a hosting company, there is no doubt for a server module, Zend Suite is amazing. The debug info alone can save you a lot of grief. But, if you don't want to pay $1k or more a year, MMCache is an awesome alternative. It's also faster according to benchmarks.

You can use files encoded by Turck MMCache without it. For this reason you must use TurckLoader.

WHAT?

TurckLoader is not need with Turck MMCache, becuse it is already compiled in.

WHAT?

No thanks I'm staying with zend.

[CS-Jay]

Originally Posted by Babaganoosh

I agree, everything seems top-notch. I like to buy things but I hate being sold things. Once I simmer down I will probably go with Zend anyway...as long as I can make sure NO salesman gets a commission off me.

Just as a side note. I had agreed to buy the whole suite. And they promised they would have it up in less than an hour. As soon as I signed/faxed the contract. We didn't get it working till 7pm the next day. Sure I installed it, but they wanted to show me how to use it. And they couldn't get anyone to show me how. I had to rely on some GFY'ers to give me a hand. Anywhoo, they only gave me a 45 day liscense, but I thought it was a year. I was going out of town. Did a quick reboot to clear up some log files. All the scripts that were being cached crashed. I had my homepage down for a weekend, because I couldn't get close to a computer.

And then, they called asking for money, and I said I haven't used there product in like six months. They said they would get back to me, and that never happened. Ohh well.

[Babaganoosh]

Originally Posted by CS-Jay

Just as a side note. I had agreed to buy the whole suite. And they promised they would have it up in less than an hour. As soon as I signed/faxed the contract. We didn't get it working till 7pm the next day. Sure I installed it, but they wanted to show me how to use it. And they couldn't get anyone to show me how. I had to rely on some GFY'ers to give me a hand. Anywhoo, they only gave me a 45 day liscense, but I thought it was a year. I was going out of town. Did a quick reboot to clear up some log files. All the scripts that were being cached crashed. I had my homepage down for a weekend, because I couldn't get close to a computer.

And then, they called asking for money, and I said I haven't used there product in like six months. They said they would get back to me, and that never happened. Ohh well.

This is one of the things that scares me about Zend. I've heard this kind of thing over and over. If I lost all of the scripts on my server for a few days because of that kind of fuckup, there would be hell to pay. Maybe I will just try using Turck and Maguma Studio and see what happens.

[Babaganoosh]

mmcache is kicking some ass. It's been a long, LONG time since I have seen loads this low on my server. I was about to upgrade my server since it was having some trouble with load averages during peak hours but I don't think I will need to now...not for a while anyway.

[cambaby]

damn some REAL information in this thread, I think my cock is hard now

[Varius]

I'm not sure which rep you spoke to, but you should speak with David or Howard and tell them I sent you

We made a deal with them once that has become a legend in their offices

[boner 2.0]

Originally Posted by cambaby

damn some REAL information in this thread, I think my cock is hard now

I agree. I bookmarked this thread Thanks for sharing guys

[toddler]

software ilcensing is a bitch, i do it for a living ;)

[Big E]

My take: I've met the whole crew from Zend and they're a great bunch of guys, but they don't seem very good at following up on things. Promises were made and not kept, despite repeated reminders.

I think they've got a great set of products, and they sure love to sell the shit out of it, but I think their pricing sucks, and their support is abysmal.

[Lane]

I've had positive experience with Zend.
Zend Studio is great for development and debugging. It does syntax checking for things that no other editor does. It can even help you find potential bugs and also help you code in a more disciplined way. Its auto-complete feature is much better than other editors and saves so much time from going back to the manual all the time.
You can do live debugging on your server, see the program flow and watch the variable values as you are running your scripts live.
Of course all these would mean nothing if you don't make use of it.

[Babaganoosh]

Originally Posted by Lane

I've had positive experience with Zend.
Zend Studio is great for development and debugging. It does syntax checking for things that no other editor does. It can even help you find potential bugs and also help you code in a more disciplined way. Its auto-complete feature is much better than other editors and saves so much time from going back to the manual all the time.
You can do live debugging on your server, see the program flow and watch the variable values as you are running your scripts live.
Of course all these would mean nothing if you don't make use of it.

I really do like Zend Studio. Is there any reason to get the Small Business Program over Studio alone? Mmcache is really kicking ass and judging from the benchmarks I have seen, Zend's Accelerator won't do any better. The only other thing the small business program includes that I will eventually have use for is the encoder. mmcache has a slick encoder and it's free. I'm just wondering how may hosts can support mmcache encoded scripts. If I ever do release a commercial PHP script, I would obviously like to have it encoded in the most popular of the two.

[Lane]

If you wanna hide sourcecode, you could also give this a try:
http://pobs.mywalhalla.net/

It makes the code very unreadable, and doesn't have server requirements. On the other hand, it's not the same thing as encoding.

[evanmorgan]

programming is as boring as shit

[Lane]

I'm also looking forward to see some improvement in this library.

http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.bcompiler.php

[Doc911]

Originally Posted by Babaganoosh

I really do like Zend Studio. Is there any reason to get the Small Business Program over Studio alone? Mmcache is really kicking ass and judging from the benchmarks I have seen, Zend's Accelerator won't do any better. The only other thing the small business program includes that I will eventually have use for is the encoder. mmcache has a slick encoder and it's free. I'm just wondering how may hosts can support mmcache encoded scripts. If I ever do release a commercial PHP script, I would obviously like to have it encoded in the most popular of the two.

Most Hosts 98% will install zend encoder no problem. Many already have it done. I haven't seen one advertising they suport MMcache

[Babaganoosh]

Originally Posted by evanmorgan

programming is as boring as shit

Almost as boring as your posts...almost.

[Babaganoosh]

Originally Posted by Lane

If you wanna hide sourcecode, you could also give this a try:
http://pobs.mywalhalla.net/

It makes the code very unreadable, and doesn't have server requirements. On the other hand, it's not the same thing as encoding.

Wow, that's pretty impressive for an obfuscator.

<?


include("pobs-ini.inc");


echo "<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>POBS - A PHP Obfuscator</TITLE><STYLE TYPE='text/css'>";echo "td { font-family: Verdana, sans serif;font-size:".$V24b02965."pt;  vertical-align: top; }";echo "</STYLE></HEAD><BODY>";


define("C00529ab2", "<TD VALIGN=TOP>");define("C4d89b09c", "<TD BGCOLOR=#6699CC VALIGN=TOP>");define("C5481f31d", "<TD BGCOLOR=#E6E6E6 VALIGN=TOP>");define("C9c3b8e37", "<TR>");define("Cd742068d", "</TR>");define("Cdabce349", "</TD>");define("C6faee0d5", "</TABLE>");


if ($PA) F85580fcb();


$V9429cf94=time();


$Vf797b56c=0;$V048f0047=0;


$Vbc961c59=array();$Vb787292f=array();$V4cb73b6b=array();$Vae809e1a=array();


$V4a949e17=array();$Va7254761=array();$Vd74f666d=array();


if ($PA) F23da1c4c();else Fb72cca71();


function F23da1c4c() {global $V0e475c03, $V9b131e1e;if (!(is_readable($V0e475c03))) {echo "Error. Source Directory ".$V0e475c03." is not readable. Program will terminate<br>";exit;}if (!(is_writeable($V9b131e1e))) {echo "Error. Target Directory ".$V9b131e1e." is not writeable. Program will terminate<br>";exit;}F69b1473d();Fcecc24ab();F8eceda2a();F001878fb();}


function Fb72cca71() {global $V5c642867, $V1e5309c7, $V9b131e1e, $V0e475c03, $Veb1e1b83, $V7620b171, $V43225a8d;global $V29eb2c69, $V0981e6bd, $V00960abb, $Va7a918c1, $V4dd4189a, $Vcb30d890;global $V3164646b;echo "<TABLE CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=100% CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=0>";echo C9c3b8e37.C4d89b09c."<A HREF='http://pobs.mywalhalla.net' TARGET=_new><IMG SRC=pobslogo.gif HSPACE=20 WIDTH=150 HEIGHT=61 BORDER=0></A>".Cdabce349;echo C4d89b09c."<br><b>A PHP Obfuscator<br>Version 0.91".Cdabce349.Cd742068d.C6faee0d5;


F85580fcb();


echo "<TABLE CELLPADDING=3 WIDTH=100% CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=1>";echo C9c3b8e37.C4d89b09c." <CENTER><DIV style="font-size:13pt;"><b>Settings</DIV></CENTER>".Cdabce349.Cd742068d."<br>";echo C9c3b8e37.C00529ab2." <CENTER>For the most up-to-date documentation, visit <A HREF='http://pobs.mywalhalla.net' TARGET=STD>http://pobs.mywalhalla.net</A></CENTER>".Cdabce349.Cd742068d.C6faee0d5."<br>";


echo "<TABLE CELLPADDING=3 WIDTH=100% CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=0>";echo C9c3b8e37."<TD VALIGN=TOP ROWSPAN=2>";


echo "<TABLE CELLPADDING=3 WIDTH=100% CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=1>";echo C9c3b8e37.C5481f31d." TimeOut (sec)".Cdabce349.Cd742068d;echo C9c3b8e37.C00529ab2.$V5c642867.Cdabce349.Cd742068d;


echo C9c3b8e37.C5481f31d." Source Directory".Cdabce349.Cd742068d;echo C9c3b8e37.C00529ab2.$V0e475c03.Cdabce349.Cd742068d;echo C9c3b8e37.C5481f31d." Target Directory".Cdabce349.Cd742068d;echo C9c3b8e37.C00529ab2.$V9b131e1e.Cdabce349.Cd742068d;


echo C9c3b8e37.C5481f31d." Allowed File Extensions".Cdabce349.Cd742068d;echo C9c3b8e37.C00529ab2;foreach($V1e5309c7 as $V89735695 => $V68920240 ) echo $V68920240."<br>";echo Cdabce349.Cd742068d;
...
function F001878fb() {global $V3164646b, $Va7254761, $V9429cf94, $Vf797b56c, $V048f0047;global $Vfd4668cc, $V0e475c03, $V9b131e1e;echo "**** START REPLACING AND WRITE THE TARGET FILES ***** <br>";foreach( $Va7254761 as $V89735695 => $V1e621df3) {if ($Vfd4668cc) {$Vac986feb=$V0e475c03."/".$V1e621df3;$V693ed254=$V9b131e1e."/".$V1e621df3;if (file_exists($V693ed254)) {$Vb9b17830=stat($V693ed254);$V3286ee11=$Vb9b17830[9];$Vb9b17830=stat($Vac986feb);$V4c83e27b=$Vb9b17830[9];if ($V4c83e27b>$V3286ee11) $V0e3f6b26=TRUE;else $V0e3f6b26=FALSE;} else $V0e3f6b26=TRUE;} else $V0e3f6b26=TRUE;if ($V0e3f6b26) {$Vae9e0e69=time();echo "<FONT COLOR=red>Replaced ".$V1e621df3." Nr:".($V89735695+1)." of ".sizeof($Va7254761);F834dd2b5($V1e621df3);echo " - Elapsed Time: ".(time()-$Vae9e0e69)." sec.</FONT><br>";} else echo "<FONT COLOR=green>".$V1e621df3.": sourcefile older than targetfile. Not replaced</FONT><br>";flush();}


echo "Start Time: ".$V9429cf94."<br>";echo "Finish Time: ".time()."<br>";echo "Elapsed Time: ".(time()-$V9429cf94)." sec<br>";


echo "Total FileSize of parsed Files: ".$Vf797b56c ." Bytes <br>";echo "Total FileSize of written Files: ".$V048f0047 ." Bytes <br>";}


function F89e1b8ff($V4803e6b9) {global $Vae809e1a, $V840b8ea0, $V7620b171, $Vd74f666d;while (ereg('$([0-9a-zA-Z_]*)', $V4803e6b9, $V66373a9c)) {$V526ea0eb=$V66373a9c[1];if (!$Vae809e1a[$V526ea0eb] and !(in_array($V526ea0eb,$V840b8ea0)) and !(in_array($V526ea0eb,$V7620b171))) {


foreach( $Vd74f666d as $V89735695 => $V68920240 ) {if (substr($V526ea0eb, 0, strlen($V68920240))hahahaha$V68920240) {echo "Variable with name ".$V526ea0eb." added to list of variables to be excluded.<br>";array_push($V7620b171, $V526ea0eb);}}if (!(in_array($V526ea0eb,$V7620b171))) {$Vae809e1a[$V526ea0eb]="V".substr(md5($V526ea0eb), 0,8);}}$V5e0bdcbd=strpos($V4803e6b9, '$');$Vba2a9c6c=($V5e0bdcbd+strlen($V66373a9c[1]));$V4803e6b9=substr($V4803e6b9, (strpos($V4803e6b9,'$')+1));}}


function F834dd2b5($V1e621df3) {global $Vae809e1a,$Vb787292f, $V4cb73b6b, $V0e475c03, $V9b131e1e, $V00960abb;global $V0981e6bd, $V29eb2c69, $V4dd4189a, $Va7a918c1, $Vcb30d890;$Vac986feb=$V0e475c03."/".$V1e621df3;$V693ed254=$V9b131e1e."/".$V1e621df3;$V2adf924e=fopen($Vac986feb, "r");$V98bf7d8c=fread($V2adf924e, filesize($Vac986feb));$GLOBALS["Vf797b56c"]+=filesize($Vac986feb);echo " - Size:".filesize($Vac986feb);fclose ($V2adf924e);


if ($V29eb2c69) {foreach( $Vb787292f as $V89735695 => $V68920240 ) {$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace("([^a-zA-Z0-9_])(".$V89735695.")[ 	]*(()","1".$V68920240."3", $V98bf7d8c);}}


if ($V00960abb) {foreach( $Vae809e1a as $V89735695 => $V68920240 ) {if (strpos($V98bf7d8c, $V89735695)!hahahahaFALSE) {$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace('([ 	"']NAME=["']*)'.$V89735695.'([ 	"'>])','1'.$V68920240.'2', $V98bf7d8c);$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace('$('.$V89735695.')([^0-9a-zA-Z_])','$'.$V68920240.'2', $V98bf7d8c);$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace('&('.$V89735695.')([^0-9a-zA-Z_])','&'.$V68920240.'2', $V98bf7d8c);$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace('->('.$V89735695.')([^0-9a-zA-Z_])','->'.$V68920240.'2', $V98bf7d8c);$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace('($GLOBALS)([ 	]*)([)([ "'	]*)'.$V89735695.'([ "'	]{1,3})(])', '134'.$V68920240.'56',$V98bf7d8c);}}}


if ($V0981e6bd) {foreach( $V4cb73b6b as $V89735695 => $V68920240 ) {$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace("([^a-zA-Z0-9_$])(".$V89735695.")([^a-zA-Z0-9_])","1".$V68920240."3", $V98bf7d8c);}}if ($V4dd4189a) {$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace("[	 ]*", "", $V98bf7d8c);}if ($Va7a918c1) {$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace("[	 ]{1,2}//[^]*", "", $V98bf7d8c);$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace("[	 ]*//[^]*", "", $V98bf7d8c);}if ($Vcb30d890) {$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace("([{};:])[ 	]*", "1", $V98bf7d8c);}$V98bf7d8c=ereg_replace("{2,20}", "", $V98bf7d8c);


$Vce55aa86=fopen($V693ed254, "w");$V809d8809=fwrite($Vce55aa86, $V98bf7d8c);fclose ($Vce55aa86);clearstatcache();$GLOBALS["V048f0047"]+=filesize($V693ed254);}


function Ff5e16527($Vd92ddbd1, $V5872d9a7="", $V67435345="FFF0D0") {global $Vf4c91239;echo "<br><br>".$V5872d9a7.":<br>";echo "<TABLE BORDER=1 BGCOLOR=#".$V67435345.">".C9c3b8e37;$V8464e43c=0;foreach( $Vd92ddbd1 as $V89735695 => $V68920240 ) {$V8464e43c++;echo C00529ab2.$V89735695."<br>".$V68920240.Cdabce349;if (($V8464e43c%$Vf4c91239)hahahaha0) echo Cd742068d.C9c3b8e37;}echo Cd742068d.C6faee0d5;flush();}


function F85580fcb() {global $V5c642867;$Vbe9942a7=strtolower(get_cfg_var("safe_mode"));if (!$Vbe9942a7) set_time_limit($V5c642867);else echo "<b><FONT COLOR=orange>Warning: SafeMode is on. Can not set timeout.</b></FONT><br>";}


?>


</BODY>


</HTML>

Ouch.

[Arty]

Originally Posted by Babaganoosh

I have been a Perl programmer for over 10 years now and have been doing C++ for about 3. I have done a little PHP but really felt it was only suitable for dynamic content due to its lack of OO functionality (and several other annoyances). Now that PHP 5 is out, it's clear to me that it has finally matured and is worth developing web applications in.

I always use an IDE to code in. I downloaded Zend Studio and have been considering investing in the Zend small business program but their sales people are irritating beyond belief. Their encoder kicks ass and I planned to use it until I dealt with their sales person(s). I have looked at Ion Cube and was impressed as well. Do many people use Ion Cube?

Does anyone have any recommendations on an IDE and encoder? I'd rather not give Zend my money but I will if there aren't any other good options.

I don't know whom you've dealt with but you should contact David from Zend, you can msg me for his icq... He'll hook you up...

I'm using their Small Biz Pack for more than two years and also using Zend Platform for last 5-6 months. (Actually I was one if the first 10 customers even before it's official launch)

I've tried many other encoding tools & IDEs and Zend's stuff is the best for me. Platform is also great for pinning out problems and their support staff is great, they've even coded a custom add-on/fix for me. (For Platform when it was named as Canaveral)