Richard Parnaby-King

Web Developer – PHP, Zend Framework and Actionscript 3

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It is fairly common for me to read or hear of developers referring to the Zend Framework as ‘Zend’. Such as ‘what is zend?’, ‘why is zend doing x?’ and ‘how do I make zend do y?’. This post will hopefully explain the difference between Zend and the Zend Framework.

What is Zend?

Zend is a company, responsible for the Zend Framework, founded by “key contributors to PHP and the creators of the core PHP scripting engine, the Zend Engine.”1

Zend also has many products that it sells, to which it prefixes the company name to the product, such as Zend Guard, Zend Studio and Zend Server. Egotistic? Not really. Many companies do it: Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Google Drive, Virgin Rail, Virgin Media and so on. It helps build brand awareness.

“Zend is a company”

Something else Zend does is certifying developers in PHP, and in the Zend Framework. Developed according to American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards, Zend Certification programs are designed to test a candidate’s level of knowledge in PHP or Zend Framework. Zend certification exams are created with specific skills, knowledge and competencies matched to real-world job functions. Zend Certifications ensures developers possess a certain level of technical knowledge in many areas.

What is the Zend Framework?

The Zend Framework is an open-source Object Orientated PHP5 based MVC framework developed at Zend.

MVC stands for ‘Model View Controller’ which is a programming concept used to separate the business logic from the presentation layer of the application. Business logic is code that does not directly generate output, such as a function that returns the sum of two values retrieved from a database. By contrast, the presentation layer is primarily used to generate html code that will be sent to the browser, e.g. all that interesting <div>content here</div> stuff.

“the Zend Framework is an open-source Object Orientated PHP5 based MVC framework developed at Zend.”

In Zend Framework, being an object orientated framework, everything is an object, making the code reusable, and since nobody likes to repeat themselves, this is a very good thing.

There are plenty of articles explaining why you should use Zend Framework so I am not going to cover this well-trodden ground.

Conclusion

Zend is a company. The Zend Framework is PHP based MVC framework. Although one does not equal the other, when talking about Zend to another developer, 99% of the time they will assume you are talking about the Zend Framework.

Category: PHP, Zend Framework (1.12)

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    Having fifteen years of programming experience in PHP, Zend Framework and ActionScript3, I have a very strong working knowledge of object orientated programming.

    I am a PC Gamer! Playing FPS, RTS, RPG and the occasional MMO since 1996 I have a huge number of a variety of fast-paced games.

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