About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. Backstory: In the 1990s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Then I taught photographers how to create good websites. I co-wrote a book (see below) along the way. Current story: I am helping turn a giant media corporation into a digital enterprise. Feel free to email me.

Book

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

bitbucket, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, Sublime Text, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 199894 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

The Zend Framework

The Zend Framework was released a few days ago. This is a PHP5-only web application framework from Zend, "the PHP company." It has been in development for a long time, but if that had a chilling effect on the development of other PHP frameworks, it's hard to see.

I'm going to go straight for my grim conclusion here: I think many of the other PHP web frameworks in development have no long-term prayer against Zend. It's not about technical merits, it's about the business case that Zend is a safer bet than five random guys with a Trac install and a cool logo.

This is kind of too bad, but I don't think PHP is the platform for the next wave of web innovation anyway. It has set its sights on being Serious Enterprise Business and gnawing at Java's ankles, and I think it will probably meet with a lot of success.

Who knows, in three years PHP may be the big bad enterprise technology that everybody loves to hate, and Io on Ice or somesuch will be the hot ticket. I can't wait.

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
php + rails + web frameworks