PHP 1: What You Need to Know Before You Start

[mpavlak]

** This thread discusses the article: PHP 1: What You Need to Know Before You Start **
Just a short correction to the great piece above! Zend Server Community Edition contains everything you would need to run PHP scripts on your IBM i and is available at no charge per the IBM contract with one year of Silver (email/web) support. Essentially, IBM has paid for this for you so please take advantage of it! After one year, Zend Server will continue to run your PHP scripts but the Silver support window will expire. The full Zend Server product comes with many productivity features like error monitoring, code tracing, page caching and job queue as well as more advanced telephone support options. This option is available for a fee from Zend.

Zend Studio is also available to IBM i customers for no charge. However, with Zend Studio you can get updates for 1 year. After one year Zend Studio will continue to work but you will need to purchase Zend Studio to receive updates.

Please reach out to the folks at Zend for more information.

Mike Pavlak
Solution Consultant, Zend Technologies
mike.p@zend.com

[dave@shireyllc.com]

** This thread discusses the article: PHP 1: What You Need to Know Before You Start **
Thanks for the update, Mike. And it brings up an interesting point. Coming from the i world, I think of Zend and PHP on the i as being the only world for Zend. And so, when I talked to the Zend representative on the phone he assured me that you had to always pay for Zend Studio. But he simply assumed that I was coming from the Windows/Mac/Zend world. The fact is that most of Zend is related to the PC world and so the rep had given me the story for those environments. As Mike pointed out, if you are in the i world then IBM pays for you to be able to keep using the Zend Studio. And that is sooooo cool. But what you have to keep in mind is that what you get is the current version of Zend Studio when you download it that is all you are ever going to have. Even though you can keep using it, what you have is a static version, you never get updates. If you really, really are going hard core on PHP, then you need to buy the Studio. But if you are just in a learning mode, there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of IBM (and Zend's) generosity. And again, thanks for the correct clarification, Mike.