Erich Beyrent :: Beyrent.net

I have found PHP nirvana in a box.

I was trying to debug the lastest dev version of the userpoints module for Drupal, and was getting nowhere. The process of debugging PHP is tedious to begin with, but the practice of putting print statements into your code in places you think are likely the problem is a nightmare, and a huge black hole for productivity. Understanding what hooks are getting called and when they execute via print statements is a good way to waste an entire afternoon.

Enter Zend Studio. Their newest version is based on Eclipse, the open-source IDE that ties development in many languages into a single common UI. Zend Studio supports interactive debugging sessions with the server version of its debugger, and the client-server communication allows you to step into, over, and return from bits of code. It tells you what variables are currently in the stack, what the chain of functions is that is being called, and many other useful things.

I have to admit, I didn’t come to this point of nirvana without trial. In trying to configure the Eclipse PDT to communicate effectively with the server debugger running on a remote server, I failed spectacularly. I tried a few other IDEs, and found them all to be unacceptable. I even tried Zend Studio 5.5. I was at the end of my patience when I found the newest version of Zend Studio, which. just. worked. Yes, I said it. It just worked, with the exception of changing the default port setting for the remote debugger.

My frustration is gone, I am at one with the code, and I can finally explain exactly what is going on in Drupal - how things get called, where and when they get called, and what the results of each call are.

And that bug with the userpoints module? The problem existed between keyboard and chair.

tags: drupal, eclipse, ide, php, zend, client, code, debugger, module, server, userpoints

I have the distinct pleasure of attending DrupalCon 2008, which is being held in Boston, MA this year. This year’s attendance has blown out the attendance levels of previous DrupalCons, and it is a testament to the growing popularity of Drupal as a content management system.

The sessions I attended today were:

Design on the Edge of Drupal
This session was principally for designers, and talked about taking inspiration from architecture to build Drupal websites that are anything but standard. The point of the presentation was that a Drupal site does not have to look like a Drupal site, as long as users of the site have an expectation of how to navigate and get around.

Enterprise Theming in Drupal
As the engineering manager for Greenopolis, an environmentally-themed social networking site built 100% in Drupal, this session was very informative. We have thousands of nodes and users, and the purpose of this session was how to take a very large site and segment it thematically for the purposes of monetizing your audience.

Mapping Business Requirements to Drupal Modules
This session covered the basic problem of taking what the customer has asked you to build, and applying a development planning process for meeting those business goals.

Drupal Multimedia
As I continue to work on Greenopolis, one of the challenges I face is how to implement multimedia, especially in user-generated content. Performance and security are always major concerns, and this session provided a wealth of information regarding the options available to Drupal developers, as well as techniques for accomplishing some of this kind of functionality.

I will be attending DrupalCon on Tuesday and Wednesday, and post more information as the conference progresses.