What Is It?

The Zend framework, also known as ZF, was conceived in early 2005 and introduced at the first Zend Conference in 2008. Developed by Zend Technologies, a World Wide Web infrastructure company with headquarters in Cupertino, California, the ZF is an open source object-oriented Web application framework implemented in PHP 5 and licensed under the new BSD license. Since Zend Technologies operations are centered on the development of products relating to the development, deployment and management of business critical PHP based web applications, ZF is built to provide a secure, reliable and modern Web 2.0 application and Web service that currently consumes available APIs from such notables as Google, Amazon, Yahoo! and Flickr.

Features

ZF provides an extensible and well-tested code base, flexible architecture, and defies the requirement for configuration files to begin development. ZF uses AJAX support through JSON, a native PHP edition of the industry-based Lucene search engine, syndication through data formats that are easy to access, Web services, and high-quality object-oriented PHP 5 class library with attention to best practices like design patterns, unit testing and loose coupling.

The goal behind ZF is to eliminate the tedious details of coding through a highly modular Model-View-Controller (MVC) design that allows code to become more reusable and easier to maintain. Various other components allow for the ability to mimic PHP’s SOAP extension, the ability to create URIs, and ease in accepting Web service data from popular providers with just a few lines of code.

Downloads include the Zend framework and options for Google Data APIs, a set of web services for read/write access to applications hosted by Google, Microsoft InfoCard among other options.

Who Is it For?

ZF is designed for Web programmers and developers who wish to utlize the PHP 5 format within an open source framework that allows reusable API development. ZF provides support through online documentation, downloadable API guide, online community support, training, consulting and more. Zend Technologies is well known for their involvement in PHP development and in certification, so the support provided for programmers is extensive.

Compatibility

The Zend framework is compatible with any server that allows PHP 5 to run. Web host providers that offer ZF must publicly list Zend Framework as an available offering and must provide the complete stack of components or an unmodified full version of ZF. Hosting providers also must include the latest version available within ninety days of release.

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