Professional PHP Design Patterns

1.4. Why Use Design Patterns in PHP?

PHP has a very easy beginner's learning curve with the backing of an enterprise-ready engine. Chances are that you ventured into PHP by inserting a few lines of code into an existing HTML document. Simply change the extension from .html to .php, add your quick snippet of code, deploy it to a PHP server, and you're a bona-fide PHP programmer. Up until the advent of the Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE) certification, there was no real measurement of a PHP programmer's prowess. Even after becoming a ZCE, programmers can still lack some of the essentials for developing enterprise-ready, architecturally sound application software.

As if the example in the beginning of the chapter weren't enough encouragement, more business-class players are coming on board with PHP. PHP's humble roots have left it somewhat devoid of the limelight of major enterprise-level programming languages. However, the hard work of Zend as well as the adoption of PHP by large Internet companies (such as Yahoo! and Amazon) has shown that PHP is enterprise ready. With the introduction of enterprise-level software requirements, enterprise-level methodology is to follow.

PHP now has support for a lot of the building blocks behind the concepts you're going to study. Perhaps during the era of PHP3 or PHP/FI, applying these styles of patterns may have been more difficult if not impossible. Don't get me wrong; there are always patterns in language; it's just that this book and its examples ...