[Solar-talk] Zend version

[Paul M Jones]

Hi Mikko,

> Sorry if this question has been answered before but why is that Zend
> is basically ripping everything from Solar? Are they allowed to? Every
> new version of ZF just adds another component that is more or less
> same as already found in Solar. Well it is good for me because now im
> reading the ZF docs to understand more about Solar :)

The question has not been asked before; at least, not exactly that  
way.  Here's a little history:

   <http://paul-m-jones.com/blog/?p=197>

The projects share a lot of organizational similarities because of  
their adherence to PEAR standards.  While I worked at Zend, I wrote  
some of the ZF components based on early Solar classes.  The ZF arch- 
class, DB, and View components in particular came from early Solar  
ideas.  The ZF and Solar versions of those components have matured  
along separate paths since then, but those original "genetics" make  
them look alike (although sometimes only superficially).

Much as I'd like to bash ZF (hi Matthew!  hi Rob! ;-) I can't really  
say they're "ripping" anything other than general ideas.  Because the  
projects were similar to begin with (even though Solar was released  
to the public a year before ZF) they're going to have similar-looking  
solutions to the same problems.

If they *wanted* to take something directly from Solar, it is  
allowed; Solar is released under the BSD license, which is very  
permissive.  There is a lot to be said for cross-pollination; at some  
point in the future I expect that Solar will be able to make use of  
some ZF ideas as well.

As far as reading ZF docs: their narrative docs are much better than  
Solar's.  While they may provide insight, they *do not* document  
Solar, except perhaps by illuminating general concepts.  (Yes, I plan  
to write more narrative documentation for Solar, but it is very time- 
consuming and I'm focusing more on stabilizing the code-base so I  
don't have to re-write docs on each release.)

Thanks for asking!  Hope this helps to answer, please let me know if  
it does not.



--

Paul M. Jones  <http://paul-m-jones.com>

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