Download Zend Framework 1.8 Preview

Zend has released a preview of Zend Framework 1.8. This framework focuses on facilitating the design, writing and maintenance of php applications. To make this possible, various APIs from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo and Flickr have been integrated into Zend Framework, among others. Furthermore, the program includes search functionality, support for ajax and RSS and atom syndication. The corresponding announcement looks like this:

Zend Framework 1.8 PREVIEW Release

The Zend Framework team is proud to announce that they have released a PREVIEW of the 1.8 release for people to download and give feedback on before the final release is cut.

On his blog, Matthew Weier O’Phinney talks about the biggest change to Zend Framework that is coming with 1.8:

One common criticism of Zend Framework is that it doesn’t fulfill the traditional definition of a framework. […]

The argument is that ZF does not provide the “assumptions” or opinions on how an application should be built. However, this makes sense only if you buy into the idea that a framework should always follow the “convention over configuration” rule — which we soundly reject with Zend Framework. Our opinion has always been that developers know best how their application should be built, and that ZF code should support the myriad uses to which they will put it.

That said, with the addition of Zend_Application and Zend_Tool, Zend Framework now provides a comprehensive framework for its users that is opinionated and provides the flexibility for developers to impose whatever structure they need.