Zend Framework Development Infrastructure

h1. Tools Supporting our Development Effort

The Zend Framework team uses the following tools to support our effort:

* [Subversion|$290] (SVN) - File and directory version control system. [Vendor|http://subversion.tigris.org]
* {link-to:dashboard}Confluence{link-to} - Wiki integrated with JIRA [Vendor|http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/]
* [Fisheye|http://framework.zend.com/fisheye/browse/Zend_Framework] - SVN changeset browser, search and statistic tool.
delivers a unified web-based view of source repositories with robust navigation, search, historical reporting, configurable file annotation and diff views, change-set analysis, RSS feeds, and integration with Jira. [Vendor|http://www.cenqua.com/fisheye/]
* [JIRA|http://framework.zend.com/issues] - Bug Tracking, Issue Tracking, Project Management (same username as SVN) [Vendor|http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/]
* Crucible - Online peer code-review tool. [Vendor|http://www.cenqua.com/crucible/]

They are either open-source or provided by companies that openly and *freely* promote open-source projects. We also run a variety of back-end systems such as Zend Platform, Apache, MySQL, ApacheDS and Apache Tomcat. During development we use PhpUnit for our unit testing effort.

h2. Why these tools?

When we were looking at how the Zend Framework project was progressing, we found that we needed better project tracking, more features to meet our requirements and complexity, and systems that worked very well together, yet were each top of their class.

We decided upon these guiding goals:

# No religion (OS, language, or other) should get in the way of meeting our requirements

Then we did a scan of systems, tried many out, and went with this toolset. Pieces of it are seen all over the open-source world, and we are integrating it all as well or better than most.

h2. Why aren't these PHP tools? Or Python? Or Perl? Or ...

See our guiding goals above.

This isn't about the language, it is about the toolset supporting our project so that we can achieve our goals. Even if something is written in PHP, the best web development language in the known universe, that doesn't mean the *product* written in PHP meets our requirements. And where would we draw the line if we over-wrote our requirements? Apache isn't written in PHP, neither is MySQL. So we cut this line of thinking out of the equation and found the tools for our needs.

We are building a framework for PHP as an open-source group and must focus on that goal. Others can focus on writing the best Wiki, the best issue tracker, and the best revision control system.