Since we made the decision to go to Zend Framework in dotProject 3 it is interesting the places it shows up (well, only if you ignore the fact that I'm involved). At the MySQL Users Conference and Expo this year two of the Web Team at MySQL will be presenting on the use of Zend to restructure an existing website and in developing a new application. These are guys I work with every day, and it was as a result of some of the work we were doing in this regard that I decided that Zend was likely to be a great basis for taking dotProject into the future.

Dups and Markus have both converted smaller sites across to Zend to determine how well it performs and what the gotchas were going to be. The MySQL website is a big beasty, with lots of code hanging off of it, and the task was going to be monumental. It turned out to be a lot easier than that, but you can find out how it all is going and what the benefits to MySQL are in their talk.

You might also want to take a look at Dups' blog site - great photos, and Markus' DB4Free site where you can get a MySQL 5.1 or 6.0 account for free!

So getting back to dotProject 3. The experience in the MySQL site conversion has really made an impression on how to effectively use Zend and on how well it can perform in a real-world situation. This experience has really helped get a handle on all of the quirks of Zend that we are likely to hit with dP3 (and in fact it has already answered some tricky questions I had), so the synergy has been, and will continue to be, great for both dP and for MySQL.

On a side point, this is one of the great things about working on Open Source projects. You can quite often develop and hone skills that will have a direct benefit to your daily work, and can also improve your ability to get a job. In the proprietary world you often see resumes that talk about the great work you did, but you can't show anyone the code. In the open source world you can point to the SVN or CVS repository and say - take a look at what I've committed, and judge for yourself! This is a truly powerful tool when discussing skills with a prospective employer. I know that my work on dP and other Open Source projects was what sealed the deal at my current job.