Any of various large, hairy, social bees of the genus Bombus that nest underground. Also called humblebee.
bombusbee.com is devoted to the support and development of Fusebox for PHP. With the new version, Fusebox 3.0, the methodology is becoming more of a true framework than ever before. As the ColdFusion version has moved away from using custom tags, porting the techniques across to other languages has become that much simpler and far more elegant. In fact, the core techniques of Fusebox 3.0 should apply to the PHP version just as they do to the ColdFusion version.
The basic concept of Fusebox is this: all requests to the web server go through a single file, usually the default file (i.e. index.php, default.asp, etc.). That file then parses out a specific querystring or form variable called the "fuseaction", and dynamically includes the appropriate files for that fuseaction. One of the biggest benefits (in my opinion) is that it breaks down the coding process into discreet, manageable code chunks, and it simplifies code updates and debugging. Find more information at http://www.fusebox.org/, and check out my list of links.
With version 3 of Fusebox, there is a drive to maintain a stable, solid "core" that does not undergo changes by individual developers, but rather through the community. To that end, I have created a new SourceForge project where future releases of the core code will be posted.
If you appreciate what bombusbee.com provides, you may consider donating to the cause.
Now for a bit of history: I first bought the bombusbee.com domain name because I got a good deal on it and the hosting company was cheap. It was really just for a hobby, and I guess it still is (how lame! a programmer with a programming hobby!). The thing I liked most about the host was that they supported PHP3, and I wanted to learn PHP. I played around a bit, but PHP3 was lacking in some key areas that made it hard to translate the Fusebox methodology over.
When PHP4 came out in 2000, however, my interest was rekindled — there was native support for session management and MySQL connectivity! My job as a ColdFusion developer had been made leaps and bounds easier because of Fusebox, and now the chance to build Fusebox in PHP seemed a little more realistic.
I had read with interest Bill Holloway's article on Fusebox in PHP (he called it "webbox"). He did integrate some of the ideas behind Fusebox, but in my humble opinion, I think he missed some of the simplicity of Fusebox. I didn't really want to reinvent the wheel, but I had a solid grasp of the architecture from ColdFusion, so I thought I'd start there.
Once I had a functional group of files, including each other and giving me my "Hello, World!" output, I thought I should ask some other programmers if what I had done seemed reasonable. I started the PHP-Fusebox mailing list on e-groups (now Yahoo!Groups) at the beginning of October, 2000.
This all has, of course, turned into Fusebox 3.0 for PHP, with the help and support of you — the developer community. As the PHP-Fusebox community continues to grow, I hope to maintain bombusbee.com as a source for useful tools, applications, and tutorials related to Fusebox for PHP.
- David Huyck
Webmaster, bombusbee.com
Moderator, php-fusebox@yahoogroups.com
Member of the Fusebox Organization
Advisory Committee Member
Standards Committee Member
