Open source stacks such as XAMPP from Apache Friends are simplifying open source development by making it easier to write and distribute applications in a stable and standardized environment. The trend of combining Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl into integrated middleware stacks promises to make open source development more competitive with J2EE application development, at least for low-end applications. Our Take: I use XAMPP nearly every day, at home and at work, as a testbed. It’s one of my top three essential open source apps, and – by far – one of the easiest to use.
XAMPP: Easy Integrated Development
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Adam Scheinberg
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Xampp works amazingly well. I used xampp for my video tutorial on how to set up ruby on rails ( mindbogginly well done web development framework powered by ruby ) on windows.
You can watch them here :
http://blog.leetsoft.com/rails/
lesson 2 shows how to set up XAMPP
Xampp made the whole affair a 10 minute thing. Kudos to the apachefriends team !
I have a dumb question because I’m not literate in this type of thing, but is this pretty much the same as LAMP?
I don’t know – setting up Apache, PHP and MySQL doesn’t take long either way, be it on Unix/Linux or Windows. I suppose it’s convenient not to have to bother with the details – but being aware of them does come in handy with more demanding web applications.
Yes, it’s fairly easy to setup LAMP. But, with XAMPP, it come with _many_ tools and extension that is hard to have with an _easy_ installation of LAMP.
And, try to beat the XAMPP easy installation : just decompress the archive…
And, with it, you can test your script with the two major version of PHP (4 and 5)
And it cleary said on the page that this is not to use in a production environnment.
But I will say like you, it can be good to know what is under the hood sometime.
This is a great product, esp. when setting up a new server and/or using disparate distributions. Kudos for the inclusion of both php4 and php5 (I’m moving code from one to the other and this helps immensely).
I love XAMPP.
Between the integrated utils, the preconfigured Flash and Java and Tomcat and sqlite, the it’s just so frickin easy. Even the upgrades are reliable. The support is good in the forums, and they don’t even really speak English!
We use XAMPP on devel boxes, but I also run my company’s intranet on it. I can take a Linux box and recreate the entire intranet in about 10 minutes! Gotta love it.
With XAMPP, ANYONE can run a full fledged web server.
I use XAMPP everyday at work. Unfortunately, kill.exe, which is used to shut down xampp on windows machines, is flagged by McAfee on every scan. Other than that very minor annoyance, xampp is perfect for me.
Xampp is nice. If you think about it, yes, there’s really not much to installing Apache + Php + Perl + MySql + the rest of stuff that comes with Xampp (which is quite a lot).
But you also can’t deny that having Xampp just saves a lot of time and repetitive configuration. (The only thing I miss is Subversion.)
Anyway, a Xampp Live CD, such as Lamppix or Xampp on CD, is a really cool way of setting up a demo of your web-app. Burn it along with your application, boot it on any (or almost any) computer available and you’re on.
I suppose XAMPP is a nice idea, but on any recent FreeBSD system, I can simply go to /usr/ports/lang/php4 (or php5), and enter “make install” to install PHP, and be presented with a complete list of extensions* which will also be downloaded-along with their dependent libraries, either as source or binary. These will then be compiled in the correct order, and I have a complete system. Installing PHP with Apache support automatically downloads and installs Apache as well, not to mention PostgreSQL (waaay more enterprise-ish than MySQL) and literally any extension available for PHP. I can also install most of the commonly used PEAR and PECL extensions in the same way.
And for those who really can’t stand to type ‘make install’, you can run the standard FreeBSD installer GUI to download PHP binary packages and dependencies.
* for the latest FreeBSD versions, you now install the PHP extensions separately, in /usr/ports/lang/php4-extensions.
(The only thing I miss is Subversion.)
Right on! I have been trying to neatly integrate Subversion into XAMPP w/ WebDAV. Today, I finally got the ‘read’ part working, but posting updates is still causing me errors in WebDAV clients.
XAMPP is truly dope in getting a lot of bells and whistles all under one roof. The test server I have going is: XAMPP w/ WebDAV, Subversion on Windows 2003… which includes ASP/ASP.NET/SQLServer2000 and the Java Tomcat and Coccoon XML components… and it leaves the dev box open to hacks and/or open to customizing a build for work purposes :o)
I just wish they had a version wich included mod_ruby (and maybe rails or IOWA)
XAMPP is SUPERB! If there are any XAMPP devs reading here, “Thanks!”
“Unfortunately, kill.exe, which is used to shut down xampp on windows machines, is flagged by McAfee on every scan.”
Can’t you tell McAfee that XAMPP’s kill.exe is always ok to run?
I unforturneately have XP Home edition at home. It really sucks that there is no IIS or PWS on it. Anyhow, XAMPP really saved the day. Simple, easy, powerful. Best of all, if you wanted to, you can set it to be a system service.
For a great PHP IDE, see http://www.gphpedit.org
Or, if you use windows this is a great free (as in beer) one:
http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php