Overview
Obviously you don't need to use or install all of these languages or systems, choose which one is applicable for the problem you are solving.
Docker
The docker environment is probably the easiest way to test the framework without impacting your system. We have developed our dockers to expose the working directory to the docker, so you can code whilst using the running docker.
On Windows and Mac you can download the docker desktop which should suffice for running development.
Windows
Open SSL
Windows is missing packages for OpenSSL. You should make sure you have these installed before you start your Tina4 journey. You can test if your operating system is ready by opening a terminal and typing:
openssl -v
You should get a version output for openssl. If this fails then use the following link to get the latest installation of OpenSSL for windows. Make sure you add the bin folder of the installation into your Environment path.
PHP
PHP development with Tina4 only requires the PHP interpreter to be available on your path as we make use of the built in webserver.
PHP 7.4 and greater is supported
-- The VC15 and VS16 builds require to have the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015-2019 x64 or x86 installed
Before you install the debugger, it would be a good idea to install composer the package manager for PHP.
In order to debug PHP applications we recommend X-debug. Make sure to choose the version that corresponds with the version of PHP you have installed.
Rename the downloaded dll module to xdebug.dll and place inside your PHP ext folder.
Use the following config in your php.ini
[Xdebug]
zend_extension=xdebug
xdebug.mode = debug
xdebug.start_with_request=yes
RAD Studio
Building native applications in an efficient manner is readily available in the Community Edition of RAD Studio. The primary language being pascal, we have some really good REST components for use in the IDE.
Download Community Edition of RAD Studio
Python
The default Python installation from the application store on windows is 100% for your use as we recommend making virtual environments to run on for each project you create. On windows a virtual environment can be created and activated relative to your project folder.
Windows
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\activate
MacOs/Linux
python3 -m venv .venv
source ./.venv/bin/activate
Notice the (.venv) prefix on the command prompt, if it does not show you are probably not running relative to an environment.
We use the poetry package manager for python.
NodeJs
NodeJs can be installed and added to path from the following link, our tina4js package is still in early alpha development.
MacOS
MacOS is pretty straight forward if you are prepared to install homebrew package manager. Using homebrew you can quickly provision PHP, Python, NodeJs & Ruby.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
OpenSSL
You will need openssl libraries to be installed
brew install openssl
PHP
The following will install PHP, Composer & XDebug
brew install php
brew install composer
pecl install xdebug
Linux
Most of our deployments are to Linux servers, we are in the process of documenting this for development. Our preferred flavour of Linux is Ubuntu, we can confirm though that Tina4 plays nice with most flavours. We simply look at the ease of installation on most platforms and Ubuntu's package management seems to be the easiest to use.
Hot Tips
- Consider which IDE you are using and which shell, On windows for example you will find different results between
cmdandpower shell- Tina4 will run under XAMP and WAMP but why add the extra overhead?
- Use Docker environments for your database engines.